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| John Le Carre: 'A Delicate Truth is one of the old master's late period.' Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images |
A Delicate Truth review
- in a great Le Carré, the state has lost its way ...
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/11/a-delicate-truth-review-le-carre-state-has-lost-its-way
"The story of two flawed-but-good men in a world of
government corruption and cock-up – pure pleasure.'"
John Le Carré is one of a handful of writers whose every book I buy. And I always read them. Even better, I sometimes go on flights or car journeys with his audiobooks – and treat myself to Le Carré reading them to me. (Can't recommend this highly enough, by the way.) So I can tell you with some surety that A Delicate Truth is one of the best of what we must now call the old master's late period.
The novel tells two intertwined stories. First, that of Sir Kit Probyn, a retired diplomat, who is asked to oversee what he understands to be a counter-terrorism operation on the coast of Gibraltar – codenamed Wildfire. This goes wrong in ways Probyn does not realise. Second, there is the story of Toby Bell, a young private secretary to the bullish end-of-days New Labour defence minister, Fergus Quinn, who ordered the operation.
Probyn and Bell are flawed-but-good men in a world of governmental corruption, cynicism, cover- and cock-up - classic le Carré protagonists, therefore. Together, they must get to the bottom of what really happened that night on the Rock and bring the iniquity and human cost to the attention of … well, the media. Why? Because, in late Le Carré, it is the state itself that has lost its way. And there's a rather beautiful last line that encapsulates this thesis.
Le Carré is interesting because he divides opinion. There are those who believe he will be read for centuries to come, the most distinctive chronicler of what he perceives as Britain's decline – moral, civic and military. And there are other, more exacting readers, who find his many formal skills as a writer partly undermined by a weakness for underlying clichés of characterisation and his somewhat pedestrian late-period imaginings of "good" and "bad". These complaints, in this case, are exemplified by the character of Mrs Spencer Hardy, an ageing pterodactyl of a Republican party benefactor (complete with "bejewelled claws" and a "vampish cry") who is funding Ethical Outcomes, the private firm behind Wildfire, whose lack of ethics are, of course, plangently obvious.
Is it possible to think both positions are true? In many ways late Le Carré remains a pre-eminent English writer – mostly for his consummate prose-creation of atmosphere. In other regards, he is less than scrupulous or inventive. None of which detracts from that pure reading pleasure of sitting down with him again.
A Delicate Truth: - John Le Carré: - Penguin: - Booktrailer
John LeCarre Discusses the Film
"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold"
John LeCarre Interview: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Where Alex Lemas Came From
George Smiley Tribute
Interview: Gary Oldman on George Smiley's Being
Smiley's People Clip
John LeCarre About Smiley's People
Part 1/2
John LeCarre About Smiley's People
Part 2/2
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - The Secret Centre
(Documentary on John LeCarre)
Part 1/4
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - The Secret Centre
(Documentary on John LeCarre)
Part 2/4
link here -
Part 2/4
link here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYKgIa0ZfbU
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - The Secret Centre
(Documentary on John LeCarre)
Part 3/4
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - The Secret Centre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - The Secret Centre
(Documentary on John LeCarre)
Part 4/4
John LeCarre Discusses Democracy
John LeCarre Discusses Democracy
