John le carre literary talk

[ucanseetheend]

The John le Carre pre prom talk " the spy who came in ftom the cold" on monday 29 july was about an hour in length but only 20 minutes of it was played at the interval in mondays prom. Will the BBC play the whole conversation with Anne Mcelvoy and audience questions?

[amateur51]

The John le Carre pre prom talk " the spy who came in ftom the cold" on monday 29 july was about an hour in length but only 20 minutes of it was played at the interval in mondays prom. Will the BBC play the whole conversation with Anne Mcelvoy and audience questions?

I hope so, he sounded to be on sparkling form

[DracoM]

Except that McElvoy's pushy and ill-informed intro made my heart sink, as did a number of her early 'questions'.

[mercia]

24 minutes worth to watch, although it sounds as if you were there anyway

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dh7mk

[ucanseetheend]

With the technology today it would be simple to put the whole talk online,instead the BBC loves to condense everything(as they do with all the proms literary talks) Maybe it's all about finding things to do for all the editors,producers etc

[richardfinegold]

The John le Carre pre prom talk " the spy who came in ftom the cold" on monday 29 july was about an hour in length but only 20 minutes of it was played at the interval in mondays prom. Will the BBC play the whole conversation with Anne Mcelvoy and audience questions?

If Vivaldi can be accused of writing the same Concerto 500 times, surely Le Carre must be guilty of writing the same novel 20 times over.

[amateur51]

If Vivaldi can be accused of writing the same Concerto 500 times, surely Le Carre must be guilty of writing the same novel 20 times over.

That's John Grisham, surely

[umslopogaas]

Le Carre does often re-visit familiar territory, but he does a very good job and I have enjoyed all but one of the novels I have read. The exception was 'The Naive and Sentimental Lover', which was outside his usual subject area and I didnt think it worked.

One that isnt so much a spy story as a detective story, and which I thought worked very well, was 'A Small Town in Germany': it involves digging up the wartime past and is very gripping and has some disturbing episodes.

[Petrushka]

If Vivaldi can be accused of writing the same Concerto 500 times, surely Le Carre must be guilty of writing the same novel 20 times over.

Have you read them? If you had then you would know that this statement simply isn't true.

I was present at this talk and greatly enjoyed it. Le Carre was in top form and he was most generous with his time afterwards in signing books and chatting to all and sundry.

[Frances_iom]

Except that McElvoy's pushy and ill-informed intro made my heart sink, as did a number of her early 'questions'.

I was going to raise this but thought I'd be labelled as one of the lefties - she has a very right-wing agenda - very noticeable when she is 'interviewing' say a liberal conservative who may be prompted to support her view as when any criticism of her rightwing agenda surfaces it is immediately downplayed, ignored or quite often the subject rapidly switched. She comes over to me as one of the neo-cons somewhere to the right of the US Republicans. With a left-leaning interviewee she basically ignores the points raised.

Le Carre made many very relevant points re recent whistleblowers and US policy towards them.

[richardfinegold]

Have you read them? If you had then you would know that this statement simply isn't true.


I was present at this talk and greatly enjoyed it. Le Carre was in top form and he was most generous with his time afterwards in signing books and chatting to all and sundry.

I may not have read the last half dozen or so, because after the Tinker series, I thought he had said everything that he had to say, but was repeating himself endlessly. It is tiresome when Authors that have made their point feel compelled to bottle old wine in new bottles. All his books seem to deal with betrayal and moral ambiguity, where the putatitve heroes have lost any confidence in their moral purpose and feel more at home with their supposed enemies. It was painful to watch him try this with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the Russian Mafia. He must have really cried in his beer when the cold war ended, because that made him an outdated Cassandra.

[Richard Tarleton]

I may not have read the last half dozen or so, because after the Tinker series, I thought he had said everything that he had to say, but was repeating himself endlessly. It is tiresome when Authors that have made their point feel compelled to bottle old wine in new bottles. All his books seem to deal with betrayal and moral ambiguity, where the putatitve heroes have lost any confidence in their moral purpose and feel more at home with their supposed enemies. It was painful to watch him try this with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the Russian Mafia. He must have really cried in his beer when the cold war ended, because that made him an outdated Cassandra.

Richard - belatedly - I'm certainly not going to convert you, by the look of it , but disagree with you about JlC and the post-cold war world. I'd say he writes about plenty of scenarios in which the world is still pretty bad, if not worse, only in different ways. The international arms trade, Big Pharma, extraordinary rendition and the doings of the CIA (and UK security services) generally, interference in African states, the state of the Caucasus....

You mention the " the last half dozen or so" - did you get as far as "The Tailor of Panama", an affectionate homage to Graham Greene as well as a great yarn? I happen to think he did hit a thin patch - "The Secret Pilgrim" was a bit of a pot boiler, "The Night Manager" and "Our Game" both oddities in their ways, but since then he's been back on top form, IMV. Actually I thought "The Little Drummer Girl", his first outing post-Smiley, was brilliant, and I enjoyed his description of his encounters with Arafat and the PLO in his recent conversation with Philippe Sands at the Hay Festival.

The autobiographical flawed father-son relationships have probably been taken to the limit (A Perfect Spy, Single and Single) - is A Perect Spy what you were referring to here? (Probably also applies to "Absolute Friends")

where the putatitve heroes have lost any confidence in their moral purpose and feel more at home with their supposed enemies.

His themes of the power of love and friendship set against powerful and/or invisible enemies I find compelling. Above all he's a fine writer - his closely observed characters, his ear for dialogue, his "set piece" briefings and interrogations (refined in the Smiley series) a joy to read. As to repeating himself, you could say the same about many fine novelists - Jane Austen even - more than averagely intelligent but indigent young woman seeks sympathetic husband with money and land . Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch.....

Like Petrushka I've had the pleasure of meeting him, in my case about 48 years ago (between "The Looking Glass War" and "A Small Town in Germany", to be exact ) and in his many interviews have always found him a most compelling thinker and raconteur.

[aeolium]

This interview of le Carré by Mark Lawson was shown again the other night on BBC (originally recorded in 2008 I think):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dwcp6/Mark_Lawson_Talks_To..._John_le_Carre/

It should be available on iplayer for another few days for those who didn't catch it and would like to. I thought it a very good interview, reminiscent in some ways of the best of the old Face to Face interviews. Le Carré talked eloquently about his life and work, with reflections also on the intelligence services and foreign relations. It would be interesting to hear a follow-up in the light of the NSA/Snowden revelations.

[Flay]

The excellent Complete Smiley is currently being re-run on Radio 4-Extra.

You will need to be quick to catch Part 1 of The Looking Glass War.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011cdng/episodes/player

[Flay]

You will need to be quick to catch Part 1 of The Looking Glass War.

9 hours left...