The Night Manager

[DracoM]

Which is absolutely and very precisely NOT what the original novel exploits.
I have become even more gobsmacked by JLeC's approval of this adaptation the longer it goes on and the further I get into the book [ about p.370 at the mo] on a this third read.

[Nick Armstrong]

You are a "lofty" lot here aren't you.

[Serial_Apologist]

....codswallop on the whole tho' eh???!!!....

....Gord helpus Hiddlestone being touted for James Bond....no, no ,no NO....did anyone else see his brown nosing Ref Robert de Nero on Graham Norton.... Ugh embarassing (also embarassing you now know I sometimes watch GN)....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFhhPDcPNvI

Does anyone notice how, right in the middle of that purportedly spontaneous conversation, Hiddlestone refers to a scene in a film in which de Niro is, and instantaneously the relevant still from said film is flashed up?

I'm coming across this happening more and more - and watching such chat programmes correspondingly less and less in consequence, because it shows up such shows as not being the natural conversations naive souls like myself believed, but pre-agreed down to fine details in the green room beforehand.

[vinteuil]

You are a "lofty" lot here aren't you.

... I shd bluddy well hope so.

Lofty rocks!

[Nick Armstrong]

....codswallop on the whole tho' eh???!!!....

Yes, intriguing, stylishly shot and nicely-performed codswallop - I'll take that on a cold evening!

in the ice-cream queue ?

No - nothing. It's a plot hiccup I think.

[mercia]

it's total tosh

I thought le Carre's novels were supposed to be based on personal experience ?

[vinteuil]

I thought le Carre's novels were supposed to be based on personal experience ?

... the novels certainly are : he worked for MI5 in the 1950s, and was with MI6 for four years in the 1960s; the Smiley books seem to me closely modelled on the real espionage world of that Cold War period.

My comment -

... it's total tosh ...

- was directed at the current telly romp.

[eighthobstruction]

Yes, intriguing, stylishly shot and nicely-performed codswallop - I'll take that on a cold evening!

Indeed, indeed....my way too....getting a bit stretched with tigers in Endeavour etc + + + etc....

[Richard Tarleton]

... the novels certainly are : he worked for MI5 in the 1950s, and was with MI6 for four years in the 1960s; the Smiley books seem to me closely modelled on the real espionage world of that Cold War period.

Indeed. He became a full-time professional author in 1963, when SWCIFTC became an international best seller.

Not so much personal experience as research including extensive field research, as well as talking to the right people - he researched the international arms trade for The Night Manager, just as he researched Ingushettia (Our Game), Panama (Tailor of Panama, also a homage to Graham Greene), Georgia (Single and Single), Big Pharma in N Kenya (Constant Gardener), Rwanda (The Mission song) etc. for subsequent novels. He undertook extensive field research in Indo-China for The Honourable Schoolboy, following a similar itinerary to Jerry Westerby. Post-Cold War themes have included rendition (A Most Wanted Man), mercenaries and coups (of the Simon Mann variety) for The Mission Song, mercenaries again in A Delicate Truth.....A common theme is "things which make him angry" , for instance bent/corrupt politicians....

[mercia]

so this TV adaptation is a 'misrepresentation' of the book ? if the plot is "absurd" is it a different plot to the one in the book ?

[Richard Tarleton]

No, I haven't read it for a while but I don't share the "tosh" consensus - it has much in common with other TV adaptations, to whit changes in location and characters (making Burr a female for example) and swapping Le Carré's beautiful prose for acting stuff. I don't think JLeC necessarily the best judge of how well his books transfer to the screen - I thought the Gary Oldman TTSS which he evidently liked was perfectly dreadful, as I've said above.

[Tevot]

Indeed. He became a full-time professional author in 1963, when SWCIFTC became an international best seller.

Not so much personal experience as research including extensive field research, as well as talking to the right people - he researched the international arms trade for The Night Manager, just as he researched Ingushettia (Our Game), Panama (Tailor of Panama, also a homage to Graham Greene), Georgia (Single and Single), Big Pharma in N Kenya (Constant Gardener), Rwanda (The Mission song) etc. for subsequent novels. He undertook extensive field research in Indo-China for The Honourable Schoolboy, following a similar itinerary to Jerry Westerfield. Post-Cold War themes have included rendition (A Most Wanted Man), mercenaries and coups (of the Simon Mann variety) for The Mission Song, mercenaries again in A Delicate Truth.....A common theme is "things which make him angry" , for instance bent/corrupt politicians....

Thanks for the précis Richard. I read SWCIFTC over thirty years ago but nothing since - (sadly I don't really do prose) I'll have to read more...The Honourable Schoolboy sounds interesting. If it is anything like The Quiet American I should be in for a treat. I very much enjoyed the film version of The Constant Gardner. Not sure about about seeing The Night Manager. Might give it a try.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Richard Tarleton]

The Honourable Schoolboy sounds interesting. If it is anything like The Quiet American I should be in for a treat. I very much enjoyed the film version of The Constant Gardner.

Hi Tevot, I'd read "Tinker Tailor..." first if I were you, if you haven't already, as The Hon. Schoolboy very much the middle part of a trilogy (with Smiley's People). Not sure that it's "anything like" The Quiet American, tho' JLeC greatly admired Greene (whom he knew) and he re-read The Quiet American in Saigon when researching The Hon Schoolboy - he wrote to Greene when he got back, expressing his admiration for the book (he and Greene had had a slight difference of opinion over Kim Philby ). The "homage" of The Tailor of Panama was of course to Our Man in Havana, with its similar plot device.

Of the film of the Constant Gardener (which I too enjoyed) JLeC said "There's hardly a line left, hardly a scene intact that comes from my novel. Yet I don't know of a better translation from book to film". Much of it was shot in the township of Kibera south of Nairobi (the most populous slum in Africa); the actors were so affected by what they saw that they set up a charity to improve living conditions, provide clean water etc - patrons David Cornwell (JLeC), Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz....

[Daniel]

Lofty rocks!

Dirty Den clearly no longer considered the ne plus ultra of that world.

[Nick Armstrong]

Dirty Den clearly no longer considered the ne plus ultra of that world.

Not now we have Dirty Vin!