My Favourite Writer -- John Le Carre'
I always wait for Le Carre' to write another book. I buy the hard copy as soon as they come out -- Kindle won't do. I have to hoard them for my granddaughter to read when she is old enough to know the difference between trash and quality writing. Now, le Carre's mellow, confident, honest, analytical, caring voice will not be heard anymore. What a loss! Irreplaceable as John Snow said.
Le Carre's voice had that rare quality of being 'just right' from the first sentence. The first page captures you and never disappoints. Spy-writing? Yes. But not entirely. There was social comment, unforgettable characters, an informed look at institutions, social as well as domestic, and above all a benign look at people, their frailties and strengths, their loyalties and loves. I think I would read Le Carre' if he wrote about the Stock Exchange.
Smiley, for instance. That part made for Gary Oldman. Cleaning his 'specs with the thin end of his necktie, the self-effacing cocoon inside which his crystal-clear intelligence operated, the soundless withdrawing from the wife's infidelities... The Smiley books are his best, if there can be a best.
The CONSTANT GARDENER was not a spy story, for instance. The spy element varied from book to book. The British embassies and outposts run by the aspiring, but not quite there, henchmen of the Foreign Office did not take kindly to Le Carre's take on them. For heaven's sake, they were the elite, weren't they? and he was taking their life-structures to pieces.
When Le Carre' arrived in Kenya to research for the 'Constant Gardener' the local High commission quietly passed him on to their lesser brethren -- the British Council. He had been excoriating about the career diplomats and their lifestyles in many countries. The British Council asked my daughter, Radha, who was then an Assistant Director in Nairobi to 'look after him.' That translates to: take him around, introduce him to the local colour, buy him lunch at the five stars, entertain him ...
So, one afternoon, when she came home from work, she told me about John Le Carre'. She had just had lunch with him. When she mentioned that her mother ( I was at the time on holiday in Nairobi) was a fan, he offered to sign some books for me. And he did, a few weeks later.
When he did a 'talk' in the Barbican a few years ago, I went with Radha and her daughter. He spoke without notes, about his books, his people and places. 'When Communism is finished, there is Capitalism to fight,' he always argued. That is now.
When THE CONSTANT GARDENER came out, some in Nairobi argued that the character, Ghita Pearson, was modelled on Radha; this she firmly disputed. However, the general bubble in which the Foreign Office functioned was cruelly clear. The internal jealousies and promotion tactics, the off-hand liaisons of bored middle-aged Lotharios promoted beyond their competence, the abrogation of long-learned moral structures because your family is not looking over your shoulder, the deliberate distance from all things local... I am reminded of what one very bright Ugandan said to me about a project I was managing in Kampala. Even I knew there was nothing I could teach them. 'Just give us the money and go, Anand,' he said, not unkindly. And he was a friend. Our behaviour in foreign places can be excruciating.
Today I looked at the phalanx of hardbacks on my bookshelf, all written by Le Carre' and thought, I'll just have to read them again. And again, and possibly again.
