Ipcress File was by my preferred spy author, Len Deighton... or is that what you were saying?
Posted on 08/23/2010 5:03:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It's still spy author vs. spy.
Famed espionage writer John Le Carré remains no fan of James Bond, the martini-loving super spy created by Ian Fleming.
"I dislike Bond. I'm not sure that Bond is a spy," the "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" author said in 1966, during a BBC interview that will be re-broadcast next week.
Today, the 78-year-old Le Carré told the Radio Times that while he may have been harsh 40 years ago, he's still not sure Bond is much of a spy.
"At the root of Bond there was something neo-fascistic and totally materialist," said Le Carré, who once worked with the British Foreign Service. "You felt he would have gone through the same antics for any country really, if the girls had been so pretty and the Martinis so dry."
Le Carré - whose real name is David Cornwell - described 007 as more of an "international gangster" who sported a "license to kill," and had no real loyalty to England.
"I think that it's a great mistake if one's talking about espionage literature to include Bond in this category at all," he said.
Le Carré's own spy character, George Smiley, appears in several of the author's works and stands in stark contrast to the Fleming creation. The author admits that his approach to spy novels is far more realistic than the gadget-obsessed adventures of James Bond.
"I had written about the reality in 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,'" he told Radio Times. "The Fleming stuff was a deliberate fantasisation."
I’m just saying Edith Clavell was a patriot and knew what she was doing. Do you think Mata Hari was a German patriot?
I’m just saying Edith Cavell was a patriot and knew what she was doing. Do you think Mata Hari was a German patriot?
Le Carre, one can assume, was a closet Trotskyite. He hated the Stalinists, but loved the elements of social coercian found in the Soviet system.
My knowledge is very limited. I’ve never heard of him or his spy character.
Mata Hari was probably just a beautiful Dutch girl in love with a German. Edith Clavell was British spy abusing the cover of the Red Cross. Mata Hari became a pergorative, while Clavell was lauded as a martyr. They were definitly both executed for spying.
Well, there is a chance Mata Hari was set up by the Germans. The message the French intercepted used a code the Germans already knew the French cracked. She may not have been a spy at all. Was she in love? Who knows, but she sounded like an adventuress. It’s true, the Brits at the time tried to portray Cavell as someone who was innocent, but I am not sure the real story is any less dramatic. Cavell did what she thought was her religious and patriotic duty. She knew she could eventually be executed for it. (By the way, the French executed several German nurses for the same thing. The Germans just didn’t want to publicize it.) I doubt Mata Hari knew her life might be at risk, whether she was spying or not.
Obviously Clavell would have felt alright with the 19 plane hijackers on Sept 11, 2001.
Do you really believe that? Do you believe the same thing about our boys (and girls) in the OSS, etc?
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is a wonderful novel if you’re interested in the Great Game as the Brits called it, the West vs. the Soviets, from the end of WWII to the 1970’s. Lots of fascinating detail.
The BBC adaptation with Alec Guinness is available on DVD, and it’s one of the best TV productions EVER. It’s a multi-part mini-series; save it for a weekend for when you’re down with the flu or something and watch it straight through.
Ipcress File was by my preferred spy author, Len Deighton... or is that what you were saying?
You said paraphrased “she did what was her religious and patriotic duty knowing she could die” She abused a sacred trust among civilized nations at the behest of her “government/religion”. Yes, I believe that.
I wonder if that had anything to do with Fleming's wild success in fiction books and Hollywood films? Duh.
I read fairly recently that Fleming was inspired to create the fictional James Bond in response to the treason by the Cambridge spies Burgess and Maclean and eventually Philby later on. The first novel Casino Royale has the Russian Reds as the enemy. The movies have long forgotten that the communists were the first enemy Bond faced. Commie sympathizers like Le Carre probably never did. The fascist tag is a default position by socialists to those who oppose them.
When he poisons his books with anti-corporate leftist politics, he sucks. When he restrains himself, he can be very good. So "The Constant Gardener" sucked, but I enjoyed "The Night Manager."
Sour grapes, apparently his stuff wasn’t as popular as Flemming’s so he doesn’t like Bond books.
I read one of his novels a year or two ago and that was my conclusion too—definitely anti-American.
>>> Le Carre sucks and is a lib. The Spy Who Came Out of the Cold largely sucked.
Anti-American British lib yes, and it’s true this overshadows his later work as it got stuck in that mindset. But his earlier novels, particularly as they related to George Smiley, were wonderful literature. Not everybody’s cup of tea with their unheroic cynicism, but that’s not inappropriate for the subject matter.
>>> Hey John, How many people even know who George Smiley is?
People who still appreciate interesting characters in well written books ? Fewer each year I admit.
>>> “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is a wonderful novel if you’re interested in the Great Game as the Brits called it,
Absolutely, the production was very good as was Alec, but Alec Guiness wasn’t a good choice for Smiley if you wanted the character as the author envisioned him.
As written the character is a lot more like a devious version of Mr Granger, the elderly short chubby clerk from “Are You Being Served”. James Mason was wrong for the character as well but was closer to the mark in that earlier film that was the prequel to “Spy Who Came in From the Cold”. The Smiley character was renamed for that film but it was he.
So Le Carre’s point is that spying is not glamorous.
Its a tedious slog
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