A Sense of Doubt blog post #2130 - John Le Carre Dies at Age 89
Another hit in the year of the dumpster fire,
One of the greatest writers has passed on.
He will be missed.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/12/14/0012240/john-le-carre-author-of-spy-novels-dies-at-age-89
John le Carre, Author of Spy Novels, Dies at Age 89 (nbcnewyork.com)
And the Associated Press tells the story of how spy-novel writer John le Carré was "drawn to espionage by an upbringing that was superficially conventional but secretly tumultuous."Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England on Oct. 19, 1931, he appeared to have a standard upper-middle-class education: the private Sherborne School, a year studying German literature at the University of Bern, compulsory military service in Austria — where he interrogated Eastern Bloc defectors — and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University. But his ostensibly ordinary upbringing was an illusion. His father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a con man who was an associate of gangsters and spent time in jail for insurance fraud. His mother left the family when David was 5; he didn't meet her again until he was 21.
It was a childhood of uncertainty and extremes: one minute limousines and champagne, the next eviction from the family's latest accommodation. It bred insecurity, an acute awareness of the gap between surface and reality — and a familiarity with secrecy that would serve him well in his future profession. "These were very early experiences, actually, of clandestine survival," le Carré said in 1996. "The whole world was enemy territory."
After university, which was interrupted by his father's bankruptcy, he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before joining the foreign service. Officially a diplomat, he was in fact a "lowly" operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 — he'd started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy. His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained "le Carré" for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it...
Le Carré said in 1990 that the fall of the Berlin Wall had come as a relief. "For me, it was absolutely wonderful. I was sick of writing about the Cold War."
His 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold "was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer," the AP writes, adding that he ultimately won a critical respect that "eluded" James Bond's creator Ian Fleming.
And they note that le Carré ultimately described himself as a not-particularly-optimistic believer in humanity. "If only we could see it expressed in our institutional forms, we would have hope then," he told the AP. "I think the humanity will always be there. I think it will always be defeated."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2012.17 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1994 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
No comments:
Post a Comment