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Interesting contrasting Fleming's work to that of Le Carré. A lot of Le Carré's work contains the kinds of details Fleming talks about, but the plots are more
by angst_ridden 4y ago
Interesting contrasting Fleming's work to that of Le Carré.
A lot of Le Carré's work contains the kinds of details Fleming talks about, but the plots are more complex and the pace is slower.
I also personally find that there's an emotional impact from Le Carré that's lacking in Fleming, but perhaps that's just me.
- thomascgalvin 4y agoCounterpoint: I know who Ian Fleming is, but I had to Google Le Carré. I am aware of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and some of his other works, but they aren't lodged in my head the way James Bond is. And I think that's the point of Fleming's essay. He wasn't writing to be high art, he was writing to make money. Fleming avoided deep plots and emotional exploration, because those detracted from the guttural response he wanted out of his readers.
- angst_ridden 4y agoI don't think Le Carré was trying to write high art either, but I think they were interested in different things. Fleming wanted a fast-paced popular thriller, while Le Carré wanted a realistic depiction of spycraft.
- tptacek 4y agoLe Carré does provide a much more realistic depiction of tradecraft than Ian Fleming, of course, who is to tradecraft what the 60s Batman TV show is to realistic detective fiction. I would not say that the point of le Carré is to realistically depict tradecraft. He's not a realism antidote to Ian Fleming. There's not really all that much tradecraft in a Smiley novel; they're much more about human relationships, and about the moral bankruptcy of the Cold War enterprise. Le Carré is much closer to literary fiction than Fleming, who is a genre hack. Not so close as to be tedious; the books are all fun to read. I'd push back on the idea that le Carré wasn't aiming for art, though. (If tradecraft is what you're after, by the way, what you really want is Hoffman's "Billion Dollar Spy".)
- yodon 4y agoIf you enjoy Le Carré and haven't checked out the Slough House series (novels and mini series on Apple TV) you're in for a treat. It's not exactly Le Carré, but it's definitely Cold War caliber spy fiction set in the present day with a very Smiley-esque old spy master and a budding young spy who is learning to think like a Smiley rather than act like the Bond he's been trained to be.
- GavinMcG 4y agoSlow Horses?
- astro-codes 4y agoSlow Horses contains absolutely none of the complexity of Le Carre. They're in the same genre, but are not comparable.
- LgWoodenBadger 4y agoIt also stars an actor who played George Smiley in another film.
- tptacek 4y agoThe series you really want is The Night Manager. Obviously, this assumes you've seen the BBC Tinker Tailor with Alec Guinness, the canonical Smiley.
- stevenwoo 4y agoThe conversations are pretty snappy and deadpan, reminiscent of one of the writer's previous work on Veep and The Thick of It, this show is often funnier to me than many comedies.