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Man...is it just me or does Hacker News really love John le Carré? Or is it journalists? Don't get me wrong, his books are great with good eye for character and
by hardwaregeek 4y ago
Man...is it just me or does Hacker News really love John le Carré? Or is it journalists? Don't get me wrong, his books are great with good eye for character and plot. They're dreadfully slow, but that's just his style. I'm mostly amazed at the frequency to which articles about le Carré make the front page.
- streb-lo 4y ago> Don't get me wrong, his books are great with good eye for character and plot. They're dreadfully slow, but that's just his style. I'm mostly amazed at the frequency to which articles about le Carré make the front page. I think it's more that he offers an inside perspective during one of the one of the most renowned espionage defections of the 20th century than his ability as an author although I did enjoy his books.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoThey are slow, but that's what makes them interesting... the antithesis of 007 is George Smiley and that's how espionage and operations are really like.
- lostphilosopher 4y agoI like the Laundry Files approach - James Bond-esque action plus Dilbert-esque bureaucratic and IT disfunction. (Also monsters.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files
- JadeNB 4y ago> I like the Laundry Files approach - James Bond-esque action plus Dilbert-esque bureaucratic and IT disfunction. (Also monsters.) On re-reading old Dilbert with an eye towards modern Scott Adams, I find it harder to enjoy, but more time with Stross, e.g., on https://www.antipope.org/charlie https://www.antipope.org/charlie, just makes me enjoy the Laundry Files more.
- Tangurena2 4y agoOn his blog as well as his speaking engagements, Stross does mention that he tried to make politics as absurd as possible yet reality seemed to make him seem like the "straight man" in a comedy duo.
- hutzlibu 4y ago"the antithesis of 007 is George Smiley and that's how espionage and operations are really like" Much more realistic of course, but reality is likely more trivial. Like the case about Kim Philby, the famous spy le Carré wrote about in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". The book is way more complex and the characters engage in way more sophisticated double plays and schemes, than in reality, where they make quite trivial and dumb misstakes all the time.
- wglb 4y ago>The book is way more complex and the characters engage in way more sophisticated double plays and schemes, than in reality, where they make quite trivial and dumb misstakes all the time. I doubt that. I suspect that his writing is quite close to reality. For supporting evidence see The Red Sparrow trilogy by Matthews. The first novel opens with a 14 hour walk across Moscow to be sure that there is nobody on his tail. Just to have a short meeting with his source. Or read "The Targeter" by Nada Bakos, an actual spy, who was targeting terrorists. The reality, in fact is more complex, long, and boring than any le Carré novel, let alone the (what I think of pulp) thrillers about James Bond.
- hutzlibu 4y agoWell, then just read the book by John le Carre and then compare it with the Wikipedia Article about John Philby. "The first novel opens with a 14 hour walk across Moscow to be sure that there is nobody on his tail. Just to have a short meeting with his source." But yes, that is realistic. What I said what is not quite realistic in the books, are the levels of schemes and their complexity in the books. In reality they are usually not that complex because reality is boring and humans act dumb too much, it is just not worth build up 5 layers of conspiracy, when one idiot messes up at the 2 layer (just read about Kim Philby). This is where Cornwell took artistic liberty to spice up things, which is allright and I enjoy the books, but my point is, there are not gods at work in the agencies.
- wglb 4y agoPerhaps you are referring to the Wikipedia article about Kim Philby? I wouldn't expect such an article to show the fabric and detail of the life of anyone, let alone a double agent. The two works are not comparable.
- jhbadger 4y agoAnother author I can recommend is Alan Furst, who has written a series of realistic espionage novels set during WWII.
- Tangurena2 4y agoI swear, if anyone ever invents a time machine, I want to go visit Brasserie Heininger - he puts that place in every one of his espionage novels. The menu sounds amazing.
- mhh__ 4y agoQuite possibly.
- JadeNB 4y agoAccording to https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Carre&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Carre&sort=byDate&type=story , in reverse chronological order, there was this post, then 6 days ago, then a month ago, then 3 months ago, then a year ago, then 2 years ago. For a writer who's probably in the midst of a re-evaluation not so long after his death (which was the subject of the post 2 years ago), that doesn't seem to be absurdly many.
- mypastself 4y agoI can only speak for myself, but I’ve always felt he’s far more intellectually challenging than other espionage authors. I remember reading one of his books (can’t remember exactly which, possibly The Little Drummer Girl or The Honorable Schoolboy) and realizing that every single line of dialogue in the book has multiple layers of subterfuge, double meaning, pretense, irony… Even the simplest exchange requires focus on part of the reader, which is not common for the genre.
- taude 4y agoLe Carre is definitely more on the literary side, and was likely a big influence in the history of the genre. Also, he was an actual spy, I believe at one point in his career.
- Applejinx 4y agoAll of this, yes. The thing about his characters is they all have this complex interiority that you're privy to, or semi-privy to: it makes stuff feel real. In particular if you came out of a dysfunctional family (like Le Carre did) then your tendency to dig into situations for secrets and threats? It's always rewarded with the unfolding of story and character. He writes characters SO well. They're really interesting and complicated, and the complications matter. Barley in The Russia House and his handler… there's just a lot going on, and when he throws a twist at you it's justified and supported and rings true. He's very, very good.
- dang 4y ago> the frequency to which articles about le Carré make the front page A dozen times over 8 years. Certainly more frequent than usual for a literary figure but probably not excessive?
- bombolo 4y agoI read one of his books once and it was really boring and I never finished it. I'm an habitual reader, I read tens of novels every year, quite used to reading.
- havblue 4y agoI thought the Spy Who Came in From the Cold had a more straightforward plot than some of his other books, if you want to give him another try.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 1123581321 4y agoI think HN appreciates his insight into real tradecraft. Anecdotes about people who actually did the thing are valued here. Stories about Fleming, Forsyth and Christopher Lee have also been well received.
- rospaya 4y agoIt's a bit later in the text: > In “A Private Spy,” a new volume of his letters gathered by his son Tim Cornwell, le Carré corresponds with an eclectic array of recipients There's a new book about him so this is a review basically.
- UIUC_06 4y ago[flagged]
- wahern 4y agoI would encourage anyone to read that article before taking "vicious anti-Semite" at face value. I think the article speaks for itself, both in what it says, and in what the author clearly fails to achieve. It does achieve one thing, however: illustrating what the opposite of moral equivalency looks like.
- UIUC_06 4y agoThere is no such thing as being anti-Zionist and not being anti-Semite. And the Brits of his generation were both.
- HEmanZ 4y agoI don’t know enough to know if he was anti-Semitic, he could have been. But your quote really doesn’t make him seem an anti-Semite. If that’s the worst leveled against him, I think it’s just hot air.
- wglb 4y agoIt is just recent, likely as a result of such articles as this one.