Spies go to bars for the same reason people go to libraries: full of information if you know where to ask – Michael Weston
DAVID John Moore Cornwell?
Does this name ring a bell? Can you recognise it? No. Just another English name! What about John le Carre? Then the light of recognition lights up my eyeballs. That is the magic of names, of having a name that is instantly recognisable and remembered. That is why writers with long and complicated names always choose to shorten them.
Until he died last week, I had forgotten completely that the writer whose name dominated the spy thriller genre of literature in my growing up years was named David Cornwell. A long time ago, I came across that name in the course of reading some materials but it had completely vamoosed from my memory. But John le Carre stuck. That was until last week when the news of his demise hit the headlines and journalists characteristically, went to dig up the name David John Moore Cornwell.
John le Carre meant a lot to lovers of books of my age; our first encounter with English crimes/thriller novels was through James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, Nick Carter and a host of others. When our reading taste buds began to grow and get matured, we began to look for other writers who wrote about more complex issues beyond common crimes and love. It was in the course of this that I discovered John le Carre. The name sounded French but the way he wrote English was so enchanting that I first thought it was a translation I was reading. It was later that I got to know that he was British and that he only assumed a pseudonym because he was writing about the secret service which the law as personnel of that branch did not allow.
His novels were the first introduction and teaching aid for me to understand what later became known as the Cold War. He was always writing about the contest of the West with Russia. Before I began to understand what was Communism and Capitalism at the other far end, it was Le Carre that broke it all down for me. We saw the East (Russia) through his eyes and began to make our judgements and pronouncements through the picture of the characters that he painted in his novels for us. In fact, at a point in time of my life, I thought of joining the secret service because of the fast life that I thought secret agents lived in his novels. Such is the power of literature. As Jerry Gellner, his literary agent said, Carre “defined the Cold War era and fearlessly spoke truth to power.” His 1963 third novel The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which Graham Greene described as “the best spy story I have ever read,” was for many years a book I see as the archetypal life of a spy. His death last week has robbed the world of a writer who helped many to take their stand for or against the Cold War. He helped many of us to understand the underlining issues of the war more than we ever learnt in any History classes. The power of literature is huge because it breaks down complex issues into day to day encounters that any ordinary person can identify with.
In the many books he wrote about the characters and countries involved in the war, he painted for us in words the picture of characters we never met but understood! He transported us to countries and scenes behind scenes that we would never be able to be but are told what transpired behind those walls and iron curtains.
The trajectory of his life was no doubt influenced by his upbringing. He was said to have been abandoned by his mother at the age of five and his ever-shifty father was a debtor so he grew up in a fractured home, but he never allowed this to dictate the pace of his life. He determined to carve his own pathway and move beyond his limitations. Perhaps this was to later show in his own life too because he was twice married and was also not, in his own reckoning, a model. He was quoted as saying, “I have been neither a model husband nor a model father, and am not interested in appearing that way.”
Like many writers, his marital life was not all blissful but his 25 novels, most of which have been adapted with huge success as films stand him in good stead in the world. His other books such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Constant Gardener, The Tailor of Panamaand theNight Managerbecame a successful BBC television series.
The year 2020 as it hurries to its terminus will not be forgotten in a hurry, it has taken so many people away and has left the world prostrate. In paying tribute to this great spy thriller writer, another giant writer I refer to as the Dean of horror fiction, Stephen King, in his tribute said, “This terrible year (2020) has claimed a literary giant and a humanitarian spirit.” While the award-winning Margaret Atwood tweeted that Carre’s novels were the “key to understanding the mid-20th century.” This is of a truth!
Le Carre’s contribution to his genre of world literature would no doubt remain permanent. In the future when reading the history of the rivalry of the Cold War era would have become a bit turgid for that generation, many of them would have his books to turn to as a way understanding what the world looked like and how it was able to deal with the times.
As I wrote in 2018 when Tom Wolfe and Philip Roth died, writers don’t die because their works live on and linger in the minds of their readers.
Adieu David Cornwell aka John le Carre.
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