John le Carre, an appreciation

David Cornwell, aka John le Carre

The 1960s spy craze, started by James Bond films, unleashed many escapist spies. But one of the most enduring espionage universe not escapist. It was the one penned by David Cornwell, writing under the name John le Carre.

Le Carre novels involved flawed humans dealing with grays, rather than black and white.

Cornwell wrote his novels independently of James Bond. Cornwell, like Ian Fleming, had worked in intelligence. Cornwell/le Carre had something to say in a more grounded espionage setting.

Le Carre would have written novels regardless of the spy craze. But the escapist thrust of much of the 1960s spy craze helped create a market for something else. James Bond helped create a market for George Smiley, le Carre’s best remembered (but from his only) protagonist.

Many le Carre novels were set during the Cold War. In 1989, as the cold war was winding down, the author was undaunted that the world was changing.

“It gives me wonderful breaks, a wonderful new deck of cards,” le Carre said in an interview with PBS. “I mean, the spy story was not invented by the cold war, it’ll continue after the cold war.”

Indeed, in the following years, le Carre wrote novels including The Night Manager, The Tailor of Panama and A Most Wanted Man. Le Carre never lacked for anything to say.

“I think this is a time when we’re going to have to turn around our thinking to a great extent,” le Carre said in the 1989 interview.

“There does come a point here too, as Smiley, himself, is saying, the when is the question about when could it happen that institutional guidance, patriotism, if you will, in this case, institutional commitment, actually outlives its purpose and imposes on me and upon my conscience individual strains which I cannot support.”

Le Carre lives on through numerous adaptations of his work, both as feature films and as television miniseries.

Amusingly, two writers who adapted Fleming to the screen also worked on le Carre projects: Paul Dehn (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) and John Hopkins (Smiley’s People). The latter also had le Carre working on the adaptation.

Today, le Carre fans are in mourning after the author’s death this past weekend. That’s understandable. Reading le Carre works usually leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

Sam Mendes on Bond 24

Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes did an April 11 interview on the PBS Charlie Rose show. He eventually got around to discussing Bond 24 and said the following:

–He came back to direct Bond 24 after Skyfall because “I started a number of stories that were incomplete. I cast the new M, I cast the new Moneypenny, I cast the new Q, I cast the new Tanner…There was a missing piece now. I felt there was a way to create the second part of a two-part story.” Bond 24 will be connected to Skyfall with the evolution of the characters but not “the actual narrative.”

–In Skyfall, “for the first time characters were allowed to age” in the Bond film series.

–A contributing factor to his returning for Bond 24 was that the producers were “willing to wait” and changed plans to do two films at once. John Logan was hired to write Bond 24 and Bond 25, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announcing the news in November. MGM and Sony last year announced an October 2015 release date in the U.K. and November 2015 for the U.S.

Mendes misspoke a bit. Rory Kinnear had been cast as Bill Tanner in 2008’s Quantum of Solace. In Skyfall, Ralph Fiennes’ Mallory took over as the new M and Naomie Harris’ Eve was revealed to be Moneypenny.

The director didn’t comment much beyond that, with much of the interview centering on a new stage production of Cabaret. You can see for yourself here: