RIP John le Carré Such a joy that wasn’t his real name. And just as well too;
RIP John le Carré Such a joy that wasn’t his real name. And just as well too; in the spy game, as we understand it from the labyrinthine yarns he spun (back when spying was a personal affair), a separate identity can hardly be covered by the mere term “pseudonym.”Then there’s that line from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: “The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.”His work has been a deeper influence on my life than most folks who know me well even know. Cat unofficially out of bag.So I will think of le Carré (and George Smiley, and Control, and Lemas and the others) whenever a winter day turns icy, and I’m standing at a street corner, and there are no witnesses.Or, if the situation requires it, there are multiple witnesses. -- source link