Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
I think I’ve finally lost patience with le Carre
John le Carre, pen name of author David John Moore Cornwell, elder don of the spy novel (The Spy Who Came In From the Cold still reads like a dream and is far, far more than a spy novel), roped me in with his 2008 A Most Wanted Man. I found it on a discount shelf and could not resist.
My favorite le Carre novels remain his George Smiley trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy; Smiley’s People), but I’ve enjoyed others, more for his masterful writing than for the stories themselves. In that vein, Single & Single had a climactic paragraph that I still reread on occasion just to see how a master brings off a cinematic shit-hits-fan scene, and Absolute Friends broke all writing rules yet shined because of it.
But the problem with le Carre is his predictability. As I read, I find myself thinking: What’s the most cynical, depressing ending possible? The one in which our heroes end up disillusioned or worse? The one in which the innocents are ruined, and the powerful prevail? And that will inevitably be the ending.
I had hopes for A Most Wanted Man. I could imagine an ending in which the various secret service agencies trip over one another in such a way that they achieve the opposite outcome of their desires. It would have been so easy. But no.
Karen says you read le Carre for the ride, not for the ending, and I think she’s right. But I guess I’ve become more demanding of my novelists — I want unpredictability, which is an elusive thing, really. For that, I may need to stick to someone like Terry Pratchett.
D.
PS Two years ago today: A yummy dinner in Las Vegas. Too bad my parents later decided they didn’t like it (after enjoying it that night). Otherwise, I’d make a point of going back there this Crhistmas.
I used to be an avid reader. I used to read like Chris does now, 2-3 books a week. I’ve lost it, somehow, somewhere, about 15 years ago. I don’t know where it went.
I miss it.