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katemck1's review against another edition
Really enjoyed this. He writes so well and I'm old enough to remember something of the grey days of the Cold War.
quaerentia's review against another edition
4.0
Eyebrows were clearly raised when le Carré announced the publication of this book. Was this a rebuff to Adam Sisman's 2015 authorised biography? That had been enjoyable, though in some ways reflected the difficulties of getting to the heart of an individual who has always preferred the shadows to the limelight. Its second half seemed more concerned with the researches for, and responses to, his post-Cold War novels, than with getting to know the man better. Which is probably the best he could hope for.
A very recent article by Sisman suggests that they are on reasonably good terms now - and indeed le Carré sent a signed copy of the Pigeon Tunnel to him. So it's not a rebuff, nor necessarily a correction of wrongs.
So then, what is it?
For one thing, it is not a plugging of Sisman's inevitable gaps. There is very little in here that is not already known - either through his few interviews or through the biography. This is definitely not an autobiography.
Instead, we encounter le Carré the brilliant and witty raconteur, the master of the thumbnail sketch with a perfectly tuned ear for accents and peculiar turns of phrase. We get tiny glimpses of his creative process (such as the catalysts for his creations of Alec Leamas, or Jerry Westerby, and Tessa Quayle). There are hilariously bizarre moments from his research trips (as with Yasser Arafat) or encounters (as when Margaret Thatcher introduced him to totally nonplussed Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers). He has a nicely self-deprecating tone, and it seems that for his love of all things Germanic and scathing descriptions of the British class-system, he still contends with the excruciations of being English in socially embarrassing situations (as when he thought he was giving a signed copy of one of his books to the Italian President).
This makes for a very entertaining read - vintage le Carré, in bite-sized chunks (without the impenetrable plots). To that end, it felt a little like The Secret Pilgrim (the Smiley short-story collection on his retirement). He is quite open about the problems that a story-teller will have with memory - how can he ever be sure that his tales haven't grown whiskers with time and retelling?
So this is a book to enjoy greatly - but don't imagine it will make its author any less impenetrable than his plots
A very recent article by Sisman suggests that they are on reasonably good terms now - and indeed le Carré sent a signed copy of the Pigeon Tunnel to him. So it's not a rebuff, nor necessarily a correction of wrongs.
So then, what is it?
For one thing, it is not a plugging of Sisman's inevitable gaps. There is very little in here that is not already known - either through his few interviews or through the biography. This is definitely not an autobiography.
Instead, we encounter le Carré the brilliant and witty raconteur, the master of the thumbnail sketch with a perfectly tuned ear for accents and peculiar turns of phrase. We get tiny glimpses of his creative process (such as the catalysts for his creations of Alec Leamas, or Jerry Westerby, and Tessa Quayle). There are hilariously bizarre moments from his research trips (as with Yasser Arafat) or encounters (as when Margaret Thatcher introduced him to totally nonplussed Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers). He has a nicely self-deprecating tone, and it seems that for his love of all things Germanic and scathing descriptions of the British class-system, he still contends with the excruciations of being English in socially embarrassing situations (as when he thought he was giving a signed copy of one of his books to the Italian President).
This makes for a very entertaining read - vintage le Carré, in bite-sized chunks (without the impenetrable plots). To that end, it felt a little like The Secret Pilgrim (the Smiley short-story collection on his retirement). He is quite open about the problems that a story-teller will have with memory - how can he ever be sure that his tales haven't grown whiskers with time and retelling?
So this is a book to enjoy greatly - but don't imagine it will make its author any less impenetrable than his plots
tamarant4's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
... my readers will see for themselves to what extent an old writer’s memory is the whore of his imagination. We all reinvent our pasts, I said, but writers are in a class of their own. Even when they know the truth, it’s never enough for them. [loc. 3938]
Subtitled 'Stories from My Life', this is a collection of essays that Le Carré describes as 'true stories told from memory', with the roles of nuance and creativity acknowledged. Here we find Margaret Thatcher arguing with Le Carré about the Palestinians; Yasser Arafat with a soft and silky beard; Rupert Murdoch, who has 'that hasty waddle and little buck of the pelvis with which great men of affairs advance on one another'; Alec Guinness, who became friends with Le Carré after starring as Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Nicholas Elliott, whose friendship with Kim Philby was the focus of Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends; Graham Greene, who was delighted to find that there was a code sequence for 'eunuch' ... and newsreader Reginald Bosanquet, whose inexplicable largesse kept Le Carré (or rather David Cornwell) at Oxford when he'd run out of funds. There are poignant passages about his difficult relationship with his father (con artist and gambler) and his emotionally unavailable mother. There is surprisingly little about his time as a spy ("I feebly protested that I was a writer who had once happened to be a spy rather than a spy who had turned to writing") or about his personal life.
But what engaged me here was the same phenomenon that engages me when I read his novels: the precise observation of minutae, like that description above of Rupert Murdoch's waddle-and-buck, and the ear for voices which is evident in his accounts of meeting warlords, journalists, businessmen, politicians. Some of these, he tells us, were foundations for some of his characters. He is interested in them as people: he is profoundly interested in people.
mylesjmc's review against another edition
5.0
Listened to it as an audiobook. A fascinating set of stories from the author's life. Read by the author in his beautiful voice. I think it would almost be a shame to read this book, when the opportunity exists to have it read to you by the man himself.
sonialusiveira's review against another edition
Dnf at around 50%.
I’ve never came across this author and for the life of me can’t remember how this book ended up on my Libby shelf. Apparently I got the book after 10 weeks wait so I thought why not give it a try. I love the prologue and thought I’d enjoy this book, which for some parts I did and made me want to check out the author’s novels but alas, I was lost most of the time. I’d probably enjoy it far more if I was a fan of the author or know his other works that he referenced here.
I’ve never came across this author and for the life of me can’t remember how this book ended up on my Libby shelf. Apparently I got the book after 10 weeks wait so I thought why not give it a try. I love the prologue and thought I’d enjoy this book, which for some parts I did and made me want to check out the author’s novels but alas, I was lost most of the time. I’d probably enjoy it far more if I was a fan of the author or know his other works that he referenced here.
thisisstephenbetts's review against another edition
5.0
Probably only 5* for Le Carré completists, but I really enjoyed this. One to re-read.
hoboken's review against another edition
4.0
A kind of nonchronological memoir--lots of short chapters on the people and places le Carre met, saw, and used in his books and the films made from them. Having a professional grifter for a father and a stint in Her Majesty's secret service gave him a head start, and early on he decided not to write about places he didn't know firsthand, so the only thing to do was to go out and have the adventures and meet the people he turned into his long, gripping series of spy fiction. A charming, clear, entertaining first-person voice. A cast of hundreds at least from fake Mitteleuropean counts to MI6 operatives in the thick of the Cold War to Graham Greene and Alec Guinness. I haven't read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold for 50 years, but it's time to do it again. For my money, if you want to know what things were like between VE Day and the day the Berlin Wall came down, you can't do better than le Carre and the great Eric Ambler.
ckrupiej's review against another edition
4.0
"Estas são histórias verdadeiras, contadas de memória - ao que os leitores têm o direito de perguntar o que é a verdade e o que é a memória para um escritor de obras criativas naquilo a que poderiamos chamar o entardecer da sua vida,"