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==Writing== Le Carré's first two novels, ''[[Call for the Dead]]'' (1961) and ''[[A Murder of Quality]]'' (1962), are [[mystery fiction]]. Each features a retired spy, [[George Smiley]], investigating a death; in the first book, the apparent suicide of a suspected communist, and in the second volume, a murder at a boys' [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]]. Although ''Call for the Dead'' evolves into an espionage story, Smiley's motives are more personal than political.<ref name="LRB">{{cite journal |last=Tayler |first=Christopher |date=25 January 2007 |title=Belgravia Cockney |journal=[[London Review of Books]]|volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=13–14|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n02/christopher-tayler/belgravia-cockney |access-date=4 March 2010 |archive-date=30 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330100639/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n02/christopher-tayler/belgravia-cockney |url-status=live }}</ref> Le Carré's third novel, ''[[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold]]'' (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works; following its publication, he left MI6 to become a full-time writer. Although le Carré had intended ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' as an indictment of espionage as morally compromised, audiences widely viewed its protagonist, Alec Leamas, as a [[tragic hero]]. In response, le Carré's next book, ''[[The Looking Glass War]]'', was a satire about an increasingly deadly espionage mission which ultimately proves pointless.{{sfn|Manning|2018|pp=78, 90}}<ref>{{Cite news|last=Duns|first=Jeremy|author-link=Jeremy Duns|title=The Looking Glass War review by John le Carré—a classic for our deceitful times|date=17 February 2020|url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/the-looking-glass-war-review-by-john-le-carre-hsnmh86j8|work=[[The Times]]|url-access=subscription|access-date=14 December 2020|id={{ProQuest| 2359955748}}|page=17}}</ref> ''[[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy]]'', ''[[The Honourable Schoolboy]]'' and ''[[Smiley's People]]'' (the [[Karla (character)|Karla]] trilogy) brought Smiley back as the central figure in a sprawling espionage saga depicting his efforts first to root out a mole in the Circus and then to entrap his Soviet rival and counterpart, code-named 'Karla'. The trilogy was originally meant to be a long-running series that would find Smiley dispatching agents after Karla all around the world. ''Smiley's People'' marked the last time Smiley featured as the central character in a le Carré story, although he brought the character back in ''[[The Secret Pilgrim]]''{{sfn|Manning|2018|p=183}} and ''[[A Legacy of Spies]]''.{{sfn|Manning|2018|pp=4–5}} ''[[A Perfect Spy]]'' (1986), which chronicles the boyhood moral education of Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy, is the author's most autobiographical espionage novel, reflecting the boy's very close relationship with his [[Confidence trick|con man]] father.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Garner|first=Dwight|author-link=Dwight Garner|date=18 April 2013|title=John le Carré Has Not Mellowed With Age (Published 2013)|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/magazine/john-le-carre-has-not-mellowed-with-age.html|access-date=14 December 2020|archive-date=13 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201213235154/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/magazine/john-le-carre-has-not-mellowed-with-age.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Biographer LynnDianne Beene describes the novelist's own father, Ronnie Cornwell, as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values".{{sfn|Beene|1992|p=2}}<ref name=BBC_obit>{{Cite news|date=13 December 2020|title=Obituary: John le Carré|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19888446|access-date=14 December 2020|archive-date=14 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201214004235/https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19888446|url-status=live}}</ref> Le Carré reflected that "writing ''A Perfect Spy'' is probably what a very wise shrink would have advised".<ref>{{Cite web|last=[[Agence France-Presse]]|title=John Le Carre Novels: A Selection|url=https://www.barrons.com/news/john-le-carre-novels-a-selection-01607902504|access-date=14 December 2020|website=[[Barron's (newspaper)|Barron's]]|language=en-US|archive-date=14 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201214155124/https://www.barrons.com/news/john-le-carre-novels-a-selection-01607902504|url-status=live}}</ref> He also wrote a semi-autobiographical work, ''[[The Naïve and Sentimental Lover]]'' (1971), as the story of a man's midlife existential crisis.{{sfn|Cobbs|1998|p=83}} [[File:John le Carré - La Casa Russia (The Russia House) - Mondadori 1989.jpg|thumb|Italian cover of ''The Russia House'' (1989)]] With the fall of the [[Iron Curtain]] in 1989, le Carré's writing shifted to the portrayal of the new multilateral world. His first completely [[Post–Cold War era|post-Cold War]] novel, ''[[The Night Manager]]'' (1993), deals with drug and arms smuggling in the world of Latin American [[drug lord]]s, secretive Caribbean banking entities and corrupt Western officials.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Petski|first1=Denise|date=5 March 2015|title=Olivia Colman, Tom Hollander, Elizabeth Debicki Join AMC's ''The Night Manager''|url=https://deadline.com/2015/03/olivia-colman-tom-hollander-elizabeth-debicki-join-amcs-the-night-manager-1201386653/|access-date=14 December 2020|website=[[Deadline Hollywood]]|archive-date=8 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808235423/https://deadline.com/2015/03/olivia-colman-tom-hollander-elizabeth-debicki-join-amcs-the-night-manager-1201386653/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=19 February 2016|title=''The Night Manager'': le Carré's 'unexpected miracle'|work=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/02/19/the-night-manager-le-carres-unexpected-miracle/|access-date=14 December 2020|archive-date=29 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029182807/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/02/19/the-night-manager-le-carres-unexpected-miracle/|url-status=live}}</ref> His final novel, ''[[Silverview]]'', was published posthumously in 2021. ===Themes=== Most of le Carré's books are [[spy fiction|spy stories]] set during the [[Cold War]] (1945–91) and portray [[British Intelligence]] agents as unheroic political functionaries, aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged more in psychological than physical drama.<ref name="contwriters">{{cite web |url=http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth519CDD2E13c091C28FvXuS365E36 |title=Contemporary Writers |year=2006 |publisher=British Council |access-date=4 March 2010 |last=Holcombe |first=Garan |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604142420/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth519CDD2E13c091C28FvXuS365E36 |archive-date=4 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> While "[espionage] was the genre that earned him fame...he used it as a platform to explore larger ethical problems and the human condition". The insight he demonstrated led "many fellow authors and critics [to regard] him as one of the finest English-language novelists of the twentieth century."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Barber |first=Tony |date=14 December 2020 |title=John le Carré, author, 1931–2020 |work=Financial Times |url=https://www.ft.com/content/ca8b1c8c-91aa-4fe3-97db-ebec68085877 |access-date=26 October 2022}}</ref> His writing explores "human frailty—moral ambiguity, intrigue, nuance, doubt, and cowardice".<ref name="FP">{{Cite journal |last=Walton |first=Calder |date=26 December 2020 |title=What Spies Really Think About John le Carré |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/26/what-spies-really-think-about-john-le-carre/ |journal=Foreign Policy}}</ref> The fallibility of [[Liberal democracy|Western democracy]] – and of its secret services – is a recurring theme, as are suggestions of a possible east–west moral equivalence.<ref name="contwriters"/> Characters experience little of the violence typically encountered in [[action thriller]]s and have very little recourse to gadgets. Much of the conflict is internal, rather than external and visible.<ref name="contwriters"/> The recurring character George Smiley, who plays a central role in five novels and appears as a supporting character in four more, was written as an "antidote" to [[James Bond]], a character le Carré called "an international [[gangster]]" rather than a spy and who he felt should be excluded from the canon of espionage literature.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/7948363/James-Bond-was-a-neo-fascist-gangster-says-John-Le-Carre.html|title=James Bond was a neo-fascist gangster, says John Le Carré|first=Anita|last=Singh|date=17 August 2010|work=The Telegraph|access-date=3 April 2018|archive-date=4 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180404131630/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/7948363/James-Bond-was-a-neo-fascist-gangster-says-John-Le-Carre.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In contrast, he intended Smiley, who is an overweight, [[bespectacled]] bureaucrat who uses cunning and manipulation to achieve his ends, as an accurate depiction of a spy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-antijames-bond/308708/|title=The Anti–James Bond|first=James|last=Parker|date=26 October 2011|access-date=3 April 2018|archive-date=29 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180629155126/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-antijames-bond/308708/|url-status=live|website=[[The Atlantic]]}}</ref> Le Carré's "writing entered intelligence services themselves. He popularized the term 'mole'...and other language that has become intelligence vernacular on both sides of the Atlantic — 'honeytrap', 'scalphunter', 'lamplighter' to name a few."<ref name="FP" /> However, in his first tweet as MI6's chief, [[Richard Moore (diplomat)|Richard Moore]] revealed the agency's "complicated relationship with the author: He urged would-be Smileys not to apply to the service."<ref name="FP" /> ===Other writing, film cameos=== Le Carré records a number of incidents from his period as a diplomat in his autobiographical work, ''[[The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life]]'' (2016), which include escorting six visiting German parliamentarians to a London brothel<ref>{{cite book|first=John|last=le Carré|chapter=Official visit|title=The Pigeon Tunnel. Stories from My Life|isbn=978-0-241-97687-6|year=2016|publisher=Viking }}</ref> and translating at a meeting between a senior German politician and [[Harold Macmillan]].<ref>{{cite book|first=John|last=le Carré|title=The Pigeon Tunnel. Stories from My Life|chapter=Fingers on the trigger|isbn=978-0-241-97687-6|year=2016|publisher=Penguin Books Limited |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSuvCgAAQBAJ&q=harold+macmillan|access-date=14 December 2020|archive-date=14 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201214155126/https://books.google.com/books?id=CSuvCgAAQBAJ&q=harold+macmillan|url-status=live}}</ref> As a journalist, le Carré wrote ''The Unbearable Peace'' (1991), a nonfiction account of Brigadier [[Jean-Louis Jeanmaire]] (1911–1992), the [[Swiss Armed Forces|Swiss Army]] officer, who spied for the Soviet Union from 1962 until 1975.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://granta.com/the-unbearable-peace/ |title=The Unbearable Peace |journal=Granta |first=Sigrid |last=Rausing |author-link=Sigrid Rausing |access-date=4 March 2010 |archive-date=27 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927180843/http://granta.com/the-unbearable-peace/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Credited under his pen name, le Carré appears as an extra in the 2011 [[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)|film version]] of ''[[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy]]'', among the guests at the Christmas party in several flashback scenes. He also appears, in uncredited cameo roles, as a museum usher in ''[[Our Kind of Traitor (film)|Our Kind of Traitor]]'' 2016 , and in the [[BBC]] TV production ''[[The Night Manager (British TV series)|The Night Manager]]'' (2016), as a restaurant diner.
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