Editing John le Carré (section)

===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" />