1931-2020: A tribute to John Le Carré, the grand poet of lies

Perhaps, at the very heart of David Cornwell’s great art — and double-edged appreciation — of deception was the choice of his pseudonym: John le Carré.

Le Carré provided several explanations to his nom de guerre, but none of them was quite convincing, especially since he later revealed himself to be a British operative. But what will be known is that the ‘poet of lies’ — who as a boy ‘explained’ his father’s long absences by describing him as a ‘spy’ — was much more than a writer of masterful spy novels.

In books such as The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), Smiley’s People (1979) and Our Kind of Traitor (2010), Le Carré charted the proverbial human condition of ‘keeping things to oneself’, subterfuge and, of course, secrets. In a way, he was, après Niccolò Machiavelli the grand chronicler of ‘alt facts’.

Le Carré was a product of his times — the post-World War 2 ice-skating rink that was the Cold War.

He also gave us the shadowy counterpart to the Technicolour glitz of James Bond, his George Smiley and Co being both ingredients and products of an information and misinformation environment that was less about being ‘martini shaken, not stirred’ and more about why ‘a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world’.

Le Carré’s world may now seem archaic, but it is not. Lies abound. Except probably with less quietude.