Is anyone aware of biograpghies or magazine articles giving biographical
information on LeCarre?  I would appreciate any leads.

Mike

A few random thoughts.  Feel free to respond to all, some or none of them.

-The first character mentioned in the text of any published novel by
John Le Carre is Ann Smiley.  Significant?  Probably not.

-If you include Peter Guillam (whose last name is, I understand, the
French version of "William") there are 3 characters named William in
"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

-I find I prefer Michael Jayston to Michael Byrne as Guillam.  Has
anybody any idea why the character was recast for "Smiley's People?"
I suspect it was just one of those actor schedule things.

-The father/son relationship thing crops up quite a bit throughout
JLC's novels (for fairly obvious reasons, considering his personal
history).  At the end of "Single and Single" the father figure seems
to be finally demystified.  Oliver notices how trivial and banal his
father has become.  Opinions?
dylani@...
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
-The Tick

Dylan,

I have read all of LeCarre's books; however, I have never seen one of the
movies that his books were based upon.  How do they stack up to the books?

Also, you made reference to the father figure in his books and mentioned that
this is not surprising considering his history.  Unfortunately, I know very
little about his background.  Would you elaborate on this please?  Thanks.

Mike

At 8:54 PM -0400 7/30/99, Starbuck78@... wrote:
>From: Starbuck78@...
>
>Dylan,
>
>I have read all of LeCarre's books; however, I have never seen one of the
>movies that his books were based upon.  How do they stack up to the books?
>

Variously.  Of the actual theatrical films "The Spy Who Came In From
the Cold" is probably the best.  It is very dark and has, as you
might expect, a very depressing ending.

I enjoyed "The Russia House" even though I thought that Michelle
Pfeiffer was a bit miscast.  It would have killed them to hire a real
European or Russian actress?

"The Little Drummer Girl" has couple of big problems.  One is that
the story is rather oversimplified so that it appears to be merely
pro-Israel, while the book is much more complicated than that.  The
other problem is Diane Keaton.  She is horribly miscast and detracts
from the movie throughout.

There is also a film of "A Call For the Dead" which I haven't seen
but which is supposed to be very good.  Smiley's character is renamed
Dobbs and is played by James Mason.

I also haven't seen the film of "The Looking Glass War."  It has
Anthony Hopkins in it, but it is reputed to not be very good.

Television has been a bit more consistent with his work, I think, and
has done a much better job.  "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and
"Smiley's People" were both made into mini-series with Sir Alec
Guinness and are probably the best dramatic versions of his work.  "A
Perfect Spy" is also good and "A Murder of Quality" is  about as good
as the original book.  Probably because it was scripted by John Le
Carre himself.


>Also, you made reference to the father figure in his books and mentioned that
>this is not surprising considering his history.  Unfortunately, I know very
>little about his background.  Would you elaborate on this please?  Thanks.
>
>Mike

Well, "A Perfect Spy" is essentially an autobiography.  Except for
the bits about spying for Czechoslovakia and shooting himself at the
end.  His father was a small time con-man, cheat, liar, etc. much
like Magnus Pym's father.  I read an interview with Le Carre where he
said that Tiger Single is what his father would have been if he'd
actually made good.

dylani@...
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
-The Tick

First off I'd like to welcome all the new members of this mailing list. It's
not a particularly high-volume list at present but I hope this will change
in future. Please remember to pass on any JlC-related news or rumours you
come across.

I just read an interview with Andrew Davies, the BBC's Costume Drama maestro
in which he states that he is  currently working on a Hollywood adaptation
of the Tailor of Panama. If anyone has any further information on this
(cast, release dates, shooting locations & dates, etc.) please forward them
to this list. Andrew Davies interview at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/bookworm/vanity5.shtml

An excerpt from an interesting, very personal talk given by JlC to the Knopf
sales force on August 12th, 1996:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/lecarre/author.html

cheers

Jim

Has anyone noticed how JLC is moving towards
black comedy? Some of his stuff has several giggles
per page.

On another topic, how successful are his female
characters. Is he really getting inside their skins,
so to speak - to the same degree that Larry
McMurtrey is capable of?

Does anyone know of his nationality? We assume
British, but there often seems to be an Australian
connection.

Warm Regards,

Peter V. Spowart

Peter wrote:
>>Has anyone noticed how JLC is moving towards
black comedy? Some of his stuff has several giggles
per page.

There were some lighter moments in Tailor of Panama and The Russia House but
I wouldn't say JLC's books are moving down the James Bond route (despite the
Sean Connery connection). Can you give us some examples?

>>On another topic, how successful are his female
characters. Is he really getting inside their skins,
so to speak - to the same degree that Larry
McMurtrey is capable of?

I can't compare him to McMurtrey having only read Lonesome Dove, but I
thought Charlie in Little Drummer Girl was an excellent characterisation of
a believable modern young woman. However, in all his other books women play
a marginal role. Anyway, I'm a man so what do I know :)

>>Does anyone know of his nationality? We assume
British, but there often seems to be an Australian
connection.

I don't know of any Australian connection, but then I haven't read any of
the biographies. However the references I've seen only mention England and
Germany as places he's lived.

cheers

Jim

At 3:57 PM +1000 8/24/99, Peter V. Spowart wrote:
>From: "Peter V. Spowart" <builder@...>
>
>Has anyone noticed how JLC is moving towards
>black comedy? Some of his stuff has several giggles
>per page.

I agree.  This is most evident in his last two.  There are a number
of humorous lines throughout Single and Single (the first scene is a
perfect example), and The Tailor of Panama is within shooting
distance of farce.  I found it a welcome change from Our Game, which
I remember as being one of his most grim stories.  Maybe I'm
remembering it as being a bit humorless because I didn't particularly
like the main character, which I think was his intent.  I thought Our
Game was a good book, but I don't think I'll be reading it again soon.

>On another topic, how successful are his female
>characters. Is he really getting inside their skins,
>so to speak - to the same degree that Larry
>McMurtrey is capable of?

I think some authors write the other gender better than others.  This
is true of both men and women.  Le Carre himself goes up and down.
It is possibly significant that his male characters are not usually
successful with women.

>Does anyone know of his nationality? We assume
>British, but there often seems to be an Australian
>connection.

I am pretty sure he is British.

>Warm Regards,
>
>Peter V. Spowart
>
>
>
>
>
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dylani@...
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
-The Tick

On 24 Aug 99, at 8:44, Jim Turner wrote:

> I can't compare him to McMurtrey having only read Lonesome Dove, but I
> thought Charlie in Little Drummer Girl was an excellent characterisation of
> a believable modern young woman. However, in all his other books women play
> a marginal role. Anyway, I'm a man so what do I know :)

Ann Smiley does not, IMO, play a marginal role, nor does Connie.
They play small roles in terms of screen time but critical ones both
for the plot and for the character development. I suspect most of
why women tend to play smaller roles in Le Carre's work than men is
that -- especially at the time his best-known work was written about --
  far more men than women took active roles in foreign intelligence.
Connie is a superb archivist and analyst, and Hilary is mentioned as
having staffed the radio room till she went mad, but otherwise, they
tended to use men to do their work. One of the striking things about
_The Little Drummer Girl_ is the way it plays up the difference
between the relatively inefficient, idealistic British service and the
ruthlessly pragmatic whatever-it-takes attitude of the Mossad, that
would lead them to put an unstable young woman at the center of
things and break her from it without looking back, if that's what would
best get the job done. I don't think his British would have done that...
nor, perhaps, gotten the results his Mossad did.

> >>Does anyone know of his nationality? We assume
> British, but there often seems to be an Australian
> connection.
>
> I don't know of any Australian connection, but then I haven't read any of
> the biographies. However the references I've seen only mention England and
> Germany as places he's lived.

Le Carre is British, lived in Germany for a while when working with
the Service. Possibly, if his own statements about _A Perfect Spy_
are accurate, also as a young man, though I'm not sure how much
he was just setting up his plot there.

> cheers
>
> Jim

	 -Naomi

Anybody wishing to exchange audio tapes, please contact me privately:

jturner@...

cheers

Jim

Hi, I just found out about this list. I've enjoyed all of the books that
I've read by John le Carré. There are a lot of books by le Carré -
I've only read about seven so far. My favorite of the ones I've read is
probably "Our Game". The others I've read are:
"The Tailor of Panama"
"A Murder of Quality"
"The Secret Pilgrim"
"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"
"The Honourable Schoolboy"
"Smiley's People"

I've also recently got to read some books by Len Deighton, which I like
also. I was wondering if these two master spy authors are on record
saying anything about each other/each others' books. I was also
wondering if Le Carré and/or Deighton were in any way influenced by
Ian Fleming. (Although IF's style is very different.)

Thanks. Looking forward to the discussions.

Gavin

LeCarre was influenced by Fleming, but in a more roundabout fashion that you
would suspect.  The former's early books were actually a response to the
James Bond novels, which LeCarre found to be an extreme distortion of how
things really were in the secret world.  Although both authors had
experience with what was politely called "the civil service,"  Fleming
consciouslly wrote escapist fiction, while LeCarre strove for realism.

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: VNPG29@... [SMTP:VNPG29@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 9:19 PM
> To: lecarre@onelist.com
> Subject: [lecarre] New to this list
>
> From: VNPG29@...
>
> Hi, I just found out about this list. I've enjoyed all of the books that
> I've read by John le Carre. There are a lot of books by le Carre -
> I've only read about seven so far. My favorite of the ones I've read is
> probably "Our Game". The others I've read are:
> "The Tailor of Panama"
> "A Murder of Quality"
> "The Secret Pilgrim"
> "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"
> "The Honourable Schoolboy"
> "Smiley's People"
>
> I've also recently got to read some books by Len Deighton, which I like
> also. I was wondering if these two master spy authors are on record
> saying anything about each other/each others' books. I was also
> wondering if Le Carre and/or Deighton were in any way influenced by
> Ian Fleming. (Although IF's style is very different.)
>
> Thanks. Looking forward to the discussions.
>
> Gavin
>
>
>
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>

Mike wrote:

> <mfeinber@...>

>LeCarre was influenced by Fleming, but in a
>more roundabout fashion that you would >suspect. The former's early
books were >actually
>a response to the James Bond novels, which
>LeCarre found to be an extreme distortion of
>how things really were in the secret world.
>Although both authors had experience with
>what was politely called "the civil service,"
>Fleming consciouslly wrote escapist fiction,
>while LeCarre strove for realism.

Mike

You're right. Obviously, le Carré and Deighton strive for the "no
glamor" approach with everyday people doing the "dirty work" in lives
full of danger and tedium, etc. I've read quite of a few of Ian
Fleming's Bond books and they are a little different than the movies.
("The Man with the Golden Gun" for example has a different plot twist
than the movie.) The Bond books definitely glamorize the profession and
(I think) are written in a tongue-in-cheek style. I can appreciate both
approaches and still enjoy sme of those Fleming novels.


Gavin

Hello there,

I'm sorry that I can't provide any new things or web resources, but I
have a question:

After finishing "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" I tried to find the
german version (I live in Germany) of the two other "Quest for Karla"
books. I soon found the third one ("Smiley's People" - "Agent in eigener
Sache" in german), but I am not sure about the second one.
In english it is called "The Honourable Schoolboy", but I don't know,
how it is called in Germany. There also are some other books, where I
don't know the translation. I'm looking for the german translations of:

-) The Honourable Schoolboy
-) The Little Drummer Girl

On the other side I'm looking for the english Titels of the following
books (Why don't they just translate the title LeCarre gave to his
book????) In brackets you find the word-by-word translation:

-) Eine Art Held (Some kind of hero)
-) Die Libelle (The dragonfly)
-) Smiley
-) Ein guter Soldat (A good soldier)

I suspect "The Honourable Schoolboy" to be "Eine Art Held". Furthermore
I think either "Smiley" or "Die Libelle" is "The Little Drummer Girl"
(maybe some of the german titels (eps. Ein guter Soldat) are not books,
but short stories or something similar)

It would be great, if you could help me with this puzzle! And maybe you
know, if the movies in Germany had the same titles as the german books,

Thank you very much!

Andre

I will check on these for you, but meanwhile you should look on the page
containing publishing details at the front of the book, as the original
title is usually given there. If you haven't got the books at home, a trip
to the library should solve these.

cheers

Jim


>
> From: Andre Beckershoff <anbeck@...>
>
> Hello there,
>
> I'm sorry that I can't provide any new things or web resources, but I
> have a question:
>
> After finishing "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" I tried to find the
> german version (I live in Germany) of the two other "Quest for Karla"
> books. I soon found the third one ("Smiley's People" - "Agent in eigener
> Sache" in german), but I am not sure about the second one.
> In english it is called "The Honourable Schoolboy", but I don't know,
> how it is called in Germany. There also are some other books, where I
> don't know the translation. I'm looking for the german translations of:
>
> -) The Honourable Schoolboy
> -) The Little Drummer Girl
>
> On the other side I'm looking for the english Titels of the following
> books (Why don't they just translate the title LeCarre gave to his
> book????) In brackets you find the word-by-word translation:
>
> -) Eine Art Held (Some kind of hero)
> -) Die Libelle (The dragonfly)
> -) Smiley
> -) Ein guter Soldat (A good soldier)
>
> I suspect "The Honourable Schoolboy" to be "Eine Art Held". Furthermore
> I think either "Smiley" or "Die Libelle" is "The Little Drummer Girl"
> (maybe some of the german titels (eps. Ein guter Soldat) are not books,
> but short stories or something similar)
>
> It would be great, if you could help me with this puzzle! And maybe you
> know, if the movies in Germany had the same titles as the german books,
>
> Thank you very much!
>
> Andre
>
>
>
>
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> www.onelist.com, and select the User Center link from the menu bar
> on the left. This menu will also let you change your subscription
> between digest and normal mode.
>
>

Andre,

My German is terrible but I think that "Ein guter Soldat" is probably "A
Perfect Spy."

Cheers,

John H...

Hello to everyone.
I enlisted a couple of months ago just before I went
on vacation  and so my apologies for not contributing
immediately but I have been reading your emails while
travelling though I did not have any time to reply.
I have seen "The Russia House" on VHS and am curious
if there are other lecarre VHS tapes released abroad
(outside US and UK). Unfortunately here in the
Philippines Lecarre resources, except maybe books, are
very scarce.
Thanks,
Alvin L.

--- JHatzadony@... wrote:
> From: JHatzadony@...
>
> Andre,
>
> My German is terrible but I think that "Ein guter
> Soldat" is probably "A
> Perfect Spy."
>
> Cheers,
>
> John H...
>
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On 99-09-16 20:24 -0700 sez Alsteel:

> [...] here in the Philippines Lecarre resources,
> except maybe books, are very scarce.

   LC writes only books, what other 'resources' of his were
   you expecting.... artsy video installation; a ballet? ;-))

       However, as regards scarcity of our fav author's books,
       there actually is something you could do, we all could do
       about it. Primarily, turn the cone of his attention towards
       specific topics for treatment -- that's how fictionalized
       tales come about, someone influences an author to write
       about something..... [hmmmm, sounds like I'm paraphrasing
       "The Sirens of Titan"]. For instance that's how "Schindler's
       Ark" came about: Thomas Kenneally went out to buy a suitcase
       in Beverly Hills and told the shop's proprietor that he was
       a writer. Whereupon Leonard Pfefferberg, one of "Schindler's
       Jews", challenged him to write the story. And the rest is,
       as they say in the trades, an Oscar.


   Take the Philippines; never been there but could very well
   imagine it a country, and a region, that's ripe of LeCarre's
   penmanship: a post-colonial society with a rich culturally and
   politically diversified multiracial population; Catholic Church
   in turmoil; Chinese triads fighting with Muslim gangsters; lots
   of internal conflict; larger than life Imelda Marcos with shoe
   fetish; US influence now-on-the-wane-now-on-the-rise; corruption
   galore, the works.

   Sounds like prime conditions for another "tailor of Panama, bar
   the canal", doesn't it?

   I'm sure JLC would have found just the right mix of ingredients
   to spice it up, and in the Hollywood version we could always have
   a car chase involving colorful Jeepneys barrelling down the hill
   towards the harbour harbouring[sic] modern-day pirates. There,
   I said it! just by verbalizing the issue I found a theme worthy
   of LeCarre's time: high-seas/ high-tech piracy! Who profits from
   it; lots of scenes in Lloyd's of London, Insurers to the Crown,
   stuffy boardroom  NEED I SAY MORE.


         Maybe we should turn ourseves into a net.lit.conspiracy
         with the expressed goal of making LC write the books we
         are missing. He doesn't do e-mail, but he has a research
         assistant who trails the Internet so sooner or later she's
         bound to bump into the archives of this list and report to
         the boss. And Le Carre loves a good cabal.... ;-))


__Ian

p.s. right now JLC's attending the Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden's
      second largest city. Looking fit as ever on the telly; had
      we gotten our conspiracy together, I could have buttonholed
      him right there. Oh, well, another lost opportunity to become
      a footnote in future biographers' immortal works (saved me
      a trip to Göteborg though, always something).

Re the forming a group to nudge JLC into his next theme -
great idea, but do we really want another Tailor of Panama,
another "comedy of errors"? I would personally prefer JLC
getting back into the British spy mode with another Smiley
book... never say never again!

Hallo!

The honourable Schoolboy = Eine Art Held
The little drummer girl=Die Libelle
Smiley=Zusammenfassung von diverse Originaltiteln - meines wissens, kein
Original Pendant
Ein guter Soldat erschien nie in Englisch, es ist eine Untersuchung eines
Skandals aus den 50/60 Jahre wo ein Schweizer Soldat verhaftet wurde.

Die Übersetzungspolitik ist manchmal zum kotzen, manchmal
erstklassig............. müssen wir alle mitleben! Als Exil Brite bin ich
aber froh, die Originale zuerst zu lesen, bevor ich mich über die  Deutsche
Übersetzung ärgere!

Beste Grüße

Mike Duffin, Detmold, Germany

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Andre Beckershoff [mailto:anbeck@...]
Gesendet am: Donnerstag, 16. September 1999 18:06
An: lecarre@onelist.com
Betreff: [lecarre] German Titles

From: Andre Beckershoff <anbeck@...>

Hello there,

I'm sorry that I can't provide any new things or web resources, but I
have a question:

After finishing "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" I tried to find the
german version (I live in Germany) of the two other "Quest for Karla"
books. I soon found the third one ("Smiley's People" - "Agent in eigener
Sache" in german), but I am not sure about the second one.
In english it is called "The Honourable Schoolboy", but I don't know,
how it is called in Germany. There also are some other books, where I
don't know the translation. I'm looking for the german translations of:

-) The Honourable Schoolboy
-) The Little Drummer Girl

On the other side I'm looking for the english Titels of the following
books (Why don't they just translate the title LeCarre gave to his
book????) In brackets you find the word-by-word translation:

-) Eine Art Held (Some kind of hero)
-) Die Libelle (The dragonfly)
-) Smiley
-) Ein guter Soldat (A good soldier)

I suspect "The Honourable Schoolboy" to be "Eine Art Held". Furthermore
I think either "Smiley" or "Die Libelle" is "The Little Drummer Girl"
(maybe some of the german titels (eps. Ein guter Soldat) are not books,
but short stories or something similar)

It would be great, if you could help me with this puzzle! And maybe you
know, if the movies in Germany had the same titles as the german books,

Thank you very much!

Andre




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At 1:09 PM +1000 9/18/99, Peter V. Spowart wrote:
>From: "Peter V. Spowart" <builder@...>
>
>Re the forming a group to nudge JLC into his next theme -
>great idea, but do we really want another Tailor of Panama,
>another "comedy of errors"? I would personally prefer JLC


For one, I really enjoyed ToP.  It made a refreshing change from Our
Game, which I thought was an excellent book, but unrelentingly grim.

>getting back into the British spy mode with another Smiley
>book... never say never again!

While I think that George Smiley is one of the great all-time
characters of fiction, and certainly the spy genre, I also think that
he is of the past.  As a character, I believe he worked best in the
cold-war era, offering a counterpoint to the institutionalized
inhumanity on both sides.  (I will not, at this point, offer my views
of his transformation throughout Smiley's People).

Anyway, I don't think that Smiley would fit in most of the stories Le
Carre has told since Smiley's People.  Can you imagine how Smiley
would have dealt with the terrorists in the Little Drummer Girl or
Roper in the Night Manager or Hoban/the Orlov Brothers in Single and
Single?  It's a different war now, and Smiley's methods would be of
scarce use.

Finally, I don't think that Le Carre's books can simply be boiled
down to their subject matter (drugs for guns, Caucasian civil wars or
whatever).  Toward the end of the Secret Pilgrim, Smiley says "I only
ever cared about the man."  And I think that is true of Le Carre as
well.  His books have themes that go well beyond his genre.  Single
and Single has for its subject money laundering for Russian gangsters
(Le Carre being prophetic again) but what the book is actually
*about* is a man struggling with love, loyalty, morality, justice and
his relationship with his father.  This is what separates him from
the herd of genre hacks who couldn't get published after the fall of
the Berlin Wall.

>
>
>>To unsubscribe from this list, go to the ONElist web site, at
>www.onelist.com, and select the User Center link from the menu bar
>on the left. This menu will also let you change your subscription
>between digest and normal mode.

dylanw@...
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
-The Tick

I agree that a modern-day Smiley wouldn't work - the man's probably been
dead the past 15 years - but why not a Smiley prequel?

Jim
>
> From: Dylan Winslow <dylanw@...>
>
> At 1:09 PM +1000 9/18/99, Peter V. Spowart wrote:
> >From: "Peter V. Spowart" <builder@...>
> >
> >Re the forming a group to nudge JLC into his next theme -
> >great idea, but do we really want another Tailor of Panama,
> >another "comedy of errors"? I would personally prefer JLC
>
>
> For one, I really enjoyed ToP.  It made a refreshing change from Our
> Game, which I thought was an excellent book, but unrelentingly grim.
>
> >getting back into the British spy mode with another Smiley
> >book... never say never again!
>
> While I think that George Smiley is one of the great all-time
> characters of fiction, and certainly the spy genre, I also think that
> he is of the past.  As a character, I believe he worked best in the
> cold-war era, offering a counterpoint to the institutionalized
> inhumanity on both sides.  (I will not, at this point, offer my views
> of his transformation throughout Smiley's People).
>
> Anyway, I don't think that Smiley would fit in most of the stories Le
> Carre has told since Smiley's People.  Can you imagine how Smiley
> would have dealt with the terrorists in the Little Drummer Girl or
> Roper in the Night Manager or Hoban/the Orlov Brothers in Single and
> Single?  It's a different war now, and Smiley's methods would be of
> scarce use.
>
> Finally, I don't think that Le Carre's books can simply be boiled
> down to their subject matter (drugs for guns, Caucasian civil wars or
> whatever).  Toward the end of the Secret Pilgrim, Smiley says "I only
> ever cared about the man."  And I think that is true of Le Carre as
> well.  His books have themes that go well beyond his genre.  Single
> and Single has for its subject money laundering for Russian gangsters
> (Le Carre being prophetic again) but what the book is actually
> *about* is a man struggling with love, loyalty, morality, justice and
> his relationship with his father.  This is what separates him from
> the herd of genre hacks who couldn't get published after the fall of
> the Berlin Wall.
>
> >
> >
> >>To unsubscribe from this list, go to the ONElist web site, at
> >www.onelist.com, and select the User Center link from the menu bar
> >on the left. This menu will also let you change your subscription
> >between digest and normal mode.
>
> dylanw@...
> "Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you
> are of them."
> -The Tick
>
> > To unsubscribe from this list, go to the ONElist web site, at
> www.onelist.com, and select the User Center link from the menu bar
> on the left. This menu will also let you change your subscription
> between digest and normal mode.
>
>

We recently learnt that John Le Carre has a researcher who trawls the net
looking for themes and probably finding references to John Le Carre also. So
how do we get a discussion group which is being conducted by e-mail noticed
by "the search engines"? The engines spider web pages not e-mail as such.
Does somebody want to volunteer to archive this correspondence on some site
somewhere - if this is the correct way to proceed? - or is this being done
already, excuse my ignorance.

                                         -    -    *    -    -

A prequel would be able to go into Smiley's marital relations in
more detail, and is there a son or a nephew somewhere?
Was the suspicion of there being a mole at the Circus engendered by
something that happened to George Smiley earlier on?
What cases really made Smiley's reputation?

If there was a son or a nephew (or even a daughter or niece!) she may appear
in a future book (if she just happened to go into a
similar line of business) and use the modern technology against
today's threats.

Jim Turner wrote:

> From: "Jim Turner" <jturner@...>
>
> I agree that a modern-day Smiley wouldn't work - the man's probably been
> dead the past 15 years - but why not a Smiley prequel?
>
> Jim

We recently learnt that John Le Carre has a researcher who trawls the net
looking for themes and probably finding references to John Le Carre also. So
how do we get a discussion group which is being conducted by e-mail noticed
by "the search engines"? The engines spider web pages not e-mail as such.
Does somebody want to volunteer to archive this correspondence on some site
somewhere - if this is the correct way to proceed? - or is this being done
already, excuse my ignorance.

                                         -    -    *    -    -

A prequel would be able to go into Smiley's marital relations in
more detail, and is there a son or a nephew somewhere?
Was the suspicion of there being a mole at the Circus engendered by
something that happened to George Smiley earlier on?
What cases really made Smiley's reputation?

If there was a son or a nephew (or even a daughter or niece!) she may appear
in a future book (if she just happened to go into a
similar line of business) and use the modern technology against
today's threats.

Jim Turner wrote:

> From: "Jim Turner" <jturner@...>
>
> I agree that a modern-day Smiley wouldn't work - the man's probably been
> dead the past 15 years - but why not a Smiley prequel?
>
> Jim

Note from the peanut gallery: read Secret Pilgrim.   LeCarre makes it very
clear, through Smiley, that there will be no more Smiley  novels. There's plenty
in the Smiley books to last through many years of re-readings.  His new books
are wonderful in their own terms.  LeCarre is above all topical, or should I say
prophetic?  He's an artist, not a hack spy writer. Allow him to grow and change
and write comedy as well as tragedy. "That whole era's dead." Let the man eschew
nostalgia.
	 Despite this, I too would love to read' Smiley's Memoirs'.
But there is as much chance of that as of his writing an
autobiography, and for the same reasons. He already has, and the hell
with the readers who don't realize that.
   Joan, (the spouse)
Dylan Winslow & Joan Souilliere
dylanw@...
http://www.xmission.com/~dylanw (for what it's worth)
"...but then I think that rain is wet so who am I to judge?"

Hello there everyone.  I was just wondering if anyone knew of an address
(not email) at which one could contact John LeCarre.  At the risk of
betraying my motivations in asking these questions, does anyone know if he
will sign books if they are sent to him?  Thank you in advance to anyone who
answers these enquiries.

							 Mike

___________________
Michael I. Feinberg
Bank One Plaza
One First National Plaza
Chicago, Il, 60603
312-456-5397
mfeinber@...

At 11:59 AM -0500 9/23/99, Feinberg, Michael wrote:
>From: "Feinberg, Michael" <mfeinber@...>
>
>Hello there everyone.  I was just wondering if anyone knew of an address
>(not email) at which one could contact John LeCarre.  At the risk of
>betraying my motivations in asking these questions, does anyone know if he
>will sign books if they are sent to him?  Thank you in advance to anyone who
>answers these enquiries.
>
> 					 Mike
>

As far as I know, he can be contacted via his publishers, Simon &
Shuster.  I have heard that he will sign books sent to him for that
purpose.  Including a return envelope with postage would no doubt
help.

dylanw@...
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
-The Tick

He had a fairly extensive book signing and lecture tour in the US when Single &
Single was published.  I couldn't work my schedule out to make any of
them--more's the pity.  Did anyone manage to see him or hear him while he was
here?
Faith

In a message dated 10/5/99 8:49:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
lecarre-owner@onelist.com writes:

<< jturner@...
   >>
thanks--I was pleased to see that there was a Le Carre list.  We had had a
very active and interesting discussion group for awhile on an AOL authors'
list but of late interest has died out and I miss not having a place to share
ideas.  If I want to check previous messages do I have to click each archive
listing--I guess there are no subject listings on onelist--or are there? I
don't want to repeat something that may have already been discussed.
Thanks for starting the listing.
Faith Ingles