Spies, Sex, and John le Carré

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Society & Culture

4.4 • 679 Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1963, a British spy writing under the pen name John le Carré published a novel that shot to the top of best-seller lists worldwide. After the success of “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” le Carré became known as the king of the modern spy thriller, and his gritty, political books helped define the genre until his death, in 2020. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz dive deep into the le Carré œuvre, delighting in the “glorious confusion” of works like “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “The Constant Gardener,” and “A Perfect Spy.” They also discuss le Carré’s life in light of two retrospectives out this month: “The Pigeon Tunnel,” an Errol Morris documentary on Apple TV+; and “The Secret Life of John le Carré,” an addendum to Adam Sisman’s definitive biography that exposes decades of affairs in which the novelist ran women like agents. With these details as a jumping-off point, the hosts explore the themes of intimacy and romance across the spy genre, including the Martini-soaked romps of Ian Fleming’s James Bond and the FX show “The Americans,” where romance functions as a metaphor for spycraft. “One question I’m asking is, Why are sex and love so much part of the archetype of the spy?” Schwartz says. “When you’re pretending and playing at being so many different things, love is usually one place where the truth must out.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Critics at Large, a new podcast from The New Yorker.
0:07.4	I'm Alex Schwartz.
0:08.7	I'm Vincent Cunningham.
0:09.9	And I'm Nomi Fry.
0:11.1	Hello, my friends.
0:12.0	Hey.
0:12.7	Hello.
0:16.9	We are all staff writers at The New Yorker.
0:19.0	And each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here.
0:24.5	And so today, we are talking about a writer.
0:28.0	I love John Le Carre, king of the literary spy thriller.
0:32.2	You know, I've been reading Le Carre for years at this point, also listening to him on audiobook.
0:36.6	I think he makes a great... The Le Carre O years at this point, also listening to him on audiobook. I think he makes a great...
0:38.3	The Le Carre Ove is just great in audio form, I will say. And I'm totally addicted, basically.
0:46.3	You know, I try to paste them out so that I don't just race through all of his books. So just to, you know, bring in anyone who has not been a LeCarrie head. I know not
0:57.3	everyone in this very room is LeCarray head, but we're going to get there. Right. We'll get there.
1:01.0	We'll get there. John LeCarray, the pen name of David Cornwell. LeCarray was a pseudonym that he
1:08.0	adopted when he began to write his books because when he began to write,
1:12.4	he himself was a spy. He worked both for MI5 domestically and MI6 abroad in Bonn, Germany,
1:18.6	where he was when he published The Spy Who Came In from the Cold in 1963, his third novel
1:25.1	that shot up everywhere on bestseller lists around the world. And ever since then,
1:29.8	he's really been synonymous with the genre up until his death in 2020. You know, I'd say that LeCherry has been essential in shaping the very fabric of the modern spy thriller.
	...

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