The Lively Arts: John le Carré

Broadcast on BBC2, 25 September 1977.
"John le Carré is among the world’s best-selling novelists. Ever since The Spy Who Came In from the Cold was published in 1963, a new le Carré novel has been a major event in the publishing world. His last book, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, was an immediate best-seller, and his new book just out, The Honourable Schoolboy, looks set to repeat the success.
"Melvyn Bragg talks to John le Carré at his home in Cornwall about his life and novels. Also in the programme is le Carré’s dramatisation of a section from one of his earlier novels, Call for the Dead."

[@kirkmattoon2594]

That was terrific. It could only have happened on British television, and only then, before it was dumbed down. Of course Melvyn Bragg is as perceptive and intelligent in his interviews now as then, but even he couldn't get TV time now for such an interview. I've recently watched a bunch of John le Carré's interviews on KZbin, and though there's not a bad one in the bunch, this is by far the best.

[@drparnassus2867]

le Carré seems so much more comfortable in his own skin as an older man than in early interviews that watching footage of him across the years is like an advert for the pleasures of ageing.

[@andrewsweeney7285]

I don't know. He seemed to laugh and enjoy himself several times in this discussion. As he got older, he seemed to me to more grave and serious in his demeanour.

[@wolves7655]

What I find puzzling about this interesting interview is that it is briefly intersperced with visual clips of Sir Alec Guiness as George Smiley from the series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This programme was shown in September 1977 but the tv series was first broadcast two years later.

[@GrumpyYank26]

fabulous. melvyn Bragg and Cornwell are a great match.

[@colinstewart7123]

Le Carré is one of my all time favourite human beings. Single handedly raises the spy novel to the level of high art. The moral ambiguity of his characters, the refusal to simplify the complexity of the cold war, this guy is the best 👌

[@nickellingham1764]

I completely agree. He is dearly missed. ❤️. Do you like A Perfect Spy? Few lecarre fans I talk to seem to rate it but to me it's easily his best stand alone book. Magnus Pym is the best and most thoroughly written charictor I have encountered in any book by anyone. Every charictor in that book feel so real. I must have read it 5 times now and can't imagine ever tiring of it

[@fabiengerard8142]

As far as I remember, Graham Greene’s ‘The Human Factor’ wasn’t bad at all either.

[@SamuelDaram]

This John le Carre documentary is a real treat. Thank you so much.

[@albertmcmullen2669]

John Le Carre's accent as undergone a metamorphosis since the early interviews in the sixties. Less of an Oxbridge accent, to a more relaxed speech. Le Carre, is also an actor.

[@21stCen]

Fascinating. Also, he mentions elsewhere how he became more chaotic and looser as he grew older.

[@pallhe]

Great interview. I love the atmospherics. You almost expect Smiley in the guise of Alec Guinness to enter the room at any minute, cleaning his specs with the end of his tie.

[@tamanpemikir6646]

I really appreciated listening to this interview, but for reasons that are probably rather unusual. I have lately become interested in how great creative figures got involved in doing deep cognitive work, and how they arranged their lives in order to do that work. It has seemed natural to me to study writers as one kind of creative cognitive workers. I am glad that the interviewer here asked le Carre lots of questions about how he became a writer and how he arranged his life in order to devote himself to writing. I had been afraid that the interviewer would focus mainly on John le Carre's involvement in and knowledge of the spy world, but thankfully he touched it only in passing. On the other hand, I learned a lot about the creative process from listening to this interview. Would that there were more interviews like it!

[@guidomotshagen7541]

Rest in Peace, Sir.

[@Sliverth]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@Reticence9zen924]

His old English sheepdog is gorgeous. :)

[@lisawilliams7836]

Thank you very much 😊

[@abdulrehmanbinabbas6063]

Loved every minute of it.

[@ferguscullen8451]

Really great interview. Thanks for uploading.

[@kathleankeesler1639]

Thank you.

[@21stCen]

You’re very welcome! 😊

[@yohei72]

20:38 - "... our posture in the West is that we give the maximum amount of freedom to every individual..." To be clear from the start, le Carré is one of my favorite authors, and I admire his attempt to take a morally nuanced position in his analysis here (as in his novels), but I have to call out this statement as balderdash. The shackling of large portions of the population in poverty and discrimination, for the benefit of an economic and ethnic elite, is hardly maximum freedom. The domination of Jim Crow law in a huge portion of the USA for a century or more - up until shortly before he gave this interview - by itself gives the lie to this claim. More freedom than the state communism of the USSR and China and the like? Sure, but that's a low bar. Given what I know about le Carré's political stances in more recent years, I'd like to think he's less naïve about such claims now.

[@adamsmith5417]

Calling it a 'posture' suggests he doesn't necessarily believe it

[@yohei72]

@@adamsmith5417 Hm, interesting point. Hadn't thought about it that way - there may be something to that.

[@liamwolfe7274]

53:29 I would love to have read that country Irish novel he mentions. RIP John le Carrè

[@HomeAtLast501]

I want to be an adult in the '70s.

[@matthewfarmer2520]

I was at a book sale this padt Friday in August at the historic locust Grove and got just one of his books for $2.00 and some DVDs to add to my collection lol. The Russian House 1989 📖

[@j.burgess4459]

15:20 "...and I walked away thinking 'I don't give a hoot whether we get into the Common Market or not'..." Hmm...some interesting historical words from John le Carré - who is today that arch-critic of Brexit and stout defender of British EU membership...

[@nousername123451]

Jay Burgess the world he worked in was different to today, Britain still had an international role outside the Common market, it really does not today apart from being a place ripe for destruction at the hands of American, Chinese and Indian billionaires.

[@keithm257]

so good

[@marietjieluyt7619]

What a hairstyle. That was then.

[@lisahyyppa3360]

Judges 13 King James Version 13 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. 2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. 3 And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. 4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing: 5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name: 7 But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. 8 Then Manoah intreated the Lord, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. 9 And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day. 11 And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. 12 And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him? 13 And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. 14 She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe. 15 And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. 16 And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord. 17 And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour? 18 And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? 19 So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord: and the angel did wonderously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. 20 For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. 21 But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord. 22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. 23 But his wife said unto him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. 24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

[@drparnassus2867]

John 11.35 King James Version Jesus wept.

[@lisahyyppa3360]

@@drparnassus2867 kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWKwaZ1ujZ2gjpY

[@luckyswine]

Le Carre is frequently typed INTP in mbti but I see INFJ with Te polr here. No sense of direction, social watcher, moral critic of institutions, verbal gift for precision and economy, socially warm, vain, intensely private.

[@supersonique001]

What an incredibly boring man which is why I never liked his writing! His books mirror this boring attitude and fuzzy intellectualism of British intelligence agencies. His only work which I value was the series 'The night Manager' on BBC which persuaded me to read the original book even though painfully long and unexciting . It's telling that the British services were infected with so many moles, socialists, traitors and homosexuals belonging to the old boys network! Thank God Ian Fleming was not like that !

[@21stCen]

Says you, my friend.

[@noraxi5702]

how old are you?What authors are entertaining to you?

[@noraxi5702]

Constant gardener is very good forr you,it is not boring at all

[@drparnassus2867]

@@noraxi5702 "infected with homosexuals"? This man is clearly a time traveller from the '50s.

[@pamelacorbett8774]

Boring?? If you never liked his writing, why listen to this interview?

[@movingpicutres99]

Thank you.