I started reading John le Carre (aka, David Cornwell) in the 1970s and continued reading his spy novels over the decades. If you’re a le Carre fan like me, you’ll enjoy Errol Morris’s fascinating film, The Pigeon Tunnel, where le Carre talks about his novels and his bizarre childhood that did so much to affect his life and his writing.
Le Carre’s father was a con man. Ronnie Cornwell, le Carre’s conniving father, was involved in dubious (and criminal) enterprises all of his Life. Le Carre’s mother abandons her wayward husband and two sons by walking away from the mess. Le Carre was 5 years old.
Le Carre admits that he never fit into the social class his father projected him into. He told his father he was studying Law at Oxford University when in fact he studied Modern Languages. Le Carre was recruited to be a British spy. He didn’t like the first intelligence agency and moved to a second intelligence agency. He didn’t like that either…and turned to writing.
Le Carre’s experience in the world of spies led him to write about double agents and moles. Morris includes film from some of the movies based on le Carre’s spy novels. Le Carre says that all of his books started out with the working title of The Pigeon Tunnel. That title comes from the time le Carre and his father were at a hotel in Monte Carlo where pigeons were forced to fly down a tunnel and exit above the hotel where they became targets of guests with shotguns who shot at them. The pigeons that survived would fly back to the hotel’s roof cages where they would tempt death all over again the next day.
Le Carre died in 2020 so this film captures his final thoughts on his work and his Life. I found this to be an engrossing and brilliant expose of one of our great spy writers. GRADE: A
It does sound promising.
Todd, le Carre stresses that “betrayal” was central to his father’s Life. By inference, le Carre–as a spy–dealt in betrayal and double dealing.
Le Carre’s son has now published under at least 2 bylines now, as well.
Todd, most sons of Famous Writers don’t have the success of their fathers.
Usually, no, but if one has a potential audience of one’s own, and something new to say to them, one can make a life for one’s self, as those ranging from Joe Hill (Owen Hill to some extent as well) to the kids of Conrad Aiken to Carol Higgins Clark and on to Richard Christian Matheson have demonstrated, among others.
OK, let’s try Owen King, rather than “Hill”…not to lose him in the trail of his brother any more than his father (and his mother Tabitha King has also published).