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Lädt ... The Secret Life of John Le Carrévon Adam Sisman
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Secrecy came naturally to John le Carre, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy - cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work. In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed. The Secret Life of John le Carre reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. 'Now that he is dead,' Sisman writes, 'we can know him better.' Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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Review of the Harper (US) hardcover (October 24, 2023) of the Profile Books (UK) original (October 12, 2023).
The revelations in The Secret Life of John le Carré do add background to his writing of espionage novels as he apparently carried on a lifetime of extramarital affairs using the various methods used by the spies in his fiction. This included various cut-outs, dead-drops, aliases and safe houses. It all provided fodder for the writing as well, as many lovers would later recognize themselves fictionalized as heroines in the books.
Sisman's book is an addendum to his earlier John le Carré: The Biography (2015) published in Carré's lifetime, for which the biographer agreed to hold back on the author's love life in order to gain access to Carré for personal interviews and private archives.
Not all of this is new to veteran Carré watchers, the writer's own The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971) was a fictionalized account of his affair with Susan Kennaway and his friendship with her husband James Kennaway. At least one lover, Sue Dawson, writing as Suleika Dawson, has penned her own memoir of their affair in The Secret Heart: John le Carré: an intimate memoir (2022).
I read The Secret Life... as part of my current ongoing Carré binge which began with seeing the biographical film The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
Other Reviews
The Constant Philanderer, by Anthony Cummins, The Guardian, October 15, 2023.
Trivia and Links
An earlier article revealed the upcoming publication of The Secret Life... at Biography to Reveal Secrets Held Back While Author Was Alive, by Sarah Shaffi, The Guardian, March 1, 2023.
See photograph at https://media.rightmove.co.uk/49k/48638/139336214/48638_TRS210037_IMG_00_0000.jp...
John le Carré's home in Cornwall, England which was recently put up for sale. Image sourced from RightMove Co. UK. [Note: Links were working as of November 2, 2023. Image and link may no longer be available once the house is sold.] ( )