Know Your Enemy
patreon
Le Carré's Cold War (w/ Jamelle Bouie & John Ganz)
🕑 Added 2023-02-22 18:42:25 +0000 UTCJamelle Bouie (of the NYTimes) and John Ganz (of Unpopular Front) join for a spirited discussion of the 1984 film "The Little Drummer Girl," starring Diane Keaton — an adaptation of John le Carré's 1983 novel of the same name.
We approach the film — which, it turns out, is not very good — with the same analytical rigor that Jamelle and John bring to their own podcast, "Unclear and Present Danger," which focuses on the post-Cold War thrillers of the 1990s. We wind up talking about why the film doesn't work and about le Carré's ambiguous approach to spy fiction, in particular, how his perspective differs from other British chroniclers of Cold War espionage, like Ian Flemming and Graham Greene.
In what ways does le Carré's approach represent an essentially (small-c) conservative disposition? And why is it so attractive to all of us? Listen to find out!
Recommended Reading:
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Father of All Secrets," The Baffler, Dec 2022.
Laura Marsh, "The Nonconformist," NYRB, Feb 2022.
Nicholas Dames, "Coming in from the Cold," n+1, Spring 2018.
John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983.
Tim Cornwell ed., A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré, Random House, Jan 2023.
Comments
Dmitry Samarov
Loved this movie based on a La Carre book, starring James Mason and Simone Signoret: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deadly_Affair
Adam Blistein
Also, based on 30-year-old memories, I want to recommend Le Carre reading his own audiobooks. My experience was strictly with books on (literal) tapes, and I have no idea if these are available digitally. Oddly enough, I think he read only abridged versions of his own stuff. (You could get unabridged, but not by him.) The feature that sticks with me was that he was a master of various accents when he was giving dialogue, and I thought his Israeli accent in Little Drummer Girl was particularly good.
Adam Blistein
Agree with Jamelle that Le Carre regularly shows decent people doing their work well but to no good effect, and that life is often like that. Conservatives are wrong, however, to say that means there's no point in trying to change the world. As Lyle Lovett (and Camus) tell us, you have to try.
Peter Hovde
Pretty damn good-and no grounds to even fret a little about the Zizek thing (not that I would anyway).
Know Your Enemy
The Perfect Spy, a nearly perfect book!!! (-Sam)
Peter Hovde
"There never was a by-election like it, Tom, there never was an election like it. We are born, we get married, we divorce, we die. But somewhere along the way, if we get the chance, we should also stand as Liberal Candidate for the ancient fishing and weaving constituency of Gulworth North situated in the remoter fens of East Anglia in the unlit post-war years before television replaced the Temperance Hall, and communications were such that a man's character could be born again by removing it a hundred and fifty miles north of London."
Bob Scott Placier
This was excellent, gentlemen. Really hope it will happen again.
TowerOfJon
Loved this episode. It put me in mind of a piece from a decade ago by the documentarian Adam Curtis. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460 He argues (I thought quite persuasively) that le Carré's portrait of the secret services as riven with elaborate plots and betrayal is in its way as much a fantasy as Fleming's Bond's derring-do, and is riffing on the paranoid fantasies of reactionaries like James Jesus Angleton and Peter Wright. I haven't read it for a while but I found it very compelling and it certainly influenced my view of spycraft – while not diminishing my enjoyment of le Carré in any way.
giulietta karras
Loved this episode. So much fun. Please do this podcast crossover again. Have you seen the 1986 BBC adaptation of The Perfect Spy? If so what did you think about. Certainly the least discussed adaptation of Le Carre's work.
Know Your Enemy
I originally suggested we watch that (which I love) but the other busy boys didn’t have enough time. I recommend it on the episode. (-Sam)
Joshua Freund
The 2018 remake series for BBC/AMC by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, etc), starring Micheal Shannon, Florence Pugh, and Alexander Skarsgård is stylistically dope AF and super fun to watch, even if it suffers from the same political ambivalence...just sayin'
Levi
Yesssssssssssss
Allen
Oh hell yes
