"Engagement, escape, engagement, escape."

October 11, 2010 10:00 AM

"In the making of character, I feel completely happy. [...] I get two innocent people into a Hitchcockian muddle and make them fight their way out. But from scene to scene, they have to lead me. [...] To me, that is the whole of life. I can’t put it differently." Today's Democracy Now! features an extended interview with John le Carré on topics from Tony Blair, geopolitics, and money laundering to the novelist's life and work.
posted by RogerB (8 comments total)

Relatedly.
posted by chavenet at 10:02 AM on October 11, 2010

I can't wait to listen to this. I love le Carré and am so looking forward to this. I have to say, however, that, beginning with The Constant Gardner, everything he's written has been more overtly political and terribly sad. Such wonderful books.

[p.s. if you want to be one of the cool kids and use the accented é the html code is

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posted by mecran01 at 10:13 AM on October 11, 2010

I really enjoyed listening to this, thanks. Not sure if its still fair to say since he is widely acclaimed as a writer, not just a spy writer, but Le Carre is highly under-rated. A very talented and thoughtful man.
posted by Rumple at 2:01 PM on October 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

I also enjoyed the bbc interview previously featured here about the state of civil liberties in the Coalition
posted by volt4ire at 2:04 PM on October 11, 2010

Thanks very much for this; I think I value David Cornwell's interviews and views more than his works, so moral and thoughtful and eloquent. I wish he would appear in the US media more often, I'm sad to hear that this is his last such interview.
posted by Auden at 2:56 PM on October 11, 2010

It seems there are still no grounds for complaining that Amy Goodman and co. are off-puttingly slick...
posted by darth_tedious at 4:09 PM on October 11, 2010

There was also a very interesting interview with John Le Carré and Eleanor Wachtel on CBC yesterday.
posted by sneebler at 9:34 PM on October 11, 2010

> I'm not sure I understand this statement. Goodman is pretty slick, I guess, but off-puttingly so?

Actually, I was commenting, in a roundabout way, on how puppy-dog earnest and also oddly clumsy and not-ready-for-primetime she seems; in this footage, she and her sidekick seem as though they were quite unprepared to go on camera, as though they were busy dredging into files and, Ho, What's This? We Have to Go On TV? Wait, Wait, I Need to Find My Notes...
posted by darth_tedious at 10:23 PM on October 11, 2010