A spy-writer’s Delicate Truth

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I first met John le Carré at Oxford University’s Encaenia garden party in June this year. I was a Chevening Scholar at the university, and Le Carré was there, along with Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and four others, to receive an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. Le Carré, 81, was pleased with the university honour, and told me he had just that morning finished writing — literally, because he writes by hand — his newest novel. But more than all that, he was pleased, indeed he almost felt personally blessed, that Ms Suu Kyi was present there that day. We chatted for about 10 minutes, and at the end of it he agreed to give me an interview and invited me to his estate in Cornwall.
In his first ever interview to an Indian newspaper, Le Carré, the author of 22 novels, including such all-time bestsellers as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy reveals his forthcoming thriller. Excerpts:

Could you tell us a bit about your own days as an intelligence officer? What do you remember the most? What do you cherish/abhor the most?

I never discuss my (uneventful) intelligence past. What I miss most is the good company I enjoyed in those days. What I abhor is the notion that intelligence agencies are the divinely appointed keepers of some secret reality. They are frequently the reverse.

I was intrigued that you chose New Delhi for the first Smiley-Karla (in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) encounter, that you suggested that in those days of close India-Soviet relations, the Indians would arrest a Soviet agent and give the British access to him! Is there a real background to it?

I was assuming that a deal could be struck with the Indian intelligence authorities that would overlook India-Soviet relations at that time. I was also well aware of Indian interrogation methods.

George Smiley (an intelligence officer working for MI6) and your novels are, of course, rooted in reality, but have you been tempted to create Bond-like fiction?

I am not sure that my novels are any more rooted in reality than (Ian) Fleming’s. In story-writing, credibility matters more than authenticity. Moral ambiguity cuts deeper than bravado.

You don’t type or use a computer word processor. Why? And how did you manage to do that through what has been the “age of the computer?” How does it affect your writing technique, method and discipline?

I started my writing with a pen, riding on trains and buses. In British government services in those days, few of us well-educated, privileged gentlemen knew how to use a typewriter. But I am comforted by the knowledge that the great legacy of English writing was done by hand, and we have yet to see how the ease of a computer affects the process of thoughtful composition.

Do you think the British and US intelligence agencies are to be blamed for Iraq War 2003, not their political leaderships? Does Europe remain a playground for its spy agencies? Just recently, British foreign secretary William Hague said he planned to recruit young people as “apprentice spies” for GCHQ, MI5/MI6 even before they entered university. What does it mean for nations to be spying and conducting espionage against each other in the 21st century, especially given the destruction and barbarism of the 20th century?

Let me address your last questions with a single answer: I believe that the proliferation of huge intelligence agencies has become a problem rather than a solution to international understanding. I believe that the creation of the indoctrinated élite that supports them is anti-democratic and encourages corruption of many different kinds. My greatest irritation is that no international statesman has the courage or will to advocate a reduction in the size and power of cancerous secret agencies that enjoy their governments’ acquiescence and, worse, dependence.

You said you had finished your latest novel on the day we met at Oxford University in June. I suppose it will be out soon. Can you tell us something about it?

I have promised myself a year at least of no interviews. My books — and to a degree my films — speak better for me than I do. (But) Yes, I have completed a new novel. It is called A Delicate Truth and comes out in the UK in May 2013. I am reluctant to describe its contents. A storyteller likes to keep his secrets.
The film adaptation of my novel, A Most Wanted Man, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, will open in the UK and the US a year from now and, as in the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I shall be playing a cameo part with the aid of a beard that I have grown specially, and shall have removed by expert hands.
I have always suspected beards.