Caring about Carre

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I was moved by the death of John le Carre. He wrote prolifically, and successfully over several platforms. His books were bestsellers, his films were blockbusters, plus he was a literary giant. The US author Philip Roth once described Le Carre's A Perfect Spy, "the best english novel since the war".

Most writers of a specific genre, tend to get typecast. In his case, he wrote the spy thriller. But, his espionage novels enveloped both the political landscape and the psychological world of his characters, which made his novels deeper studies of the human condition, cloaked in political dramas.

This also enabled him to flourish way past the expiry date of the Cold War. Plus, the real action was mostly internal, psychological drama outweighing physical action, a stark contrast to Ian Fleming - his creation, George Smiley, the antithesis to James Bond - fat, balding, disillusioned, lonely, going after his arch enemy, Karla of the KGB, like a chess game as opposed to a gun fight.

It's my bad that I've never read John Le Carre's books. But, it's his movies I feasted on, and as the world unfolded, you sensed that the cinematic atmosphere had already been created on those pages.

I remember watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and seeing immediately why so many directors felt his books were film worthy-from Martin Ritt in 1963, being drawn to The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, to Fernando Meirelles committing The Constant Gardener to celluloid in 2005.

Words that give you widescreen, is a unique gift that only some writers possess.

But, it takes a certain level of security in one's writing craft, an openness of mind, to be comfortable in "allowing" another writer to translate and adapt your work to another medium, in this case film.

In his case, he was happy to watch other "minds" alter, amend or even improve his work, and not demand to write the screenplay himself.

Hossein Amini, screenwriter of Our Kind of Traitor, said of him, "He was such a film buff that he was incredibly open to changes being made to his novel. He'd act out all the dialogues with fantastic accents and voices." Tomas Alfredson, director of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy said, "His humour and wit were irresistible. He was a living jukebox of stories of every kind. With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he urged me and the screenwriters, Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan to make our own version of his book."

All his collaborators agreed that he had a very young mind, even well into his 80s.

Susanna White, director of Our Kind of Traitor, said of him, "As you might expect, he was a master of disguise, different things to different people in different places. We shot Our Kind of Traitor in five countries. The truth was that David Cornwell, or John le Carre or whatever name he went under in those days, could be anyone he wanted, anywhere in the world."

John le Carre brought chutzpah to the spy novel, detailing a world filled with morally compromised characters. Characters who were damaged, broken, patriotic but possessing grey morals, beset by drink and ambition.

And, as I sit down to read my first John Le Carre novel, a quote of his comes back: "Writing is like walking on a deserted street-out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie."

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com

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