The Spy Master's Style

THE CRITICS | CRITIC AT LARGE The spy master’s style John le Carré’s fiction could be simultaneously old-fashioned and thoroughly modern, but what made it Le Carré-esque? By William Boyd he sudden and unexpected death of ideas of class and class-consciousness lurk The omniscient narrator was the staple John Le Carré last month inevitably beneath the surface of many of Le Carré’s of the great 19th-century British novelists Tprompts an evaluation of the both the novels – indeed, apart from espionage, class – Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray – work and the man. There are more than two and its ramifications might be cited as an- where the authorial presence in the novel, dozen novels, the most recent of which, other defining feature of his work. the guiding hand and decision-maker, was Agent Running in the Field, was published Le Carré’s obsession with the subject can overtly revealed. The reader was even oc- in 2019, days before the author’s 88th birth- be explained by his own unusual upbring- casionally addressed directly – the “Dear day. Given that his first novel, Call for the ing, which he candidly documented in his Reader” trope – or the author broke away Dead, was published in 1961, his longevity memoir The Pigeon Tunnel. He wrote there from the novel to add some personal, politi- and productivity as a novelist – close to 60 that, “Englishmen… are branded on the cal or social observation: the “apostrophe”, years – is both remarkable and astonishing. tongue” and he documents his own class as it’s known. It is a far rarer narrative form Therefore it is perhaps an opportune mo- transformation and progression through today, however, and because of its heritage ment to analyse just what it is about his style his privileged education at private school it can, when chosen, give an unwitting old- that makes the prose so “Le Carré-esque”. (Sherborne) and Oxford University. This fashioned tone to the prose. What is it about the way this writer writes education allowed him to “jump” classes, Le Carré would reject the advice given by that is sui generis? This analysis will have becoming educated middle-class and leav- those two great originators of the modern nothing to do with the seriousness of the ing his lower-class father – a jailed felon, novel, Gustave Flaubert and James Joyce, themes that Le Carré tackles in his novels, philanderer and a bankrupt as well as a that the novelist should remain “invisible, or his near single-handed rebooting of the sometime millionaire – marooned on the refined out of existence” (Joyce), or, “like spy genre, or his position as one of our most other side of the class barrier, unable to God in the universe, present everywhere significant and highly regarded contempo- join his son. On another more profound but visible nowhere” (Flaubert). Le Carré, rary novelists. It is, rather, an attempt to pin and non-autobiographical level, Le Carré by contrast, is visible on almost every page. down what we might call his particular tone understands that almost everything about Both The Honourable Schoolboy and of voice; an endeavour to answer the ques- the English, and therefore the British, has a A Delicate Truth deploy omniscient narration: is there a Le Carré mode of expression class element attached to it and may be ana- tors. Interestingly, omniscience is virtually that is uniquely his? In trying to answer this lysed through a class-lens. It can be a very Le Carré’s default form of narrative method question I propose to look at two novels revealing picture. and he will even resort to Dickensian apos- separated by three and a half decades. The trophising, from time to time. Without Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and A Deli- Omniscience doubt, the subliminal effect of hearing the cate Truth (2013), both classic novels of es- authorial voice in a Le Carré novel is perhaps pionage, one set during the Cold War and In analysing any novel – in stripping it down the most signal feature of his style. For ex- one altogether more contemporary, to see to reveal its working parts – the first ques- ample, this is how A Delicate Truth begins: if we can discern any common factors and tion to ask yourself is: what is the point of On the second floor of a characterless repeated traits. view? It’s usually instantly revealed by the hotel in the British crown Colony of There are other similarities in that both choice of pronoun – first person singular or Gibraltar, a lithe, agile man in his late novels feature protagonists that might be third. But point of view can be more subtle. fifties restlessly paced his bedroom… termed “outsiders”, and both, while they It can shift from first to third (and occasion- Certainly it would not have occurred to elaborate their complex narratives of espio- ally second) and back again. It can be objec- many people, even in their most fanciful nage, examine ideas of Englishness. English tive and restricted. Or it can be omniscient. dreams, that he was a middle-ranking t 32 | NEW STATESMAN | 8-14 JANUARY 2021 THE CRITICS XXXXX Caption single line in here 8-14 JANUARY 2021 | NEW STATESMAN | 33 THE CRITICS British civil servant… dispatched on a This is a genuine Le Carré device – almost Action top-secret mission of acute sensitivity. his trademark. The immediate consequence The opening of this 21st-century novel of this is that readers feel a bit stupid; they There’s usually very little action in a could have been written in the 19th. The urge themselves to pay more attention; Le Carré novel. The narrative is cerebral, omniscient narrator informs the reader of to read more closely – but there’s nothing intellectual. People in rooms, meeting, the key fact on page one: the “top-secret they can do. In fact Le Carré, if he is to play talking, thinking. Conflicts that are all mission of acute sensitivity”. It is a confi- by the strict rules of omniscient narration, subtext, implicit. In The Honourable dent, almost brazen, rupturing of the mod- shouldn’t be indulging in this. He could Schoolboy, however, there is a splendid ern literary injunction to “show, not tell”. easily tell us what the significance of Craw’s action sequence in Cambodia that almost John Le Carré is telling us this story, not report is, but in this instance he chooses not hints at another Le Carré. Jerry Westerby – showing it, and he has all the information. to. This pointed withholding is an illicit the “Schoolboy” of the title – gets caught in And here lies another narrative problem, trick, in literary terms, but very, very effec- a firefight: especially in an espionage novel. If you tive in a novel of espionage. “God” in this Ahead of them, Jerry could hear the choose the omniscient form, if you com- instance is the novelist, and Le Carré has sound of automatic fire, M16s and AK47s ment directly to the reader, then the act of just cut the lines of communication. mixed. A jeep raced at them out of the deliberately withholding information be- trees, and at the last second veered, comes a form of literary subterfuge, at best; Dialogue and monologue banging and tripping over the ruts. At malpractice, at worst. In theory, you can- the same moment the sunshine went not have your cake and eat it when you use On the whole Le Carré writes exceptionally out. Till now they had accepted it as their omniscience – particularly in a genre like good dialogue. His ear is acute, especially right, a liquid, vivid light washed by the the spy novel where obfuscation, baffle- for the nuances and verbal mannerisms of rainstorms. This was March and… this ment and mystery are key to the success of the English middle- and upper-classes. He was Cambodia, where war, like cricket, was played in decent weather. But now the novel. But Le Carré does have his cake gets their phraseology, their clipped in- black clouds collected, the trees closed and eats it all the time. He will tell you the nuendos, absolutely perfectly. An example round them like winter and the wooden facts he wants you to know and then he from A Delicate Truth: houses pulled into the dark. will deliberately withhold information. A “There’s a creep around called Crispin,” significant part of the famous complexity Matti murmurs under the clamour. The combination of the terseness and of Le Carré’s fiction comes from the adroit “Ever heard of him?” “No.” “Well, I the precision of the word choice – “banging manipulation of these double standards. haven’t either, so I’ll thank you to and tripping”, “a liquid, vivid light washed One instance will have to suffice. In remember that. Crispin. Dodgy by the rainstorms” – makes one wish there The Honourable Schoolboy there is a clas- bastard. Avoid.” “Any reason given?” more action sequences in the novels. Clear- sic example of this withholding technique. “Not specific.” ly, Le Carré could write them very well. Half way through this long novel (by far Le Carré’s longest) George Smiley receives a But he then undermines this marvellous Whimsy report from an agent named Craw about a facility in over-relying on monologue to key target’s movements in and out of main- convey information and exposition. He has Elsewhere, I have described whimsy as land China. This report gives Smiley “a rare characters speak for pages and pages – with the “English disease”. It is often present in attempts at comedy: issues of sentimen- tality, smugness, over-elaboration – go- Le Carré’s ear is acute, especially for ing for the easy, knowing laugh – define it.

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