ESSAYS
Tradecraft: Writers on John le Carré
Edited by Federico Verese
Bodleian, $69.99
In 2012, Tehran was still impossible to navigate on GPS. The roads were too knotted, the available coverage of maps and internet too sparse. It took a full day to reach the northern outskirts, by which time my hands were so numb I could barely squeeze the motorcycle levers. I stopped at a mid-range hotel with a grand but vacant foyer. Even if sanctions had long denuded the city of travellers, some infrastructure remained. On a leather couch surrounded by tanks of lurid tropical fish, I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and marvelled at its subtle characterisation and finely wrought plot.
I am not alone. Tradecraft: Writers on John le Carré is an essay collection from writers who were long influenced by the author’s craft before working with him directly. Contributions range from screenwriters to international relations experts. There are some familiar names like Errol Morris, Michela Wrong and Andrei Soldatov. We learn that the author, real name David Cornwall, was conspicuous off the page for exquisite manners while his fictional worlds were realistic enough to anticipate real-world events.
Many writers refer to their “craft”, yet Cornwall’s meticulous attention to detail for once deserves the label. Compiled by Federico Varese, a specialist on the Russian Mafia, whose introduction references an extended discussion with the author regarding which cigarette brand a Russian Mafia boss might smoke (answer: Prima or Belomorkanal). Such signifiers are important. In Soviet society, a cigarette brand indicated a comrade’s standing, their access to foreign or domestic goods and thus, how well-connected they were. Once layered, repeated precision builds into authenticity, identified in these essays as one ingredient of “artistic truth”.
The other is direct experience. Cornwall’s father was a conman who exposed him from a child to fakery and betrayal. The author was sent to an expensive boarding school to learn the manners and pretence from his upper-class peers. An outsider chameleon who could charm himself into new social milieus made an ideal MI5 recruit to inform on left-wing activities at Oxford. This demanded an eye for nuance and a stomach for deceit. It is telling when asked by Morris whether there is a difference between an interview and interrogation, Cornwall thinks not.
In his revealing contribution, Russian investigative journalist Soldatov explains how this authenticity was appreciated even by the opposing side. Despite censorship, le Carré was widely read by the KGB’s upper echelons. Part of the appeal was the moral equivalence he articulated between Soviet spies and their Western opponents for clandestine operations. Before le Carré, Western propaganda glossed the seamier side, evoking either the glamour of James Bond or referencing “our spies” in purely defensive terms. After le Carré it was understood that ruthlessness was universal.
To survive in this murky world, it might be assumed Cornwall had to develop an instinctive relativity in his moral calculations and a flexible definition of “the truth”. Yet, these essays explain he believed both in a right thing and objectivity. Betraying the Oxford communist leader Stanley Mitchell pained the author, something he justified with Britain and the USSR being “technically” at war in which his target had sided with the enemy.
In one standout essay, international relations scholar Andrea Ruggeri analyses le Carré from a geopolitical perspective. Its title is inspired by le Carré’s famous opinion piece The US Has Gone Mad, which scorned the West for having sacrificed its Cold War victory. According to Cornwall, the victors had pillaged the Third World instead of pursuing the promised order based on democracy and human rights. This at least hints at a definite inner moral world, even one that accepted deceit as a viable means.
On truth, le Carré emerges from Tradecraft a modernist; he assumes the truth exists, even if it may be impossible to access. He caveats this by cautioning against unifying revelations. All the world’s secrets are not contained in a “chipped green Chubb safe that was tucked away at the end of a labyrinth of dingy corridors”. The author admitted his one mistake was to portray the secret services as too brilliant. Real life is messier; history’s agents are more often engaged in incompetence than conspiracy, another conclusion that is becoming more relevant with each passing day.
With Cornwall’s death in December 2020, these excellent and heartfelt – but sometimes fawning – essays are arranged around a now vacant centre. An account from someone who suffered from Cornwall’s clandestine activities, like a relative of Stanley Mitchell’s, would have been a bold inclusion that provided greater balance. But as an appreciation of craft, this collection explains why his work will find new relevance, after his death.
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Kurt Johnson is an author and journalist based in Europe. He likes to travel places of historical import, in particular the post -Soviet sphere.
