John Le Carré’s Son Revives His Late Dad's Spy
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli. John Le Carre wrote spy novels that transcended the genre. Philip Roth called Le Carre's 1986 novel, A Perfect Spy, the best English novel since the war. The author's most beloved character was George Smiley, the physically unassuming but brilliant British spymaster. He was the protagonist of many Le Corre novels, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People, both of which were adapted into hit TV miniseries starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley. Le Carre, whose real name was David Cornwell, died in 2020. But George Smiley returned last year in the novel called Carla's Choice. It was written by Cornwell's son, Nick, who goes by his own pen name, Nick Harkaway.
Harkaway spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger last year. Here's Sam.
Carla's Choice takes place in 1963, between Le Carre's novels The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Smiley has retired from the circus, the nickname for the British Overseas Intelligence Agency, after an agent and his lover were killed in East Berlin, their lives sacrificed for the success of a mission, a decision Smiley initially agreed to but has come to regret. But Smiley is called back into service by his boss, known as Control, to conduct one simple interview. However, that leads to much more than he bargained for. The story also serves as the origin story of Smiley's nemesis in the KGB, known only as Carla. This is Nick Harkaway's first George Smiley novel, but his eighth overall.
They include Tigerman, Noman, and Titanium Noir. So Nick Harkaway, welcome to Fresh Air. Hello. Tell me, how did you decide to write a George Smiley novel and why now?
I actually decided not to. We had this conversation running inside the family because when we inherited the estate, the literary estate, we inherited an obligation to try to keep the books read, to keep the name alive, but more than anything else, to keep the books in circulation and so on. And in this moment... the way that you do that is by focusing attention on them through adaptations through new material through essentially commercial projects so the conversation we were having was you know what can we do to to put the books back in everybody's mind how do we how do we fulfill this obligation and the obvious thing is you need a new book so i had a list in my head of people who would be amazing
at writing a new george smiley novel and and i had decided i wasn't going to suggest i should do it i had firm reasons why i wouldn't and we were having the meeting and my brother simon said so um before we get started there's a really it's quite a compelling logic that it should be you and i was like yeah i know uh and he said uh no but i mean i'm asking you you know will you do it and In that moment, all the reasons why I wouldn't, it's incredibly challenging. It's this extraordinary piece of 20th century literary history. It's this, it's that. All these things became the reasons why I would.
It must have been a pretty daunting task, though, when you decided to go ahead to actually start writing this book.
Oh, yeah. And I mean not past tense either. It's still daunting. It's still daunting. And it'll be daunting after the book comes out. It'll probably be daunting for the rest of my life. Yeah. No, it's huge. But it's also – but again, that's why it's worth doing. You don't do things that are safe. You do things that are scary. And when I started doing it, yes, it was terrifying. But it also became something that I loved.
Yeah.
What were some of the things in your head that you thought about that sort of overrode the anxiety or fear about writing this that you were really excited to try to do in the novel?
I mean, some nonspecific things. I wanted a literary apprenticeship with my dad because I watched him write. I learned writing from him by osmosis, but we never really talked about writing very much. And so the idea of sitting down and holding the controls of the machine and operating it the way he did and working with those characters was a way to learn, which I wanted.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–8:12
2
What themes does 'Karla's Choice' explore regarding espionage?
8:12–9:56
3
What inspired Nick Harkaway to write a new George Smiley novel?
9:56–17:35
4
What challenges did Nick face while writing 'Karla's Choice'?
17:35–19:36
5
How does Nick Harkaway channel his father's writing style?
19:36–22:51
6
How does the character George Smiley differ from typical spies?
22:51–46:23
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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