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John Le Carré: A decent man

With the death this December 12 of David John Moore Cornwell, known as John Le Carré (Poole, 1931-Cornwall, 2020), not only the best cultivator of the spy novel disappears. Because, beyond the genre, Le Carré was an excellent writer with an extraordinary handling of narrative tools in absorbing plots, full of perfectly drawn characters. And not only the famous George Smiley, singular spy created by Le Carré in contrast to the no less famous James Bond, “son” of Ian Fleming. Although moving in the same elusive territory of espionage, Le Carré strips him of any glamor to place us in a world dominated by harshness, the abdication of morality, betrayal and lies, elements that, of courseThey are not only exclusive to the universe of spies. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that Le Carré’s work captures us so strongly.

Author, among other titles, of novels such as The Spy Who Came From The Cold, The Mole, The Honorable Schoolboy, The House Russia, The Girl With The Drum, The Constant Gardener, and The tailor of Panama, of the essay Afterword, -on double agent Kim Philby-, and an enlightening autobiography, Fly in circles, the British author –remember that he himself worked in the M-I5 and M-I6, British espionage services-, published a few years ago The legacy of the spies, where his emblematic George Smiley reappeared, along with figures from the Le Carré universe such as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, or Peter Guillam. To some extent, this novel was seen as precisely his legacy. But Le Carré, very active despite his age and illness – he confessed that he suffered from cancer -, gave the press A decent man, where, in addition to a plot that continues without respite, highly topical issues such as the Brexit labyrinth are addressed.

The protagonist and first-person narrative voice of A decent man is Nat, a veteran of the British secret services, and a great badminton player, who, in his late fifties, pretends to throw away, something to which he seems to resign himself: “I am wearing my badminton equipment: shorts, sweatshirt and new shoes with anklet. I bought them to ward off a nagging pain in my left ankle that occurred a month earlier on a march through the Estonian forests. After long and consecutive stays abroad, I am enjoying a well deserved holiday season at home. A cloud is hanging over my professional life and I’m doing my best not to pay attention to it. I may be fired on Monday. Well, what are you going to do, I repeat to myself. I just turned forty-seven years old, I’ve had a good run and I was warned from the beginning, so I can’t complain ”.

But, the growing activity in Moscow provokes a change of plans and that Nat is assigned a new mission, consisting of restarting a substation in London by reorganizing a dispersed group of agents. Thus, together with Nat, characters such as the young Florence, a dark Ukrainian oligarch -who will complicate everything- come to life, and, in the front line, Ed Shannon, his opponent in badminton, and not only that: “Our meeting was not planned. Not for me, not for Ed, not for anyone who allegedly pulled the strings. I was not in the spotlight. Ed either. We were not under surveillance, either covert or direct. He threw me a sporting challenge. I accepted it. We play. There was no premeditation, collusion or complicity. There are events in my life – few in recent times, it is true – that only admit one version ”.

With Ed he will share a disappointed vision of our present, managed by politicians who are not up to the difficult times. Theresa May, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin parade through the pages of A decent man and not precisely to get out well, and attacks Brexit: “Brexit is self-immolation. The British people are heading into an abyss where they are led by a group of wealthy and elite adventurers posing as men of the people ”.

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