The novelist John le Carre died yesterday. He was 88. I loved his novels, particularly Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I also loved the BBC films of that novel which were done sometime in the late 1970s ( I think) with Alec Guinness as George Smiley, the main character.
Alec Guinness starred in the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre’s novel Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy. The series has just been re-released on DVD in anticipation of the release of a new film version of the Cold War-era spy drama.
All the installments are available on YouTube.
Here are a few quotes from leCarre: “Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived.”
and
“To possess another language, Charlemagne tells us, is to possess another soul. German is such a language. Once you have it in your head, you can go there anytime, you can close the door, you have a refuge.”
and one more:“It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.”
his books:
Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky 