The Double Life of John le Carré

John le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, was Britain’s greatest novelist of the twentieth century. He was also a sneaky government nark, who spied on his friends for the state. He sent damaging reports on them to the U.K.’s secret police, MI5, while pretending an affable comradeship. It has been said that Cornwell has much in common with Dickens, and there is a lot in this. Many of his books have altered their readers’ lives and understanding of the world, for the better. They deal with huge themes of our time, most importantly Britain deluding herself in a period of pitiable national decline. They mesh with the imagination like few others. More “literary” writers, whose books are often uninteresting, wearisome, and soon forgotten, must have been relieved that snobbery about spy novels kept le Carré in his own vulgar category, and them in their elevated place, getting the prizes but not necessarily the sales, let alone the readers.