Sunday, September 23, 2012

John le Carre: The Man who Washed Elephants

Author le Carre has written a very lively and amusing description of himself on his website – well worth reading in full:
John le Carre

“I never knew my mother till I was 21. I act like a gent but I am wonderfully badly born. My father was a confidence trickster and a gaol bird. Read A Perfect Spy.”

“I hate the telephone. I can’t type. I ply my trade by hand. I live on a Cornish cliff and hate cities. Three days and nights in a city are about my maximum. I don’t see many people. I write and walk and swim and drink.”

“Apart from spying, I have in my time sold bathtowels, got divorced, washed elephants, run away from school, decimated a flock of Welsh sheep with a twenty-five pound shell because I was too stupid to understand the gunnery officer’s instructions, taught children in a special school.”
A good read.

Just like all his books.

I read as many of his books as I can in a two week period before knuckling down to writing one of my own novels. I love having his introspective method of describing scenes and events washing around in my memory when I poise fingers  over keyboard and take the first tentative pecks at chapter one of a new novel.

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