The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
The unsubtle spy
: Michiko Kakutani is pissed.
She suffers John le Carre’s Absolute Friends and then practically sputters:
And last and most disappointing, it is a clumsy, hectoring, conspiracy-minded message-novel meant to drive home the argument that American imperialism poses a grave danger to the new world order.
The plot has been constructed to illustrate this message, and it not only feels hastily jerry-built but ridiculously contrived as well. Whereas Mr. le Carr
I’m puzzled: do you think the Cold War was not about good and evil?
Not in le Carre’s view, it wasn’t. He made his career on its subtleties. The irony is that when the world turned unsubtle, so did he and it is blowing him up.
DOH! Another black/white conservative statement – good and bad (and W’s good!).
More tut-tutting, head-shaking and finger-wagging ahead, I’m sure. (just funning.)
Go back and read LeCarre’s older works as I have recently done. Sorry, he was always a dolt.
He is of the generation that was successfully propagandized to believe that the communist system worked better than ours. He has the same underlying belief as the CIA analysts who thought the Soviet Union was actually producing guns, oil etc.
His older work carries a mordant, depressive and defeatist tone. For many years I too wrongly thought that tone was one of cleverness and subtlety.
For a more realistic view, find an old article by Robert Heinlein. He toured Moscow and expressed great doubt that a city with Moscow’s pitiful infrastructure could have any substantial population or economy. He recognized early that communism was the failure, a truth we now find obvious.
Re-reading what were old favourite books thus became a slightly unpleasant exercise in self evaluation as well.
As a mental health professional, I too wonder about le Carre’s brain suffering from mad cow disease, but on further reflection, given how he has “explained” himself, it is probably that he is exhibiting the symptoms of Starkmans “Stupid Factor.” Guess it’s not a disease of the more conservate elements afterall.
This is sad to me, particularly Fred’s post. I had been aware that LeCarre (an old hero) had gone off the deep end a la Pinter, but I had consoled myself that the old stuff, the Smiley books, were still great. Now I wonder. (Some would say the same thing has happened to me because I’ve gone in the other direction.)
I began to wonder the same thing when LeCarre’s books seemed to change after the fall of the Soviets. He had always been one of my must-buys, one of my “hardcover writers.” (I buy them immediately, in hard, rather than wait for soft).
Some years back, I re-read all the good old stuff. It was still marvelously written, and Smiley remains one of the great popular literary creations, but Fred is right: LeCarre’s attitude, even then, was closer to upper class Oxbridgian brits like the traitors he writes about (roman a clef constructs for the real thing) than to a man who understand that the Soviet Union and communism were actually evil, and not morally equivalent to the west.
I no longer bother with LeCarre even in softcover. Quite simply, he has become unreadable.
Expect a BBC TV dramatisation very soon! ;-)
“Osama is bad. Saddam is bad. Blair is not. Bush is not. It’s really rather obvious.”
Yeah, you know, people writing stuff like this should be a wee bit hesitant about chuckling at the stupidity of others from their warm castles of self-regard. I’ve never liked Le Carre either, but honestly. Doesn’t it tell you anything that people like him, who would normally have been on your side for endeavours like Iraq, aren’t?
Of course it doesn’t. But try this on for size:
Osama is bad. Saddam is bad. Blair and Bush are not as bad, but frankly, people like them helped MAKE threats like Osama and beasts like Saddam, and often created all kinds of unnecessary misery in doing so. They (and you) haven’t figured out that the myth that democracy can be exported by force of arms is just that. They (and you) have worked desperately to insulate themselves from reality in order to keep the myth alive. They (and you) are therefore complicit in what will follow — and to judge by the history of guys like Osama and Saddam, it won’t be pretty. So they’re quite bad enough, thanks, and the West is capable of far better.
Oops, was that too complex?
“Oops, was that too complex?”
No, it just wasn’t true.
“No, it just wasn’t true.”
Yes, it was. And all the Instapundits in the world won’t be able to insulate you from it much longer.
dr slack
Your construct is true only if it is never questioned. If the U.S. government funds governments that later become tyrannical, it is the responsibility of the aid recipient. You cannot seriously think that U.S. politicians are ‘evil’?
Do you accept responsibility for your purchase of products made in less than perfect moral or ecological manufacturing circumstances?
Moral relativism rears it ugly head. What would be the latin term for “giver beware”?
Well said by Max.
“You cannot seriously think that U.S. politicians are ‘evil’?”
Yeah, when did you stop beating your wife and molesting hamsters, robert?
Seriously, I don’t care whether politicians are “evil.” I care about the results of their actions and whether those are likely to promote the interests of their people, their allies, and whatever cause it is they claim to be embracing. The War on Iraq is pretty clearly failing the first two tests and is well on its way to failing the third.
Ummm- your losing me Dr Slack. Hamsters? Robert? Whhaaaa? I was making a joke about the latin. We didnt make the monsters- they did that themselves. The US and the world tend to think the best of even the worst people. We just sent 60 million tons of wheat to N Korea- supposed to feed the hungry. How much do want to bet every ounce of it goes to the army and political cronies? Does that mean we dont send it and throw up our hands? I would prefer sending bombs or at the least revolutionary primers written in Korean, but thats me. Sending wheat- a humanitarian move even though in a few years some people will be blaming the US (forgetting as usual the others in the deal) for extending the reign of Kim “Dumpy Elvis” Jong. Damned either way. Peace
I have as much interest in LeCarre as I do in Michael Moore, which is to say, zero.
But when a quote from Michiko Kakutani is cited uncritically as support for anything but bizarre out-of-touchness, it sets off warning bells.
“Hamsters? Robert? Whhaaaa?”
See, there was another poster named robert, and I addressed my other remarks to him and not you.
Sorry I misconstrued your remark, however.
“We didnt make the monsters- they did that themselves.”
Really. Osama bin Laden magically gave himself CIA training? That decrepit pile of junk that was once Saddam’s WMD stockpile materialized from nowhere, with no assistance from anyone?
I don’t look for policymakers to be soothsayers. I do expect them, however, to apply some elementary common sense. The spectacle of US soldiers applying Israeli counterinsurgency tactics in the middle of Iraq is surely an al-Qaedist’s wet dream, so you’ll have to forgive me if Bush and Blair don’t impress me on this score.
Doctor Slack
You are flippant and loose with facts and definitions. Osama’s “CIA training”?, US soldier’s “Israeli counterinsurgency tactics”?……but, then, please keep throwing jello at the walls, maybe something will stick.
Yeah, it sure is “flippant and loose” to bring up inconvenient facts, isn’t it? Especially when those facts are widely acknowledged in major media outlets. Because that makes it harder for you to stay in your cozy bubble. But you know what? Too bad.