Nick Baam's Blog
September 28, 2023
Little Snitches
Did you know?? September 25 was National “If you see something, say something” Awareness Day.
Back in the 60’s there was on American television an extraordinary program called The Fugitive. It was extraordinary for several reasons. First was the performance of David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, aka the fugitive, falsely accused of killing his wife. Several times per episode you’d find yourself vacillating between: world’s worst actor, finest actor of his generation.
The second thing about the show was that, despite its name, it wasn’t really about the fugitive. More (sheer brilliance) Richard Kimble was perhaps the dullest character in the history of television. What the show was about was the small circle of friends and acquaintances Kimble entered into each week (right after hoofing it over to the recently-opened blazer exchange) and the moral dilemma he presented them with; namely: do I let this wife-killer go?
And that was the third extraordinary thing about the show; that each week these people said yes. Not only said yes, but in many instances did all they could to help Richard Kimble escape — lawmen included!! Because they’d met Richard Kimble and didn’t believe he killed his wife. Therefore, as humans — not citizens — their course of action, their duty, was obvious. To try to prevent the state from killing him.
Yes, it was a television show. But that America was real, and like that show is dead and gone. The state the state the state the state — the state rules now. Not the people. That’s what all the flags are for. Not the troops, oh no. The state. Submission. Obey.
You saw something.
Back in the 60’s there was on American television an extraordinary program called The Fugitive. It was extraordinary for several reasons. First was the performance of David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, aka the fugitive, falsely accused of killing his wife. Several times per episode you’d find yourself vacillating between: world’s worst actor, finest actor of his generation.
The second thing about the show was that, despite its name, it wasn’t really about the fugitive. More (sheer brilliance) Richard Kimble was perhaps the dullest character in the history of television. What the show was about was the small circle of friends and acquaintances Kimble entered into each week (right after hoofing it over to the recently-opened blazer exchange) and the moral dilemma he presented them with; namely: do I let this wife-killer go?
And that was the third extraordinary thing about the show; that each week these people said yes. Not only said yes, but in many instances did all they could to help Richard Kimble escape — lawmen included!! Because they’d met Richard Kimble and didn’t believe he killed his wife. Therefore, as humans — not citizens — their course of action, their duty, was obvious. To try to prevent the state from killing him.
Yes, it was a television show. But that America was real, and like that show is dead and gone. The state the state the state the state — the state rules now. Not the people. That’s what all the flags are for. Not the troops, oh no. The state. Submission. Obey.
You saw something.
September 30, 2021
Cut!!
Donna Tartt. Michael Dibdin. And now Colin Cotterill. (And others.) Excellent writers all. So how can they, and their editors, not know the difference between further and farther. Which is:
Farther means literal distance. Further everything else.
So when you read a sentence like: 'The step was further than he'd calculated; annoyingly further.' (Colin Cotterill; Thirty-three Teeth) he has no idea how right he is.
In film recurring typos are worse. If the misspelling of the possessive its has its equal (its by far the most misspelled word in the English language, ax, at two letters, percentage-wise its equal), it surely would be elevator doors. Every elevator has two doors: the carriage door, and the floor door. Yet in easily 90 percent of films made in Hollywood (to this day), they show elevators with one door, usually the floor door. So stand to the back of that elevator or it's going to be a bumpy night. I have seen Fred Astaire movies where the floor pattern doesn't even change -- it goes straight into the elevator.
Another annoying big screen typo: chessboards. A properly set up chessboard has a white square to the right of each player. If you were to rotate the board there would be a black square to the right of each player. And as often as not a Hollywood film makes this mistake -- twice at least in Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Savannah is a very picturesque town, which many a film producer has tried to take advantage of even though no good film has ever been shot there. (The Gingerbread Man and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil are the worst films of Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood.) Down by the river one day, near the cobblestones and catwalks, there was a serious production taking place -- crew standing around, boom, white screen, director's chair, script girl (which, you'll notice, is always in English in film credits, no matter how foreign the film; that's no typo) -- and the director was just about to yell 'Action!' on two geezers playing chess.
"Excuse me," I shouted from above, "but you have that chessboard set up wrong." I then explained to him about the white squares, which was followed by five seconds of total silence while the director decided whether to thank me or tell me to shut up. And unlike Alan Parker in another film production many years ago, this director said, "Thank you." And proceeded to rearrange the chessboard.
Gaining in annoyance awareness: the Hollywood suitcase. Always empty. I'm not talking about big musical numbers, I'm talking about a guy crossing the street. You can always tell when a suitcase is empty. Real scene-killer. It's like seeing on a cab in a Hollywood film a phone number with a 555 area code. You do know what a 555 area code means, right?
It means Hollywood film.
Farther means literal distance. Further everything else.
So when you read a sentence like: 'The step was further than he'd calculated; annoyingly further.' (Colin Cotterill; Thirty-three Teeth) he has no idea how right he is.
In film recurring typos are worse. If the misspelling of the possessive its has its equal (its by far the most misspelled word in the English language, ax, at two letters, percentage-wise its equal), it surely would be elevator doors. Every elevator has two doors: the carriage door, and the floor door. Yet in easily 90 percent of films made in Hollywood (to this day), they show elevators with one door, usually the floor door. So stand to the back of that elevator or it's going to be a bumpy night. I have seen Fred Astaire movies where the floor pattern doesn't even change -- it goes straight into the elevator.
Another annoying big screen typo: chessboards. A properly set up chessboard has a white square to the right of each player. If you were to rotate the board there would be a black square to the right of each player. And as often as not a Hollywood film makes this mistake -- twice at least in Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Savannah is a very picturesque town, which many a film producer has tried to take advantage of even though no good film has ever been shot there. (The Gingerbread Man and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil are the worst films of Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood.) Down by the river one day, near the cobblestones and catwalks, there was a serious production taking place -- crew standing around, boom, white screen, director's chair, script girl (which, you'll notice, is always in English in film credits, no matter how foreign the film; that's no typo) -- and the director was just about to yell 'Action!' on two geezers playing chess.
"Excuse me," I shouted from above, "but you have that chessboard set up wrong." I then explained to him about the white squares, which was followed by five seconds of total silence while the director decided whether to thank me or tell me to shut up. And unlike Alan Parker in another film production many years ago, this director said, "Thank you." And proceeded to rearrange the chessboard.
Gaining in annoyance awareness: the Hollywood suitcase. Always empty. I'm not talking about big musical numbers, I'm talking about a guy crossing the street. You can always tell when a suitcase is empty. Real scene-killer. It's like seeing on a cab in a Hollywood film a phone number with a 555 area code. You do know what a 555 area code means, right?
It means Hollywood film.
May 18, 2021
Pure, Unadulterated, Unvaccinated Love
Like an ex-con at a job interview just waiting for the interviewer to, ahem, bring up his past — perusing online dating profiles has become an exercise in waiting for the shoe to drop — waiting for the woman to proudly declare: “fully vaxxed.”
It’s not usually a long wait. Often it’s the first thing they say, or it’s the last. Kind of like the sequencing of songs on an LP.
Not that we weren’t forewarned. For months now women have been including in their photos at least one, and often several, shots of themselves wearing a mask. I am still not sure what this is meant to convey. That they take their pandemics seriously? That they spend so much time in a mask you have a right to see what they look like? Or is it more like compulsories in an Olympic figure skating routine? (‘Ah, yes... and now here she is with her mask... just lovely.”)
So vaccination has long been in the works on online dating sites. Probably for longer than in the lab.
I will be the first to say my experience w online dating has not been a particularly positive one. (Though I can pass along this tip: you want to hear back from a woman, like six of her seven photos. You’ll hear back by the end of the day, guaranteed.) If I had to guess, I’d say I hear back from one out of every 15 women I contact. Usually it takes a day or two, or weeks, even, and sometimes just a few hours. Once, though, I heard back within seconds. She had described herself on her profile as “highly educated (two masters),” so I wrote: “And can I assume this highly-educated woman has no intention of taking any corona vaccine?” She immediately answered: “Fully vaxxed — J&J.”
And that is what I have found so disturbing about online dating, even more than the leeway given “a few extra pounds”: that of all the conclusions one can draw on corona based on the evidence, number one surely is that the more “educated” one is — that is, the more degrees one holds — the more certain it is they have declared themselves “fully vaxxed” — apparently not knowing that with these vaccines, there’s no such thing.
The good news, however, is that it can't be long till someone creates the world's most exclusive online dating site: for the non-vaxxed only. I’ll even give them their tagline: ‘Where everyone’s beautiful, now and forever.’
It’s not usually a long wait. Often it’s the first thing they say, or it’s the last. Kind of like the sequencing of songs on an LP.
Not that we weren’t forewarned. For months now women have been including in their photos at least one, and often several, shots of themselves wearing a mask. I am still not sure what this is meant to convey. That they take their pandemics seriously? That they spend so much time in a mask you have a right to see what they look like? Or is it more like compulsories in an Olympic figure skating routine? (‘Ah, yes... and now here she is with her mask... just lovely.”)
So vaccination has long been in the works on online dating sites. Probably for longer than in the lab.
I will be the first to say my experience w online dating has not been a particularly positive one. (Though I can pass along this tip: you want to hear back from a woman, like six of her seven photos. You’ll hear back by the end of the day, guaranteed.) If I had to guess, I’d say I hear back from one out of every 15 women I contact. Usually it takes a day or two, or weeks, even, and sometimes just a few hours. Once, though, I heard back within seconds. She had described herself on her profile as “highly educated (two masters),” so I wrote: “And can I assume this highly-educated woman has no intention of taking any corona vaccine?” She immediately answered: “Fully vaxxed — J&J.”
And that is what I have found so disturbing about online dating, even more than the leeway given “a few extra pounds”: that of all the conclusions one can draw on corona based on the evidence, number one surely is that the more “educated” one is — that is, the more degrees one holds — the more certain it is they have declared themselves “fully vaxxed” — apparently not knowing that with these vaccines, there’s no such thing.
The good news, however, is that it can't be long till someone creates the world's most exclusive online dating site: for the non-vaxxed only. I’ll even give them their tagline: ‘Where everyone’s beautiful, now and forever.’
July 28, 2019
B Side
Year: 1964
Place: Vero Beach, FL
Young boy watching a rock and roll band playing in some public pavilion, nice crowd assembled, snare drum stand collapses, snare drum starts rolling across cement floor. Man steps coolly from the crowd, picks up the snare drum, takes it over to the drums, secures the stand, replaces drum -- all without missing a beat. Young boy never forgets.
Year: 2019
Place: Rockland, ME
Rock and roll band playing in public pavilion, nice crowd assembled watches as the band's trademark tall pink flamingo is knocked from the stage onto the cement floor. A man coolly steps from the crowd, picks up flamingo, secures it back on stage, he looks up to see the band all smiling at him, no more than the man is smiling himself.
Place: Vero Beach, FL
Young boy watching a rock and roll band playing in some public pavilion, nice crowd assembled, snare drum stand collapses, snare drum starts rolling across cement floor. Man steps coolly from the crowd, picks up the snare drum, takes it over to the drums, secures the stand, replaces drum -- all without missing a beat. Young boy never forgets.
Year: 2019
Place: Rockland, ME
Rock and roll band playing in public pavilion, nice crowd assembled watches as the band's trademark tall pink flamingo is knocked from the stage onto the cement floor. A man coolly steps from the crowd, picks up flamingo, secures it back on stage, he looks up to see the band all smiling at him, no more than the man is smiling himself.
October 19, 2016
But He Did Look Good in Those Long Pants
Malvern's a tale told entirely through the emails of Rob Baltusrol, an out-of-work journalist. (From a play: "Bakers, you know, they bake better pies, they get to keep their jobs. Do that in journalism they take you out and shoot you.") One of the book's emails is Rob's copy-editing cover letter; to wit:
"A good copy editor possesses two essential knowledges -- all that's important, and all that's unimportant. The first allows him to make sure the sentence reads right. The second allows him to spot the differences between the liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, to identify May Pang, Rosie Ruiz, and Edith Head; to know who's nonplussed and who isn't. A good copy editor knows the names of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators, knows which four states are technically commonwealths; that the Beatles' single 'She Loves You' was on Swan Records, and of course how to spell bouillabaisse, Reykjavik, fuchsia, and Pete Townshend and Spike Jonze."
I bring this up not to engage in what one astute critic of facebook called "banal self-promotion" but because I may have just caught the whopper of whoppers -- one so huge that I say "may" only because I can't even believe it got through. (Yes, as big as the error at the end of Casablanca.)
On the inside dust jacket of Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, the John Lahr bio of Tennessee Williams -- yes, the inside jacket; hardcover; Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. for God's sake!! -- there's a reference to a Pancho Gonzalez, alluded to as a lover of Williams's. Small problem. He wasn't. Pancho Gonzalez -- and it's a good thing he's dead, he had quite the temper -- was a tennis player, and an extraordinary one -- a well-known one! The person they meant, who is mentioned several times in the book, who has several mentions in the index (Gonzalez is not mentioned in the book, has no mentions in the index) is Pancho Rodriguez. Whoops.
This is why every publishing house, every newspaper in the country of any income, should pay some old geezer to sit at the back reading every bit of copy the company puts out. For 30 g's a year, it's worth it to keep your Panchos straight.
And if you're curious about the "knows who's nonplussed and who isn't" line: that has to do with the meaning of the word. You think you know what nonplussed means? Trust me: you don't.
"A good copy editor possesses two essential knowledges -- all that's important, and all that's unimportant. The first allows him to make sure the sentence reads right. The second allows him to spot the differences between the liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, to identify May Pang, Rosie Ruiz, and Edith Head; to know who's nonplussed and who isn't. A good copy editor knows the names of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators, knows which four states are technically commonwealths; that the Beatles' single 'She Loves You' was on Swan Records, and of course how to spell bouillabaisse, Reykjavik, fuchsia, and Pete Townshend and Spike Jonze."
I bring this up not to engage in what one astute critic of facebook called "banal self-promotion" but because I may have just caught the whopper of whoppers -- one so huge that I say "may" only because I can't even believe it got through. (Yes, as big as the error at the end of Casablanca.)
On the inside dust jacket of Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, the John Lahr bio of Tennessee Williams -- yes, the inside jacket; hardcover; Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. for God's sake!! -- there's a reference to a Pancho Gonzalez, alluded to as a lover of Williams's. Small problem. He wasn't. Pancho Gonzalez -- and it's a good thing he's dead, he had quite the temper -- was a tennis player, and an extraordinary one -- a well-known one! The person they meant, who is mentioned several times in the book, who has several mentions in the index (Gonzalez is not mentioned in the book, has no mentions in the index) is Pancho Rodriguez. Whoops.
This is why every publishing house, every newspaper in the country of any income, should pay some old geezer to sit at the back reading every bit of copy the company puts out. For 30 g's a year, it's worth it to keep your Panchos straight.
And if you're curious about the "knows who's nonplussed and who isn't" line: that has to do with the meaning of the word. You think you know what nonplussed means? Trust me: you don't.
September 12, 2016
Mad Felon
Eddie Antar, the con merchant who ran Crazy Eddie's appliance stores, dies. Low-cost appliances with advertising to match; his ads made the Ty-D-Bowl Man look like E.F. Hutton.
An interesting character in and out of jail. A marketing genius, the Ted Turner of retail, employees at his stores were instructed, when asked by a customer how much something cost, to always respond, "That's on sale for...."
Perhaps his real claim to fame, and I can't swear to this, was that he was the first retailer in America to round up all prices to ninety-five cents. In other words, before then, a clock radio might actually cost $12.49. Antar made everything in his store something-95. Then, continuing on the same psychology, he thought: well, if it works for .95, it should work for .99, so he raised all his prices to something-99, and made millions more. (Ironically, not too long ago I went into a wine shop around the corner from his downtown Sixth Ave. store; every single bottle of wine I picked up (I was there for an hour) had a something-99 price tag -- as if someone willing to pay $43.99 a bottle wouldn't pay $44. (I was looking for that very special bottle of wine. Something around $7.50.) Even the New Yorker magazine, with perhaps the smartest readership in America, plays this cheap stunt, charging $6.99, I think it is, an issue.)
Also, with Antar: the price tags on the appliances used to have what looked like an inventory number, the number always had a 9 at each end. Such as: 94409 for a $399.99 television set. In fact, it wasn't an inventory number but an in-house price tag: drop the 9's, divide the remaining number in half and that was the store's cost. In this case, $220. That would tell the employee how low he could go, and Christmas week, that could be very low indeed. Such as $230. No joke. Not even crazy.
An interesting character in and out of jail. A marketing genius, the Ted Turner of retail, employees at his stores were instructed, when asked by a customer how much something cost, to always respond, "That's on sale for...."
Perhaps his real claim to fame, and I can't swear to this, was that he was the first retailer in America to round up all prices to ninety-five cents. In other words, before then, a clock radio might actually cost $12.49. Antar made everything in his store something-95. Then, continuing on the same psychology, he thought: well, if it works for .95, it should work for .99, so he raised all his prices to something-99, and made millions more. (Ironically, not too long ago I went into a wine shop around the corner from his downtown Sixth Ave. store; every single bottle of wine I picked up (I was there for an hour) had a something-99 price tag -- as if someone willing to pay $43.99 a bottle wouldn't pay $44. (I was looking for that very special bottle of wine. Something around $7.50.) Even the New Yorker magazine, with perhaps the smartest readership in America, plays this cheap stunt, charging $6.99, I think it is, an issue.)
Also, with Antar: the price tags on the appliances used to have what looked like an inventory number, the number always had a 9 at each end. Such as: 94409 for a $399.99 television set. In fact, it wasn't an inventory number but an in-house price tag: drop the 9's, divide the remaining number in half and that was the store's cost. In this case, $220. That would tell the employee how low he could go, and Christmas week, that could be very low indeed. Such as $230. No joke. Not even crazy.
September 11, 2013
One-Draft Wonder?
Could it be?
It is after all Dickens.
But how likely is it to find a typo 150 years later?
It's not really a typo. It's more a Dickensian error: on page 24 of the Signet Classic edition of Bleak House there's this line: "My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain."
Then, two pages later, there's this: "With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain."
As Jupiter Jones might say:
???
Even allowing for droll, this doesn't seem the type of line you'd repeat for stylistic purposes. It's not very memorable, even two pages later. (I'm paid to find these things; not by Signet.) Combined with Dickens' prodigious output (the blurb on the book calls the 881-page Bleak House the masterpiece of his "middle period") and the fact the uses of the phrase are so close together, AND the fact the phrase suffices in either place equally can only suggest (suggest mind you!!) that this went unnoticed for 150 years???
NB
malvernthenovel.com
It is after all Dickens.
But how likely is it to find a typo 150 years later?
It's not really a typo. It's more a Dickensian error: on page 24 of the Signet Classic edition of Bleak House there's this line: "My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain."
Then, two pages later, there's this: "With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain."
As Jupiter Jones might say:
???
Even allowing for droll, this doesn't seem the type of line you'd repeat for stylistic purposes. It's not very memorable, even two pages later. (I'm paid to find these things; not by Signet.) Combined with Dickens' prodigious output (the blurb on the book calls the 881-page Bleak House the masterpiece of his "middle period") and the fact the uses of the phrase are so close together, AND the fact the phrase suffices in either place equally can only suggest (suggest mind you!!) that this went unnoticed for 150 years???
NB
malvernthenovel.com
March 11, 2013
Thank you Jupiter, Pete, and Bob
Not too long ago I called Random House, I think it was, to inquire about the film rights to The Three Investigators series and the gentleman I was speaking with laughed and said, "Do you know? I get a call like this every six months."
For those who don't know, or remember, The Three Investigators (Alfred Hitchcock AND The Three Investigators...) was a series of books featuring three young sleuths living in a small town on the California Coast. (Rocky Point?) Those lads were: Jupiter Jones (the smart one), Pete Crenshaw (second investigator), and Bob Andrews (records and research).
Two memorable details on the series: the boys won the use of a Rolls or a Bentley and its chauffeur (Worthington) for 30 days because Jupiter, at a fair, correctly guessed the number of jelly beans in a jar. (All blog details subject to verification.) And they also had the clubhouse to end all clubhouses -- with three separate entrances! -- a junked trailer tucked in a corner of the salvage yard owned by Jupiter's Uncle Titus and Aunt... Matilda? Covered with vines and assorted debris it's where the boys hung out to discuss their latest predicament.
If my phone call was routine, so too I'm sure was my script idea: the boys, adults now, return to Rocky Point for Uncle Titus's funeral, they re-enter their creaky clubhouse only to find ... a clue! Uncle Titus's death is not so straightforward after all! In fact, it bears a strong resemblance to a case the boys worked years earlier, necessitating a string of heart-warming flashbacks...
I had forgotten all about The Three Investigators until seeing a hardback copy of The Mystery of the Screaming Clock sitting innocently in a box at a yard sale. Only then did I realize the major role they played in my lifetime of reading. Before Philip Marlowe; before Travis McGee and Grijpstra and de Gier there were The Three Investigators. They were the greatest detectives of all.
NB
malvernthenovel.com
For those who don't know, or remember, The Three Investigators (Alfred Hitchcock AND The Three Investigators...) was a series of books featuring three young sleuths living in a small town on the California Coast. (Rocky Point?) Those lads were: Jupiter Jones (the smart one), Pete Crenshaw (second investigator), and Bob Andrews (records and research).
Two memorable details on the series: the boys won the use of a Rolls or a Bentley and its chauffeur (Worthington) for 30 days because Jupiter, at a fair, correctly guessed the number of jelly beans in a jar. (All blog details subject to verification.) And they also had the clubhouse to end all clubhouses -- with three separate entrances! -- a junked trailer tucked in a corner of the salvage yard owned by Jupiter's Uncle Titus and Aunt... Matilda? Covered with vines and assorted debris it's where the boys hung out to discuss their latest predicament.
If my phone call was routine, so too I'm sure was my script idea: the boys, adults now, return to Rocky Point for Uncle Titus's funeral, they re-enter their creaky clubhouse only to find ... a clue! Uncle Titus's death is not so straightforward after all! In fact, it bears a strong resemblance to a case the boys worked years earlier, necessitating a string of heart-warming flashbacks...
I had forgotten all about The Three Investigators until seeing a hardback copy of The Mystery of the Screaming Clock sitting innocently in a box at a yard sale. Only then did I realize the major role they played in my lifetime of reading. Before Philip Marlowe; before Travis McGee and Grijpstra and de Gier there were The Three Investigators. They were the greatest detectives of all.
NB
malvernthenovel.com
February 27, 2013
Applause, applause, M. le Carre
Crime noir been given its due, with Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain all winning Nobel prizes (haven't they?) (read Cain's Serenade), I nominate for the award the spy genre's only serious candidate, John le Carre. More, I nominate The Honourable Schoolboy as the best spy novel ever written, and the author himself doesn't put it in his top four.
The Honourable Schoolboy, second in the Karla Trilogy, coming after Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and before Smiley's People, is all about Jerry Westerby. (And who's ever been as good with names as le Carre? Jerry Westerby. George Smiley, Toby Esterhase, Roy Bland, Ricki Tarr. Karla. Uncle Benny in The Tailor of Panama.) Westerby, trying the whole book to live down that ordinary and so unspylike name and by doing so becomes one of literature's great tragic figures: a spy in over his head; a half-baked spy (a failed newspaperman!) in love.
Elegant and masterly throughout, the highlight is Smiley's crushing visit to Lizzie Worth's parents. ('My little Lizzie went behind the hedge with half of Asia before she found her Drake. But she found him.') No bullets anywhere, but victims abound, including Smiley.
Add to this mix the man's extraordinary longevity and his personal courage and integrity, his willingness to take on the right enemies absolutely, and ladies and gentlemen I nominate for the Nobel Prize for Literature M. le Carre.
NB
And Westerby's brilliant by-way-of-introduction in the book... saved by the sneering student at a post-Westerby Circus lecture ... textbook le Carre.
The Honourable Schoolboy, second in the Karla Trilogy, coming after Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and before Smiley's People, is all about Jerry Westerby. (And who's ever been as good with names as le Carre? Jerry Westerby. George Smiley, Toby Esterhase, Roy Bland, Ricki Tarr. Karla. Uncle Benny in The Tailor of Panama.) Westerby, trying the whole book to live down that ordinary and so unspylike name and by doing so becomes one of literature's great tragic figures: a spy in over his head; a half-baked spy (a failed newspaperman!) in love.
Elegant and masterly throughout, the highlight is Smiley's crushing visit to Lizzie Worth's parents. ('My little Lizzie went behind the hedge with half of Asia before she found her Drake. But she found him.') No bullets anywhere, but victims abound, including Smiley.
Add to this mix the man's extraordinary longevity and his personal courage and integrity, his willingness to take on the right enemies absolutely, and ladies and gentlemen I nominate for the Nobel Prize for Literature M. le Carre.
NB
And Westerby's brilliant by-way-of-introduction in the book... saved by the sneering student at a post-Westerby Circus lecture ... textbook le Carre.
