To George from Ann, with all my love
Dec. 10th, 2017 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: The man who was George Smiley - The life of John Bingham, by Michael Jago
As a John le Carré fan, this was an instant selection from the work book sale, though I felt the title seemed familiar from somewhere, so it may have been recommended to me before. Perhaps unsurprisingly for an espionage character, it turns out that the truth of the title's claim can only be pushed so far. Bingham himself came from Irish aristocratic stock, had an unremarkable education and a life of relative leisure. However, the slow slide of his family's finances and the aftermath of the First World War meant that he had to actually find a career, and after spending some time in France and Germany, he became a journalist before joining MI5 during the Second World War. This is somewhat unlike Smiley, whose family background is unknown, but distinguishes himself with an Oxford education (including at least implicit recruitment into the Service by his tutor Jebedee), spent time in Germany, and had a "nasty war" (the details of which are never revealed). Bingham's war - constrained by poor eyesight - was spent in the UK on counter-espionage, investigating the backgrounds of refugees flowing into the UK, uncovering German spies and sympathisers, and managing double agents. Smiley marries into the aristocracy, with Lady Ann Sercomb; for Bingham, that role is reversed. An early episode in which Bingham loses a cigarette lighter seems an obvious model for the meeting in Delhi between Smiley and Karla, though that reference is not made explicit in the book.
After the War, Bingham spent some time in Germany, in the administration of the British sector, then returned to Britain, persuing a career as a journalist and novelist, and also in MI5, where, inter alia, he mentored a certain David Cornwell (aka John Le Carré; the book offers an explanation of the nom de plume that taps Bingham as "the square"). The book goes into some detail on Bingham's novels, which were modestly successful, though later works didn't really deliver. When Le Carré's writing career took off, Bingham recognised himself as Smiley, as did family and colleagues. He didn't mind, though he took issue with Le Carré's writing about espionage as a member of the Service. Bingham's wife, however, did bristle rather at the success enjoyed by Le Carré relative to her husband, and the final chapters of the book do make for rather bitter reading.
A Perfect Spy is widely recognised as being an autobiographical work by Le Carré; but one interesting question that is left unanswered by this book is, does the relationship between Bingham and Cornwell imply that Peter Guillam is a depiction of Le Carré himself in the Smiley books?
As a John le Carré fan, this was an instant selection from the work book sale, though I felt the title seemed familiar from somewhere, so it may have been recommended to me before. Perhaps unsurprisingly for an espionage character, it turns out that the truth of the title's claim can only be pushed so far. Bingham himself came from Irish aristocratic stock, had an unremarkable education and a life of relative leisure. However, the slow slide of his family's finances and the aftermath of the First World War meant that he had to actually find a career, and after spending some time in France and Germany, he became a journalist before joining MI5 during the Second World War. This is somewhat unlike Smiley, whose family background is unknown, but distinguishes himself with an Oxford education (including at least implicit recruitment into the Service by his tutor Jebedee), spent time in Germany, and had a "nasty war" (the details of which are never revealed). Bingham's war - constrained by poor eyesight - was spent in the UK on counter-espionage, investigating the backgrounds of refugees flowing into the UK, uncovering German spies and sympathisers, and managing double agents. Smiley marries into the aristocracy, with Lady Ann Sercomb; for Bingham, that role is reversed. An early episode in which Bingham loses a cigarette lighter seems an obvious model for the meeting in Delhi between Smiley and Karla, though that reference is not made explicit in the book.
After the War, Bingham spent some time in Germany, in the administration of the British sector, then returned to Britain, persuing a career as a journalist and novelist, and also in MI5, where, inter alia, he mentored a certain David Cornwell (aka John Le Carré; the book offers an explanation of the nom de plume that taps Bingham as "the square"). The book goes into some detail on Bingham's novels, which were modestly successful, though later works didn't really deliver. When Le Carré's writing career took off, Bingham recognised himself as Smiley, as did family and colleagues. He didn't mind, though he took issue with Le Carré's writing about espionage as a member of the Service. Bingham's wife, however, did bristle rather at the success enjoyed by Le Carré relative to her husband, and the final chapters of the book do make for rather bitter reading.
A Perfect Spy is widely recognised as being an autobiographical work by Le Carré; but one interesting question that is left unanswered by this book is, does the relationship between Bingham and Cornwell imply that Peter Guillam is a depiction of Le Carré himself in the Smiley books?