Entertainment For Lively Minds
Le Carre Calls It
I'm on a bit of a John Le Carre jag at the moment. I'd forgotten what a searingly funny and seriously fine writer he is. And astute. This prescient little gem jumped out of 'The Tailor of Panama' - apply it to whatever you wish, be it Swine Flu, Jade Goody or the latest Premiership football rumour:
"Nothing is more predictable than the media's parroting of its own fictions and the terror of each competitor that it will be scooped by the others, whether or not the story is true because quite frankly dears, in the news games these days, we don't have the staff, time, interest, energy, literacy or minimal sense of responsibility to check our facts by any means except calling up whatever has been written by other hacks on the same subject and repeating it as gospel."
This was written in the mid-90s, before the internet ruled the world. I bet he's *really* mad now.
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Current reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davis.
Seriously, give it a go. He talks about this in some detail, defining it "Ninja Turtle Syndrome.' Specifically the fear papers have that by ignoring what everyone else is writing about you lose sales, no matter how worthless you know their stories to be.
just bought that on amazon...
had heard of this book before, but that's piqued my interest alright.
Mind you, I think it'll be an NNNNNGGGGGHHHH! book; you get a few pages in and then fling it across the room, in frustration, when you see that somebody confirms what you've long suspected and, yup, there's bog all you can do about it!
To counteract this, the old Reggie Perrin DVD should be arriving in the same delivery...
The Newspapers..
...all lost one sale per day about 2 years ago.
Me.
All of them trot out nonsense, filled with the self importance of whatever jumped up journalist has composed the piece. Jon Swain and Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times are among the worst.
It was for people like them that "The Day Today" was created.
John Le Carre
Tailor is a really strong book. I couldn't imagine how they could turn it into a film. The best I could imagine was a slightly larger scale "Sleuth" - basically a two hander set in the tailors shop. Well Boorman, the director, proved me wrong by making a conventionally scaled film. Unfortunately it was also as dry and dull as could be imagined. And the American invasion of Panama was embarrassingly badly filmed. Okay they didn't have the budget to show it, but at least stick some fighting sounds on the soundtrack.
Single and Single was also a good book.
Our Game was rubbish.
I have to disagree
This ties in with David Hepworth's Reviews thread and the value of differing opinions. I think Tailor of Panama is one of his worst whereas I think that Our Game is, while not one of his best, well worth reading. Apart from anything else it alerted me to a lot of stuff going on in the Caucasus that just doesn't make the news in this country. If I'd started reading Le Carre with Tailor I'd probably not have bothered with anything else.
I agree with you on Single & Single.
The Mission Song was also rubbish. On the other hand I do like The Honourable Schoolboy a lot, even though many dismiss it as a minor work or dislike it completely.
Our Game
I forced myself to finish it. If I was to try and read that today I would give up early as I just can't read books I don't enjoy as it's too much effort for zero reward.
Watching a bad film is easy as it's a passive activity and you can do other things while it's on. Ironing and reading a book is awkward at best, and can be outright dangerous.
The upshot of this is that I haven't finished a single book that I didn't like. If only I could apply this to music.
Tailor Of Panama
I forced myself to finish it because I was on holiday and alternatives were limited and I hoped it would get better.
I agree with Graeme below about The Night manager and Constant Gardener, both cracking good reads.
The strange thing with The Mission Song was I couldn't recall any other Le Carre novel getting such a high profile launch and good reviews in the quality press. How wrong they were, IMHO.
I love John le Carre
I went back and read a couple last year.
His is the authentically weary voice of our times.
Le Carre
I have been a huge fan of Le Carre ever since I read Tinker, Tailor..20 -odd years ago. He´s always been interesting, sometimes sublime (The Perfect Spy ). Our Game is not his greatest but he stumbled badly on The Mission Song, so much so that I haven´t rushed out to get his latest, The Wanted Man. Is it any good ?
Agreed
'The Mission Song' was very, very poor by his standards. 'A Most Wanted Man' was - let's resort to rock hack cliches here, shall we - a veritable Return To Form.
My favourites are 'The Night Manager', 'A Perfect Spy' and 'The Constant Gardener' - the really labyrinthine stuff.
I'd put 'Tailor..' somewhere in the middle. Not exceptional, but there's something so compelling about the way he allows characters to unravel before our eyes that makes it hard to look away.
So true