From: g@crcomp.net   
      
   As TOLSTOY ON SHAKESPEARE's ruthlessly rich revelry recedes into memory   
   it makes me hanker for something similar yet different. In the curious   
   case of le Carré and Forsyth, it turns out the taletelling tickles me   
   more than tales told by the two.   
      
       "James [Fox] requested I ask you this 'cheeky question': was   
       John le Carré a double agent from the start?"   
      
       Questions about the late espionage novelist's loyalties are the   
       stuff of internet chatroom conspiracies and whispered rumors in   
       the all-male (until last week anyway) salons of the exclusive   
       Garrick Club in London where members of MI6 like to gather for   
       cocktails. Le Carré applied for, and received, Irish citizenship   
       shortly before his death in 2020. According to some, this was yet   
       another indication of the shaky nature of his fidelity to Britain.   
      
       Forsyth sat forward. Maybe this wasn't a softball question.   
      
       "Ah, le Carré," Forsyth seemed to be dusting off a memory of the   
       man. "You mean David Cornwell. John Le Carré was just his penname.   
       He was recruited into MI5 or MI6, I can't recall which one, but   
       he was never, as they say, 'in harm's way' as I was in the East   
       Bloc."   
      
       "I find him too depressing," I added. "He's too nihilistic for me."   
      
       "Yes, well, there was that. I met him once, you know, at a   
       luncheon for writers." He didn't elaborate and did not indicate   
       whether he liked him or not, but I lean toward the latter. In   
       addition to political differences, Le Carré/Cornwell characterized   
       the pro-Brexit crowd as neo-fascists while Forsyth saw the European   
       Union as the embodiment of a rising "bureaucratic dictatorship,"   
       Forsyth did not share Le Carré's cynicism. In short, Forsyth is   
       a patriot while Le Carré, in my opinion, was not.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Don.......My cat's  )\._.,--....,'``.                     veritas    _|_   
   telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.               liberabit   |   
   tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'              vos         |   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)