John le Carré was no lowbrow writer – he changed the course of English literature
Genre fiction was once disparaged as stuff to read idly on the train. Today’s most innovative fiction owes the late novelist a great deal
The man behind the mask: David Cornwell
Here’s how John le Carré introduces his most famous creation, George Smiley, in the first chapter of his first novel, Call For The Dead:
When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary. When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor-racing driver, she announced enigmatically that if she hadn’t left him then, she never could have done; and Viscount Sawley made a special journey to his club to observe that the cat was out of the bag.