Picture above from The Secret Life of John le Carré, by Ralph Crane le Carré in spy pose.
I’m reading Adam Wiseman’s biography of John le Carré (real name David Cornwell).
I’m halfway through, the first half is a rip-roaring read of unreliable half-truths culminating in le Carré’s massive sell, The Spy who came in from the Cold, first published in 1963.
The biography is a rip-roaring read because at the heart of it is le Carré’s father, Ronnie, a conman who charms, cons, and thieves his way across the world. There’s one point where he calls his son from a jail in Jakarta where he’s residing on gun-running charges. It’s July 1965. But before he went to jail, he got to meet President Sukarno and present him with a copy of his son’s bestseller
Le Carré remembers his father in the biography. He clearly remembers seeing him staring out a prison window, hands clutching the bars, dressed in the full grey prison uniform complete with comic book arrows on it.
His father told him it never happened, that you didn’t get a room with a view, that the prison uniform with arrows on it was out of his son’s imagination, or the pages of the Beano.
But le Carré is not persuaded. It might not be true, it might not have happened, but it’s still his memory. And he wonders if there shouldn’t be a word for memories you have that didn’t happen but you remember.
I think there is a word. Photograph.
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