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Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Classics Club Spin: Barchester Towers It Is! And The Letters of John Le Carre

 So far, I've read 74 pages of Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. (511 pages in all). I know that many of you have read it and liked it, which is very encouraging as I tackle it on these ever so dark December afternoons, when dozing off is so much more tempting than continuing to read.

My December reading has not been stellar, by any means. I loved the first four mysteries in Martin Edwards's Lake District Mysteries series, but the fifth, The Hanging Wood, was nowhere near as good as the first four, in my opinion. I finished it today. I'm sorry to say I thought it was a clunker. I do hope the sixth will be better. 

In the MAIL: My copy of A Private Spy: The Letters of John Le Carre, edited by his son Tim Cornwell arrived. It was published here on December 6th, and looks so fascinating, I could not put it down. He loved writing letters! Much more to say on this topic.

 

11 comments:

  1. Oh, Barchester Towers!! I love Trollope and have read all 6 Barsetshire novels as well as the 6 Pallisers... much prefer the Barsets and will surely reread them one day. Not sure if you've had experience with Trollope, but The Warden is the first book in this series and sets the stage. It's not the best read, but does provide good background information. Do you enjoy audiobooks? The series was a read/listen combination for me and audio definitely added to the experience. Buddy reading with another blogger was another big plus. Hope it ends up being a positive reading experience for you!

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    1. Hi JoAnn,
      I decided to skip The Warden and plunge into Barset Towers, as several people said was doable, without sacrificing too much. I'm so glad you liked the series, and it's because of your opinion and those of several other bloggers that encouraged me to try it. My reading this afternoon improved as soon as I met the Stanhope Family! So interesting to see what fire they'll throw into the society of Barsetshire!

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    2. Oh, gosh, I meant Barchester Towers, not Barset Towers. These dark afternoons dull my brain! We're supposed to get 24-36 inches of snow over the next two days. Yikes!

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    3. Hope you stay safe and warm up there, Judith! I spoke with my sister this evening and the snow is already coming down in central NY. Schools are announcing they'll be closed tomorrow. We'll likely get a lot of rain on the CT coast and possibly a slushy accumulation - yuck!

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    4. Still thinking of you, JoAnn, as you deal with the atrocious fall-out from that hurricane. I do wish you a very merry Christmas, and most of all--lots of time with your family and loved ones!

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  2. The revelations about David Cornwell's sex life are not the sort of posthumous applause most would seek! Nevertheless I am glad to see John le Carré’s Night Manager is back in fashion in India and his private letters et al in A Private Spy have entered the public domain. In his lifetime, every time John le Carré published a new thriller most of his contemporary authors deemed it yet another masterpiece but John le Carré doesn’t have a record of being enamoured by his fellow authors let alone journalists.

    Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton did meet one another from time to time but apparently their meetings ended in near nuclear arguments about who was best equipped to write realistic espionage novels. It's a shame all three focused on fiction but of course not one of them had first-hand experience of being a secret agent notwithstanding Fleming’s experiences in the Admiralty and le Carré’s in Five and Six until Kim Philby outed all le Carré’s agents operating in Europe. Of course, Philby and Oleg Gordievsky both knew Col Alan Pemberton CVO MBE aka Mac, Bill Fairclough’s true life MI6 handler in The Burlington Files which is a must read for all espionage cognoscenti.

    Bill Fairclough, MI6 codename JJ, aka Edward Burlington, was the protagonist in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels and did have real life experience of being a secret agent albeit not focused so much on the USSR in the Cold War. Critics have likened Fairclough to a "posh or sophisticated Harry Palmer" which probably didn’t appeal to le Carré. We do know that Fairclough once contacted le Carré in 2014 to do a collaboration. Le Carré responded along the lines of "Why should I? I've got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?"

    A realistic response from a famous expert in fiction who lost his MI6 job after being deceived by Philby! After all, Pemberton’s People in MI6 even included Roy Astley Richards OBE (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) and an eccentric British Brigadier (Peter 'Scrubber' Stewart-Richardson) who was once refused permission to join the Afghan Mujahideen. For more do see the news article dated 31 October 2022 in TheBurlingtonFiles website.

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    1. All very interesting, but it would be helpful for readers here to access the sources where you obtained your information. And frankly, from the reviews I've read, there's really not much information at all about his sex life.

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  3. Glad you're enjoying Barsetshire Towers, Judith. It's a while since I read that and The Warden but I've promised myself I'll go back to the series next year and read the next book, Dr. Thorne. There are other Anthony Trollopes I want to read too and in fact I'm in the middle of one of his long short stories at the moment, Christmas as Thompson Hall. It's delightful.

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    1. Hi Cath,
      Christmas at Thompson Hall--I'm very interested and will put it on my Christmas Reads List. So glad you're really enjoying it.

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  4. Wow I'm looking forward to hearing about Le Carre's letters and what you think. Keep reading for us, LOL. And good luck with the snow. We will be getting some Arctic temps next week. Sigh. -10F doesn't sound fun to me. Merry Christmas.

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    1. I'm sure I'll be posting more about Le Carre's letters--such a huge volume for greedy me! It will take some time, that's for sure. I don't mind -10 degrees F too much, though my dog's feet complain about it. I do mind the WILD swings in temperature we're having that wreaks havoc. Very worried about the deluge of very warm rain we're expecting Friday followed by a deep Arctic freeze. I have stockpiled loads of food. We live on a treacherously steep mountain road, and I think we'll be STUCK here.
      You know, I don't usually complain that much about winter weather, but this goes way beyond winter weather, into another category entirely. Climate change weather, ugh!
      AND!! A very, very merry Christmas to you, your family, and your animals!

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