On a chameleon – John Banville in NYRB:

‘As we know, the camera does lie, frequently and flagrantly—consider the fashion industry—but sometimes, with some people, the lens insinuates itself behind the mask to starkly revelatory effect. Look, for instance, at almost any photograph of Georges Simenon, and you will see not only the enormously successful creator of the phlegmatic Chief Inspector Maigret, but also the man whose mother told him after his brother’s death that she felt the wrong son had died, and who, when he was writing, vomited almost every morning before he could bring himself to sit down at his desk.’

(…)

‘Is not every fiction writer something of a con artist, and is not every reader a mark? As Sisman records, the novelist realized “that Ronnie, in his own way, had been as much of an addict to the process of artistic creation as he was himself.”’

(…)

‘ Le Carré was aware of what lurked behind David’s splendidly convivial exterior. He was a chameleon from the start. At the age of seventeen he left England for Bern in Switzerland and spent nine months at the university there. In 2020, the year of his death, he recalled the many exiled Germans with whom he mingled: “I assumed German identity and German culture as a replacement of my own. That’s where it began.” That “it” has a telling resonance.’

(…)

‘In a sense, he couldn’t help himself. He was perfect spy material, if not by nature then certainly by nurture. As the son of an international swindler, he had to learn early to dissemble, to dodge and delude, to put up a front, to lie. But we would do well to keep in mind that deceit is not exclusive to the tradecraft of a spy. Consider the cunning and ingenuity of any couple embarking on an adulterous affair.’

(…)

‘In 1971 le Carré divorced his wife, Ann, and the following year married his lover, Jane Eustace. Jane worked in publishing, which was how he had met her, when she helped him with his novel A Small Town in Germany (1968). She remained loyal to him through many vicissitudes and died in 2021, shortly after he did. In the biography, published while le Carré was still very much alive, Sisman writes: From an early stage in their relationship Jane has suffered David’s extramarital adventures, and tried to protect him from their consequences. Though it has not been easy for her, she has behaved with quiet dignity. “Nobody can have all of David,” she said recently.’

(…)

‘Among the few things Jane had brought with her to the hospital was an envelope of correspondence, including an undated note from David, which read in full: You are the only woman This is the only place In the end, we have to know the one thing. Our year was extraordinary, but we didn’t say goodbye to it properly: so much effort, at such cost, such reward.’

Read the article here.

Spying is a nasty business. And art is never an excuse for unfaithfulness but perhaps we should approach to unfaithful with any hope for excuses.

Banville could have been slightly less pious. But it’s always good to be reminded by a highly talented fiction writer that the con man is related to the novelist. We cannot overcome the con man; we should indulge in him. If you want to exorcise the con man you have to become one.