The Pigeon Tunnel John Le Carré

 

This is an unexpected pleasure from a novelist who claims, like B.Traven, that the artist must withdraw behind his art. The closest we had so far of an autobiography was “A Perfect Spy” where he reinvents his youth and especially the love-hate relationship with his father. But actually the Pigeon Tunnel is of a different breed and the subtitle “mémoirs” more to the point. “Stories from my life” Encounters with well-known or less known people, informal interviews for his own search of characters. Something has to be said about David Cornwell, A K A John Le Carré : when it goes to his novels, he always does his homework. 
And his homework led him to South-East Asia, Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe… So much for people who, like me, thought he has spent his whole life sitting at his desk in his cottage of Cornwall. Quite a life, quite a man ! We have finally the pleasure to meet David Cornwell, writer and traveler, occasional spy and teacher, and to follow him in his unlikely destinations. A man with strong convictions and a deep sense of humility. In the great tradition of english writers like Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene, a man with an active, unquestionnable search in ethics. If I was to resume it in a glimpse, I’d say : what happens when ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary situations, and try to behave like “a decent human being” ? The question is given its full bloom in “The Russia House” and has always been a constant for the writer of “The Constant Gardener”.
So it is, at least for me, a surprise to meet the writer behind a writer whom I greatly admire. and I can see now that David Cornwell is no stranger to John Le Carré, like every good writer should be : a man to his word.