Book Review: Silverview by John le Carré
Why did the master storyteller wait to publish his last novel?
Silverview is the last novel John le Carré (David Cornwell) completed before his death in December of 2020. It was released in the US by Viking Penguin in hardcover and Kindle in October of 2021, then in paperback last July. The book includes an Afterword by the author’s son Nick Cornwell, who is a writer himself using the name Nick Harkaway.
I reviewed the book on my blog when it came out in hardcover. Now I’ve returned to it for another reading, inspired by my recent attention to The Pigeon Tunnel, both the memoir and the recent author interview with Errol Morris by the same title.
In Nick Cornwell’s Afterword, he explains why he hesitated to edit and then publish the book until after his father’s death.
The son opines that his father was reluctant to release his last novel because it might have been perceived as a betrayal of his promise to himself never to disclose the actual business of the Service, to the extent he ever knew it.
I’d have a different opinion. The plot culminates in the funeral of an intelligence officer whose operational life was at all times deeply secretive. Just prior to her passing, this character discloses that not only had she been married for years to a double agent, but she was also his handler and fully aware of his sympathies and betrayals, a fact that she did not withhold from her own supervisors.
Nick Cornwell admits that the manuscript had languished in his father’s desk. The son assumed this was because the manuscript was still in work. Instead, on finally reading it, Nick realized all it needed was a light copyedit.
Here’s my thought: Because fiction authors draw material from their own life experiences, however disguised and modified, we worry that our fanciful plots might be predictive as well as historical. Indeed, some of my plots have foreshadowed turnings in my own life.
I think le Carré didn’t want this story about the last days of an old spy to be a self-fulfilling prophesy: He feared it would be his last.
As my friends and fans know, I’m a longtime admirer of le Carré, and I believe that, to rate him as “The premier spy novelist of our time. Perhaps of all time” (Time), is an underestimation. In his novels, the spy story is a metaphor and a model for not only the geopolitical strife between nations but also for the loyalties and betrayals between human beings – in their most intimate and personal transactions. I’d say William Boyd’s comment in The New Statesman comes closer: “We should see him as our contemporary Dickens.”
Two recurring themes in le Carré are that humans almost always betray their loved ones, and skilled spies (like readers) must be obsessively attentive close observers. By strewing hints, clues, and foreshadowing in narratives rich in dazzling but often extraneous detail, he teaches you how spies think as well as how to read with critical intelligence, especially between the lines.
I’ll risk asserting that fans of le Carré will find nothing new in Silverview. But consider this a feature and not a flaw. If you’ve read and paid close attention to his other novels, you will be quick to recognize the suspicious cover stories, the simple and seemingly innocent methods of exchanging word codes and documents, and – at the core of all of it – the ways double agents double back on their professed loyalties, at the same time serving and betraying their countries, while twisting their personal lives and loves inside out.
As I say, recognizing these plot elements on first appearance may give you the satisfaction that you’ve aced the course at Sarratt, the Circus spy academy. Perhaps then you are ready to recognize, face up to, and deal with the loyalties and betrayals in your own life. I guarantee you will pay closer attention to what other authors are trying to express, if not what your intimates are trying to tell you.
All this said, it will come as no surprise that I respectfully disagree with Nick Cornwell’s assessment of this book:
“… Silverview does something that no other le Carré novel ever has. It shows a service fragmented: filled with its own political factions, not always kind to those it should cherish, not always very effective or alert, and ultimately not sure, any more, that it can justify itself.”
I beg to differ. The close observer knows that John le Carré has been saying this all along.
And he may have expired wishing he’d given us just one more.
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