John le Carré is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Try to explain this: his biography — written by Adam Sisman, delayed from this time last year — is finally published tomorrow. But now the spy writer has decided to bring out his own memoirs next autumn. So what does he think of the Sisman book, which is Radio 4’s Book of the Week, starting tomorrow? Silence.
Years ago, Robert Harris, a huge le Carré fan, considered writing his biography, but the project came to nothing. Actually, it would have driven Harris — the final part of whose Roman trilogy is just out — completely mad. Much easier to use facts as the basis for a work of fiction.
I also recall an occasion five years ago when Jon Snow, of Channel 4 News, excitedly travelled down to Cornwall to interview le Carré in what he portentously promised would be the writer’s last TV interview, rather as if Snow secretly knew of some fatal illness. But no: the hale and hearty le Carré is 84 tomorrow, neatly timed for Sisman’s book. So it is biography v memoir. In which is the greater truth likely to be found?
■ The shortlist for the Samuel Johnson prize, the UK’s most prestigious nonfiction accolade, has just been published, with the award dinner to be held on November 2. There are some strong contenders, including the Oxbridge academics Jonathan Bate and Robert Macfarlane. But well done, too, to the medium-sized Atlantic Books, which has half of the six shortlisted titles. I bet the new Samuel Johnson director, Toby Mundy, is chuffed, as he was chief executive of Atlantic when all three were commissioned. Nice coincidence.
■ On Monday, I was at the Arcola Theatre, in Dalston, east London, watching Eventide, a new play by Barney Norris. It’s a terrific three-hander set in a Hampshire pub, and now heads off to Bury St Edmunds, Oxford, Salisbury and Bristol.
Advertisement
As I was sitting in this 100-seater, about 10ft from the stage, I kept thinking that intimate drama works so brilliantly in auditoriums of this size. Most of the other really good plays I have seen in the past fortnight — such as People, Places and Things, and Pomona — have been in smallish spaces. It is good, too, that recently built London theatres, including the Park and the St James, are on the small side. You need big stages for certain productions, of course, but the number of times in the West End I have missed an expression on a face or, even more often, not heard dialogue, are legion.
■ Talking of small, the independent publisher Oneworld is behind the Man Booker winner Marlon James and his (rather long) A Brief History of Seven Killings. I hear the company is to print 100,000 extra copies of the novel. Interesting, too, how James spoke of the influence that Salman Rushdie’s third novel, Shame, had on him as a younger man.