John le Carré: Difference between revisions
Content added Content deleted
(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.JohnLeCarre 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.JohnLeCarre, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 33: | Line 33: | ||
<!-- %% TheQuestForKarla has its own page -- list tropes from those three novels there rather than here. --> |
<!-- %% TheQuestForKarla has its own page -- list tropes from those three novels there rather than here. --> |
||
* [[Anachronic Order]] : common; le Carre often goes back in time to explore the psychological development of his characters. |
* [[Anachronic Order]] : common; le Carre often goes back in time to explore the psychological development of his characters. |
||
* [[Anti |
* [[Anti-Villain]]: The first novel in particular. {{spoiler|Two Jews who survived the Nazis, one in a concentration camp}} wind up as spies because {{spoiler|they fear another Holocaust}}. |
||
* [[Author Avatar]] (Magnus Pym) |
* [[Author Avatar]] (Magnus Pym) |
||
* [[Badass Israeli|Badass Israelis]] (a whole operational team of them in ''The Little Drummer Girl'') |
* [[Badass Israeli|Badass Israelis]] (a whole operational team of them in ''The Little Drummer Girl'') |
||
* [[Based |
* [[Based on a True Story]] (most of his books have at least a grain of true events in there; Smiley is thought by some to be based on SIS chief Sir Maurice Oldfield, although Le Carré himself identified author and [[MI 5]] officer John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris, as Smiley's model) |
||
* [[Batman Gambit]] (in ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'') |
* [[Batman Gambit]] (in ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'') |
||
* [[Berlin Wall]] (crucial in the climactic scene of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold") |
* [[Berlin Wall]] (crucial in the climactic scene of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold") |
||
Line 49: | Line 49: | ||
* [[Feed the Mole]], [[Fake Defector]]... actually, most of the serious [[Espionage Tropes]] appear somewhere in Le Carre's novels. |
* [[Feed the Mole]], [[Fake Defector]]... actually, most of the serious [[Espionage Tropes]] appear somewhere in Le Carre's novels. |
||
* [[Knowledge Broker]] (Connie Sachs, an ex-spy) |
* [[Knowledge Broker]] (Connie Sachs, an ex-spy) |
||
* [[May |
* [[May-December Romance]] : VERY common in the books, with romances by Jaded spies and confused beautiful Twenty-Something women showing up in eight of his books. George Smiley himself marries a woman twenty years his junior. |
||
** Who cheats on him serially. |
** Who cheats on him serially. |
||
* [[Moscow Centre]] ([[Trope Namer]]) |
* [[Moscow Centre]] ([[Trope Namer]]) |
||
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Le Carré uses his own made-up code names for various organisations in order to avoid revealing classified information. For example, the KGB is always referred to as "Moscow Centre" and MI-6 is referred to as "The Circus" because its headquarters is on Cambridge Circus (in reality, it wasn't). |
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Le Carré uses his own made-up code names for various organisations in order to avoid revealing classified information. For example, the KGB is always referred to as "Moscow Centre" and MI-6 is referred to as "The Circus" because its headquarters is on Cambridge Circus (in reality, it wasn't). |
||
* [[Retcon]]: Smiley loses about a decade or so off his age between ''Call for the Dead'' and ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.'' |
* [[Retcon]]: Smiley loses about a decade or so off his age between ''Call for the Dead'' and ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.'' |
||
* [[Ripped |
* [[Ripped from the Headlines]] : Several of his books have come out in advance of the headlines from which they were ripped. A few months after ''Single & Single'' was released, there was a minor scandal involving Citibank laundering money for Russian Mobsters. Le Carré's submitted his manuscript for ''Our Game'', a book about a civil war breaking out in the Caucasus, about three months before the rekindling of war in Chechnya. And ''The Constant Gardiner'' came out just as the New York Times published a series on the misdeeds of pharmaceutical companies in Africa. |
||
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] (quite cynical.) |
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] (quite cynical.) |
||
* [[A Small Town in Germany]] ([[Trope Namer]]) |
* [[A Small Town in Germany]] ([[Trope Namer]]) |
||
Line 65: | Line 65: | ||
[[Category:Authors]] |
[[Category:Authors]] |
||
[[Category:John Le Carre]] |
[[Category:John Le Carre]] |
||
[[Category:Trope]] |
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]] |