by Conor Farrell, Falmouth University Creative Writing student
The son of famed spy novelist John le Carré, Nick Harkaway spoke at length with festival director Colin Midson on how it felt to resurrect his father’s beloved Smiley character for modern audiences, while retaining the signature charm of the original books.
Right from the start, he expressed a noticeable fondness for his childhood, emphasising how unfazed he was by the media scrutiny surrounding his father. He shared close personal memories of watching Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Alec Guinness, play Smiley in the BBC adaptation of his father’s novels. The nostalgia became even more palpable as he gave the audience an inside scoop on the le Carré writing process; Harkaway took the time to highlight how instrumental his mother was in getting his father’s words on the page, while humorously likening their chaotic stapling of A4 sheets to an analogue form of modern cutting-and-pasting.
When his mother wasn’t around to read to him at night, Harkaway listened to Michael Jayston’s audiobook narrations of the le Carré books, which he half-jokingly attributed to a lack of choice; for Harkaway, it was either his father’s spy novels or The Lord of the Rings (again). This close familiarity with the source material made him the ideal candidate to carry Smiley the franchise forward when eager publishers inevitably came knocking for more.
Comparing his father’s writing style with his own, Harkaway stood firm on not wanting to imitate le Carré’s prose; instead, he decided to let moments of classic Smiley come to him organically in a “tonal but obvious” way. While acknowledging his chapters are slightly longer than his father’s, Harkaway maintained that the newest instalment has more in common with the “short and punchy” The Spy Who Came in from the Cold than the complex structure of a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Harkaway also pointed out the differing perspectives and contexts he and his father are coming from; le Carré was writing for a contemporary audience while Harkaway is writing period pieces. Harkaway believes the underlying theme of compassion throughout the novels is reflective of his father’s ethical framework; le Carré may not have been a “clear thinker” when it came to politics, but this is because he preferred to act on emotional intuition. In the end, Harkaway knows what his father’s advice would be whenever he’s unsure of something. “Do you know why you’re doing it? And that’s the answer…”
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