John le Carré: the cocaine that gave him a painful erection and pissing on Geoege Bush
JOHN le Carré is profiled in the New York Times. In another life, one of Anorak’s writers used to serve him his dinner at the Bacchus restaurant in London’s Hampstead. He was gracious, generous and affable. What else do we know about him?
He says on fox hunting:
“At least they aren’t hunting that poor goddamn thing with drones.”
On MI5:
“It was like working on a great newspaper. They were really funny people, not institutionalized, not too corporate in their minds and often very bright with curious interests.”
On success:
“I was so abnormal. I mean, most writers struggle. I hadn’t struggled. I couldn’t suddenly go down to the PEN Club and behave like a normal human being, because most of those guys were struggling to make a couple of thousand pounds a year.”
On walking in Cornwall:
“The cellphone reception is almost nonexistent here. If I didn’t die immediately, I’d be stuck for some time.”
On drugs:
He once tried cocaine. It gave him “a troublesomely long-term erection”.
On Jeremy Irons, who missed out to Sean Connery for the lead part in the film of The Russia House.
“Irons’s vicious dogs attacked my smaller dogs. He never stooped to apologize.”
On the monarchy:
Put it “on a bicycle”.
On class:
“I find our obsession with class to be absurd,” he told me now, then observed, smiling, “I have a right to these feelings, because I have pretended to be a gentleman for so long.”
On George Bush:
He “keeps a rubber cartoon figurine of Bush, so he can stare at it while urinating”.
On fascism:
“This will sound as if I am speaking large, but Mussolini said that the definition of fascism was when you couldn’t put a cigarette paper between corporate power and government power. I have watched veteran members of our intelligence establishment go seamlessly into these private defense contracting companies.”
On mercenaries:
“It’s so much easier if I come to you and say, ‘Here’s the contract, I want you to liberate Sierra Leone, I don’t give a toss who you take with you and try to keep the killing down.’”
On pleasure:
“I write and walk and swim and drink.”
Photo: John Le Carre, best-selling author of the novel “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” is seen as he boards a PanAm flight to Rome, at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Date: 29/04/1964
Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
