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John le Carré back in the field

Among the multiple motivations that it is possible to attribute to the writing of a novel, rage probably does not occupy a prominent place. It is however such a rage that we imagine at the origin of Return of service (Agent running in the field), the twenty-sixth novel by John le Carré. Readers who have been a little attentive to his work will have noticed for a long time that Le Carré had become what, in Sartre’s time, was called a committed writer. Not in the sense that he would put his pen directly at the service of a cause or an ideology of which his novels would then become apologists – Le Carré is too good a novelist to fall into the trap of such naivety -, but in the sense that his romantic writing becomes the site of a criticism whose nature can be economic (as in The constancy of the gardener, where it attacks multinational pharmaceutical companies), ideological (as in A highly sought after man) or, as here, political.

Brexit England

We are in the England of Brexit, of a country decided, like its prime minister, and like the “group of rich opportunists pretending to speak on behalf of the people” with which it surrounds itself, to break with Europe in the an illusion that his “special relationship” with America will give him back the luster he has lost since the disappearance of his empire. From the perspective of one of the young protagonists, Ed, this is following in the footsteps of those who want to promote the “institutional racism and neo-fascism” that would characterize Washington’s current politics.

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