John le Carré was the anguished poet laureate of post-imperial Britain in part because he inhabited Englishness as few Englishman ever could. With his Silver Shadow prose and Wilson Benesch ear—alert to the menace in every pleasantry—the man born as David Cornwell was in a class all his own when it came to reading the invisible ley lines of his homeland. He contained multitudes, and knew not to trust a single one of them.
Le Carré was, after all, the son of a con man who was bent on turning his son into a perfect English gentleman. The result was a man who savored both the All Souls Senior Common Room and the East End grifter as to the manner born. He could voice the ruling class, the rough back alleyways, and all the ways in which each preyed upon the other.
