A Perfect Spy
Bannon, Barbara A
breakdown in Lu Anne's empty act, but insanity of the modern world, Stone Graham Greene, le Cane is a writer he doesn't persuade us that she has lost cheapens the tragedy...
...Rick, that gentlemanly, genial searching for him, and here we are In short, he became indeed the perfect charmer is an ace con artist, as was le treated to a brilliant sequence of encoun- spy and his father's son...
...We know on very nearly the thought the world of him, and a fascination and also its one weakness...
...The Faculty: Thomas H. Grooms C. Sebastian Moore, O.S.B...
...Driving through Paris one and the high Middle Ages...
...greatest contribution to date to- engendering new ideas, conceiving purHe writes: "A thinking, praying Chris- ward the rediscovery and renewal (Continued on page 312) GRADUATE STUDIES IN THEOLOGY AT BOSTON COLLEGE The Deputment of Theology at Boston College, a leading Catholic university In an ecumenical selling, shares the resources of eight other schools in the nw&opoftn area through membership in the Boston Theological Insttule...
...I'd try to the most personally to "John le Carre," ral spies...
...Neither am I. But don't nary book I have ever read...
...Le Carre has steadfastly reThe Pert;-0 t 51 +errands on behalf of British intelligence, fused to be interviewed and the Lelyveld Commonweal: 308 article is the only one he would submit to ing...
...Spy is the first of le Cane's novels not life...
...He by anybody else...
...In Systematic Theology, History of Christian Life and Thought, or Christian Ethos...
...Use Sowle Cahill, Director of Graduate Programs, Department of Theology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02187.(617)552-3880 23 May 1986: 309...
...Harvey D. Egan, S.J...
...come the part of Pym that was not owned Yet at the heart of the novel remains le we should nor ask, for more...
...Isn't that laid his secrets and his life...
...The Honourable Schoolboy...
...Carre"s brilliant evocation of the espion- spied...
...He paraded pleasurable surprise Ronald Cornwell...
...He is a very pri- arrived at the pseudonym of "le Carre6" dition of the Fathers of the church vate person, and that is why the publica- very simply...
...He had beenough...
...tery...
...Biblical Studies may be pursued as a minor Neld...
...He'd has written, this is the one that means zerland at last, the spiritual home of natu- come home as one person...
...When time well aware of his father's duplicities Service...
...And in drawing this parallel be- from having lost track of the hopes that true in the Smiley series of novels: tween Lu Anne's madness and the real were once thought possible...
...He has never been more con- A Perfect Spy is what it does and does not very energetically . When his life vincing than he is here in showing us how tell us about David Cornwell himself, is happy he believes in God and Magnus, a brilliant young man, by this who was once in the British Foreign wants everyone to have a gift...
...This book is special...
...Margaret Gorman, R.S.C.J...
...This is because, as Axel, a man whom Magnus betrays out someone else...
...Susan M. Praeder Robert J. Daly, S.J...
...The M.A...
...Abbot Thomas Keating says: or even in our subconscious - in order to The German edition has an introduc- This book, in my view, is the render us capable of making discoveries, tion by Hans Urs von Balthasar, no less...
...proach to reality, it deserves to be the basis of a course in spirituality in every Christian institution of Dealing from a full deck higher learning, and what would be even better, the point of departure MEDITATION= Ox TIN TAROT tian of unmistakable purity reveals to us and unifying vision of the whole A JOURNEY INTO CHRISTIAN the symbols of Christian Hermeticism, curriculum...
...DEGREE may be earned in Theology or Biblical Studies...
...hood and Magnus's wife, Mary, are club...
...It is that which must be the Tarot cards...
...The more tangled and complex the charGenerations of intrigue acters' dilemmas become, the more le Carre is aware of all they are going through and the better he conveys it to us A PERFECT SPY and becomes the protege of a new father Very early on Magnus Pym learns to John le Carre figure, Jack Brotherhood, who will run lie and to "live on several levels at Knopf, $18.95, 475 pp...
...HERMETICISM leading us meditatively, by way of the The book takes the form of twenty-two Major Arcana, into the deeper, all- letters to an " -`unknown friend," you, the Anonymous embracing wisdom of the Catholic Mys- reader...
...The superabundance of of the twenty-two picture cards, or Major genuine, fruitful insights which he con- Arcana, of the Tarot deck...
...One thing I can tell you...
...breakdown in Lu Anne's empty act, but insanity of the modern world, Stone Graham Greene, le Cane is a writer he doesn't persuade us that she has lost cheapens the tragedy of our own mis- whose characters can never totally evade anything...
...Selectively, it is true...
...Mary C. Boys, S.N.J.M...
...Her suicide is as pointless as placed dreams and the despair that comes moral commitment...
...it is that which it is necessary to "know" P ROBABLY you are not interested in The American edition quotes Basil in order to be fruitful in a given domain o Christian hermeticism, still less in Pennington: "This is the most extraordi- spiritual life...
...larly handsome square (le carre) and wisdom, profundity, openness to If it frees Cornwell from the torment of made the name his own with very satisfy- truth, and comprehensive apthe past, that will be eminently satisfy- ing results for readers world-wide...
...DOCTORAL STUDIES In the Joint Graduate Program with Andover Newton Theological School lead to the Ph.D...
...Philip J. King Anthony J. Sakiarini J. Cheryl Exum Matthew L. Lamb Margaret A. Schatkin Miles L Fay, S.J...
...rathe Meditations to a wider circle of readers...
...Skating on thin ice all the time, he submitted to the British Foreign Office John le Carte manages Oxford, some frightening small for vetting...
...sessed with the catharsis of freeing him- remote Devon coast...
...Like betrayed, he is able to write quite sinimprobable or exotic Rick's next scheme cerely, "Axel was his keeper and his, will be, "the court," his loyal followers, virtue, he was the altar on which Pym had and a constantly changing cast of ''He's a searcher...
...In our profession 1 am sure "lovelies" will back him...
...He becomes an expert at it and all agent, while he officially mounts the dip- the while he smiles most charmingly...
...Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...
...Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J...
...his first wife Belinda says of him to There is another father figure awaiting Brotherhood after his disappearance, C LEARLY, of all the eleven novels he Magnus in Bern, where he "was in Swit- "He was a new man every day...
...At first page that Magnus has holed up in stern-jawed priestly pride on learntimes le Carri-Cornwell becomes so ob- what is for him a "safe house" on the ing that the Army loved him, too...
...This is Czechoslovakian match him...
...David Neiman Stephen F. Brown Charles C. Hefling, Jr...
...In the morning he'd be born David Cornwell...
...An arcanuM, Theopha n* Boyd veys, certainly justifies bringing these the author explains, is not a secret...
...the pack of them to paid-up life little bored, a feeling that does not last We know how desperately Brother- membership in the Pym supporters long, however...
...Ernest L Fortin, A.A...
...actively present in our consciousness - turn the page...
...As Joseph Lelyveld wrote in the he is down he will sulk and refuse to and his mother's descent into madness, New York Times Magazine, A Perfect go to church...
...Padraic O'Hare Francis X. Clooney, S.J...
...But Perhaps the most tantalizing aspect of treasonably it is also true...
...And often age scene...
...Sullivan, S.J...
...Those of us who run begins to charm his own way through him have to live with that...
...The entire novel is told in interesting when he heard that his tutors In this lies much of the novel's great contrasts...
...It is no coincidence that le Carte the "mea culpa" he is writing, speaking of the "Perfect Spy," Magnus Pym, is chose "Brotherhood" as a name for the about his Oxford days: closely modeled on his own father, top British manager of spies...
...Carre's real-life father, Ronald, a man ters between British and American intel- And when he casts his lot with both who can draw to himself so dedicated a ligence men, each lying through his British Jack Brotherhood and returned band of cronies that one of them will even teeth, members of the same "team" out Czech comrade, Axel, whom he once go to prison in his place...
...With its tion of this, in part autobiographical, evening he looked out and saw a particu- firm grasp of tradition, its balance, novel is so remarkable...
...has been reported, one of the pivotal of a desire to court favor with Brother- Or, as Magnus Pym himself puts it in characters in the novel, Rick Pym, father hood...
...Cornwell of the Christian contemplative traon behalf of this book...
...A. Brandt Henderson Pheme Perkins Mary Daly James Hennessy, S.J...
...Each letter is a meditation on one Amity House, $44.95, 658 pp...
...This was certainly her life...
...Frederick G. Lawrence Francis Is...
...Magnus for years as a British secret once...
...Claire Lowery Thomas E. Wangler H. John McDargh James Michael Weiss For further Information on' graduate programs and resources, contact Dr...
...James A. O'Donohoe Lisa Sowle Cahill Raymond G. Helmick, S.J...
...No matter how to savage each other mercilessily...
...Magnus has done so He modestly demurred or modestly self from the memory of Ronald immediately on learning of his father's boasted...
...Smiley's People...
...He weeded out the halfCornwell, and how it has haunted him, death, abandoning wife, teen-age son, believers from the believers and that he goes on too long about "Rick," everyone, while he sets down in writing did not rest until he had converted and we begin to feel ourselves almost a the "mea culpa" of his entire life...
...Visiting) Louis P. Roy, O.P...
...As Barbara A. Bannon lomatic ladder...
Vol. 113 • May 1986 • No. 10
