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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 DECEMBER 2020 5 BOOKS painstaking literary craftsman the manuscript of the first draft over to her to be typed up, and the typescript would then be worked on: attacked with scissors and sta- ple-gun, with more layers of manu- script additions and rewrites in every spare inch of white paper. The pro- cess would be repeated many times through the subsequent drafts, often creating a document that must have been incredibly hard for Jane to in- terpret and lay the newly revised text out cleanly and clearly on a new sheet of blank paper, but their close working made the process efficient and effective. Her participation in the creation of the novels, which was constructively editorial, has been too often overlooked. One of the undated, untitled drafts is an early version of the beginning of chapter two, in which George Smiley is introduced to the reader as: "small, podgy … one of those gentle, reluc- tant worker-bees who throng Lon- don's suburban railway system". The bee metaphor was eventually excised from the published text, but in this draft many of Smiley's familiar char- acteristics are already present and more are added as David amends and elaborates his first thoughts. A full- er picture of the spymaster begins to emerge: "His legs were short, his gait anything but agile, his dress sober". Two slightly later drafts (with the bee comparison retained) are titled The Reluctant Autumn of George Smiley, the second version with the subtitle "being the first story of THE QUEST FOR KARLA". Only the latest drafts are titled Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and begin with a description of Thursgood School, where one of the key characters in the plot has hidden away, rather than an introduction to Smiley. The materiality of these drafts: the layers of manuscript over typescript, the stapled additions of cut-outs from other drafts and versions, all combine to show to me that David was not just an artist, but approached his writing as a craft as well. He put a great deal of time, energy and care into the process of composition – a process that was physical as well as intellectual. A place in the pantheon I am often asked where I place the writers whose archives we have in "the western canon" – if you like, the "hall of literary fame". Perhaps there is a sense that having your papers in the Bodleian is a form of "canonisa- tion", but the world of letters is mov- ing away from the notion of the can- on, and more embracing of allowing new voices to be heard from around the world, increasingly in languages other than English. Now that le Carré will write no more, will his novels still be read in 50 years' time? I am certain they will. His work is remarkable for sustain- ing the popular and critical acclaim throughout his literary lifetime, al- most into his tenth decade. Students will find his work an increasingly fertile field for dissertations – and scholars are already approaching him as a narrator not just of the Cold War, but of post-war geopolitics. The real success of David Cornwell's writing to me is that his books are not easy. They are brilliantly writ- ten, painstakingly constructed, and have superbly drawn characters and thrilling plot lines. But the texts are complex and require effort on the part of the reader to comprehend the intricacies and remember small details which are often critical to the plot. It is in this complexity that le Car- ré conveys the reality of the world. Things are not simple when human beings are involved. Their contra- dictions and complexities are what make our world an intriguing, inter- esting, and infuriating place. David Cornwell, as John le Carré, described and conveyed it like no other writer. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license The early drafts show a deep process of collaboration with his wife, Jane. He would hand the manuscript of the first draft over to her to be typed up, and the typescript would then be worked on: attacked with scissors and staple-gun, with more layers of manuscript additions and rewrites in every spare inch of white paper