In an interview, La Carre stated, “If

there are times when I have been

ruthless in my life, and most of us

have been ruthless,” it is as if he

is attributing it to “that chunk of

my life that passed me by, which

is a mother’s love.”  The reader,

a sometime follower of La Carre,

felt that John, even as he knew

John to be a nom de plume, which

he used as he felt that they

were now on a first name basis,

had put a finger right in the reader’s

heart hole, not to further the pain

of a dull ache by making it into a

searing pang as a finger nail tearing

along the inside of the left ventricle,

but, by osmosis perhaps, to help the

healing by pointing out that misery

does indeed love company and what

distinguished company.  The reader

didn’t feel so alone or so ashamed

of his own episodes of ruthlessness.

He patted his bathrobe in the area

of the chest right by the heart and

felt a certain vindication (no!), or being

understood or, oh, what is the right

word ?,  perhaps just forgiven-ness

from one continent to another or

just in the den with his hand gently

on his heart.