Le Carré, John (2008). A Most Wanted Man. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 2008.
Difficile recensire una spy story senza rovinare il gusto della lettura a chi non l’ha ancora letta.
Personalmente, adoro le Carré dopo averne diffidato per anni. Devo ringraziare una persona conosciuta a Torino molti anni fa, di cui fatico a ricordare il nome, ma che oltre a le Carrè mi consigliò anche d’Ormesson. Ci sono persone con cui diventi amico per una breve stagione, ma poi perdi di vista. Succede, ma ti resta l’impressione che sia un peccato…
Mi limito a una citazione. Il fascino di le Carré è qui. Chi lo apprezza sarà d’accordo con me. Chi non lo apprezza, si farà venire qualche dubbio, spero.
At first he had seen himself as the put-on victim of a hostile takeover. Then he had sneered at himself: me, an adolescent of sixty, grappling with my waning testosterone. At no point had the dread word love, whatever had that meant to him, entered the dialogue he was having with himself. Love was Georgie. All the rest – the sticky hot-breath stuff, the eternal protestations – frankly that was for the other fellows. Cut through the posturing, and he wondered whether it was for the other fellows either, but that was their business. All the same, when somebody half your age barges into your life and appoints herself your moral mentor, you sit up and listen, you have to. And if she happens to be the most attractive and interesting woman, and the most impossible love to have come your way ever, then all the more so.
And sex? By the time he married Mitzi, he had recognised he was punching above his weight. He bore no grudge for this, nor she him, apparently. Pressed to take a view, he would probably argue that she had kept him in the style to which he was accustomed and sent him the bill, which was fair-do’s. He could hardly blame her for having appetites he failed to satisfy.
Now at last he was able to understand himself. He had mistaken his need. He had invested himself in the wrong market. It wasn’t copulation he had been looking for. It was this. And now he had found this, which was an important and rather astonishing clarification of his nature for him. Waning testosterone was not the issue. The issue was this, and this was Annabel. [pp. 168-169]
Sbagliando s'impera 