John le Carré (19 October 1931 – 12 December 2020) at the Brighton Memorial Library

Posted by [email protected] | Dec 14, 2020 | Cultural Life | 0 |

ABOVE, David Kramer at the Brighton Memorial Library, 12/14/20 [Photo: BML staff member]

Today, I opened my New York Times to learn that John le Carré (the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell) had died.

From NYTIMES (12/14/20), “John le Carré, a Master of Spy Novels Where the Real Action Was Internal” (online version)

Mr. le Carré at his home in London. From NYTIMES (12/14/20), “John le Carré, a Master of Spy Novels Where the Real Action Was Internal” (online version)

To my discredit, I’ve never read a le Carré novel. To rectify this literary vacuum, I went to the Brighton Memorial Library and borrowed the CD John le Carré, A DELICATE TRUTH, Read by the author (2013).

Held at the Brighton Memorial Library

When there, I learned the BML had already begun constructing an exhibit to honor le Carré. The BML is known for its ever revolving exhibits that capture literary and historic moments.

From Do the troubled spirits of John and Irene walk the Brickyard Trail? Probably not. At the Brighton Library, Matt Bashore unveils the twists and turns of the crime and punishment

Brighton MemoriaL Library. Exhibit with works by Kurt Vonnegut and artifacts from the life of Edward Crone Jr. [Photo: David Kramer, 11/2/20] From At his boyhood home site, Historic Brighton dedicates Marker to Edward Crone, Brighton War Hero and Famous Fictional Protagonist

Back home, I listened to A Delicate Truth, considered by le Carré to be his most British novel and his most autobiographical work in years. I encountered George Smiley, the disillusioned but truth telling British spy and his crew of cynical and duplicitous colleagues, whose corruption is nonetheless ennobled by le Carré’s carefully wrought, gimlet eyed prose that casts a sturdy poetry upon the English Secret Service.

When I returned to BML in the afternoon, the exhibit was completed.

12/12/20 Brighton Memorial Library [Photo: David Kramer]

ALSO ON THE BRIGHTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY

Do the troubled spirits of John and Irene walk the Brickyard Trail? Probably not. At the Brighton Library, Matt Bashore unveils the twists and turns of the crime and punishment

Bott Grave in Irondequoit Cemetery [Photo: Matthew Bashore]

A ribbon cutting and the Pages of the Brighton Memorial Library

(left to right) David Kramer, Joe Robach and Jennifer Ries-Taggart, Executive Director of the Library. 10/30/16 [Photo provided by Steve Barz, Director of Communications Office of NYS Senator Joseph Robach]

Read about Sutton Griggs at the Brighton Memorial Library

Matthew Bashore, BML Reference Services & Building Manager, and (right) David Kramer. Halloween 2018.

Donating to the beloved Brighton Memorial Library

Jennifer Ries-Taggart, Executive Director of the Brighton Memorial Library [Photo: David Kramer]

SEE ALSO

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About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.