I have heard of misty nostalgia when we revisit scenes from the past, often with selective vision ignoring what was bad. I am now seized with rampant nostalgia.
A couple weeks ago the NYT Sunday magazine featured an interview with the author John Le Carre’. I had tried his books several times the past 30 years and never got past the first 30 pages. I was out of tune with his writing. With T.S. Eliot it had been different. I was aware that Eliot was a top poet (though he held several unfortunate views, from my perspective) and admission to the level of cognoscenti required diligent reading and learning until suddenly, as a plane emerges from the clouds, the turbulence slipped and I could see and appreciate.
But LeCarre’ was not on a mountain peak but a well regarded spy story writer. And despite the recommendations of several London colleagues who read him on the tube and wherever else possible, I was not attracted. So I was drawn out of curiosity to the NYT interview and liked that he was in the spy business and therefore well qualified to write on this genre. I decided, to order through Amazon used copies of the 4 recommended novels. And I am now 100 pages into the second, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” which was written in 1974 and I am flooded with memories of my 8 year’s life in London during the late 70’s and early 80’s.
My first few month’s in London had required rapid adaptation. The checkered suit which my Johannesburg tailor assured me was the business fashion in London, immediately drew my manager’s attention “do you think we are going hunting?”. But as the months and years rolled by I acclimated to London and the City of London and the culture and norms. Then on to America and another big change. And now I am avidly reading the cloaked banter amongst individuals in a firm, ironically called the “Circus”, and the buildings and weather of London and I am instantly transported back in time and yes I probably do have my selective vision glasses on, as I again walk those streets.