Single & Single.

I’ve just finished reading the John le Carre novel, Single & Single.
He captures the pains of loss and middle-age perfectly. His key characters are souls adrift, betrayed or betraying, unable to settle in a complex world. They are unsure of their place or the people around them, accepting a fate that they cannot influence.

And sometimes I feel like that, but without the resolve to start afresh because that would mean losing everything I hold dear and love.

When I was younger, I used to read his pre-Wiedergutmachen spy novels, and I enjoyed the grubby grittiness of his Cold War characters, with all the protagonists suspicious of their colleagues and neighbours. He describes worlds built on sand, ordinary men and women being bulldozed aside by malice or power. None of his stories are resolved completely; like life itself. I’m feeling pretty buffeted myself at present. Mournful, betrayed, angry at the bastards controlling the purse-strings.