Among my printed souvenirs, marooned forlornly in a sea of literature

HOW many books has John le Carré written and published? Go on, have a guess. No googling, please. No phoning a friend. Just have a stab at it. Pick a number. You surely must know le Carré, famous for his espionage stories. For his insights into the shadows that shield the British establishment. For creating the immortal George Smiley, brought to life on screen by Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. The author continues writing to this day, as far as I know, though well into his eighties.

So, how many books are there in the le Carré canon? How many works has he issued since ‘Call for the Dead’ appeared in 1961? No, I do not know the answer off the top of my head either. All I do know is that I am sitting here on the bedroom floor here at Medders Manor with twenty of le Carré’s finest scattered around me. The twenty range from that debut novel of 57 years ago to the excellent recent memoir ‘ The Pigeon Tunnel’. By now Le Carré is an old friend, providing the perfect antidote to James Bond, his contemporary in the world of espionage fiction.

Ian Fleming’s 007 mission, re-hashed again and again, was to save the world against a backdrop of spectacular explosions and impossibly beautiful women. Smiley was more likely to be found in the office as he struggled vainly to save his marriage. Bond is for boys. I read most of Fleming’s thrillers while still a teenager and they have not stayed with me. But the le Carré horde/hoard has been retained, accumulated over the years and appealing to the more mature me.

And so I find myself slumped among these cherished souvenirs. The problem is that the twenty le Carré volumes are no more than the tip of a literary ice-berg. A mere twenty books would not be a problem. Hundreds upon hundreds of books are daunting. The dilemma started when Hermione tidied her half of the bedroom, clearing away decades of dried out cosmetics and out-dated perfumes. Accumulated brochures were consigned to re-cycling and moth eaten sweaters dispatched to clothes stalls in far off Africa.

The clean-out was a truly radical exercise bringing an extended long fingering exercise to a commendable conclusion and exposing surfaces that had not seen the light of day for decades. Well done, Hermione. Sincerest of sincere congratulations, honestly.

The down side was that this spring clean served to underline just how scruffy was the other half of the bedroom. Having captured the moral high ground, the loved one then felt free to begin analysing the cause of the mess which persisted on the far side of the line which divides female from male in our sleeping quarters.

The conclusion was obvious. Books, books and more books. Picking up discarded pairs of trousers is the work of a moment. Kicking shoes and correspondence from seed merchants under the bed takes a few minutes. But that still leaves the books. Books in piles. Books in crates. Books in disordered heaps.

‘Dust gatherers!’ sniffed the holder of the high moral ground. ‘How many of these are you ever going to read again?’

But that’s not the point! The books have nothing to do with future reading. Rather they represent my past journey. From the ‘Just So Stories’ of Kipling read out loud by my late father more than half a century ago through to the latest Scandinavian whodunit. That’s what I wanted to say but somehow the words never emerged.

An agreement was reluctantly reached whereby I acquired a set of shelves to accommodate some cherished works, while others must be brought to the charity shop. Honouring the terms is proving, frankly, traumatic. There is only so much room on any one set of shelves. If the twenty le Carré are retained then that leaves precious little space to display the dozen Ian Rankin.

It would be appalling to discard my late mother’s Maeve Binchy set. But if ‘ The Lilac Bus’ remains, then ‘ The Van’ and the rest of Roddy Doyle’s output may be consigned to the bargain bin. I find myself paralysed with indecision.

In among the jumble of paperbacks, I find a novel by Anthony Powell. It is called ‘Books Do Furnish a Room’. Try telling that to my life’s companion.