Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The novelist John le Carré says that he will never write again about George Smiley. Le Carré cannot think of Smiley anymore without seeing Alec Guinness. The actor stole the author's creation, hijacked it into flesh. One remembers that some primitive peoples feared being photographed because they thought the camera would make off with their souls. Mention George Smiley to anyone who knows Le Carré's spy novels and his memory will instantly throw onto its screen the image of Alec Guinness. Smiley will not be fat and smudgy looking, as the novelist imagined him. He will be simply, immutably, Guinness, impersonating...

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