Absolute Le Carre

REVIEW BY ALISON DELLIT

Absolute Friends
John Le Carre
Hodder & Staughton
London, 2004
384 pages, $19.95 (Tpb)

In the Cold War-spawned genre of tense spy thrillers, John Le Carre's work stood out. Not only did he have a sharp sense of humanity, but he was more concerned with exploring the foibles and fears of "our" agents, than in presenting good-versus-evil yarns. His breakout hit, 1963's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, captured the ideological bankruptcy of the secret services, and was permeated with a mood of despair.

In 2000, Le Carre exploded back onto the scene with the extraordinary Constant Gardener, which tapped perfectly the ferocious greed that drives the world's corporations, and the stoic inhumanity that permeates the governments and secret services that support them. Absolute Friends is his first novel since, and feels more like a "classic Le Carre".

The story follows the friendship of two men, the passionate German anarchist Sasha and the slightly lost Brit Ted Mundy, from their first association in war-torn Berlin, through Cold War espionage, and into the current day. The book is a passionate condemnation of the world's unelected rulers, told with humanity and gripping prose. Nevertheless; I could not help feeling that, unlike the Constant Gardener, it was marred by Le Carre's pessimistic view of the effectiveness of political action, and a rather jaded view of the left. Even so, it is head and shoulders above most of the current crop of crime fiction.

From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.

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From GLW issue 610