Rating: 
Summary: To Bee, or not to Bee......
Review: While not his best book of the last 10 years, Le Carre's The Constant Gardener betrays a passion for subject that was missing from his recent works. (Single and Single is a notable example!) One can tell that Le Carre is affected by a reality that is so horrifying he can not, in his own opinion, portray it properly; he compares his story to a, "holiday postcard," of Africa, which after reading The Constant Gardener is unthinkable. Born to a family tradition in the British Foreign Service, handsome Justin Quayle can only garden while his young wife, Tessa, attempts to expose the unethical practices of pharmaceutical companies in Africa, keeping Justin from the truths she discovers, for which she is killed. Tessa had become a hero to the Africa women she had touched in her aid work, and upon her death Justin takes up arms against her sea of troubles. Who killed Tessa, and why? Early on, Tessa's murderers are identified, the motive established. But Le Carre goes on to show that she was really killed by those in the West who would trade medical cures for the violence and corruption that is Africa's illness; we all are gardenining while Africa goes to pot. Le Carre's compassion is admirable, and conscience does not make a coward of his hero. Justin sees his mission through to the end, though it takes him from being a man who tends gardens to one who pushes up daisies. The importance Le Carre places on Africa's impossible troubles allows for little character-complexity; everyone wears either a black or white hat, the African stage up-stages its players. However, I am not disappointed that Le Carre took a risk and put his heart in the way of his pen this time. Had he done otherwise, I might not have trusted as much what he most wanted to say, that Reality is much scarier than fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Le Carre and Greene - the final intersection
Review: After circling around the numerous landmarks and trail blazes left by Graham Greene, creating reflections on both the emotional, geographic, and narrative planes, Le Carre finally creates his homage to The Heart of the Matter. Wonderful in every respect it leaves one thirsting to know much more about each of the characters. The finally etched forms of the African post colonial bureaucrats are on a par with Waugh. Action enough to keep me up till 2 am. I think this is his best since Smiley.
Rating: 
Summary: Slipping, slipping.............
Review: Simply, this is not a very good book. Certainly not up to what one would expect from an author of Le Carre's standing. The book begins well, dies in the middle ( I thought I would never get through the never ending correspondence), and ends up in a short blaze of activity that is not done well. The book seems more a crusade againt the pharmaceutical industry than a story line about the adventures of his characters. It is an angry book. Le Carre still knows the art of the sentence as well as any contemporary author. The fact is that he can write a much better book than this. He always has in the past.
Rating:
Summary: Good storyteller, odd tale
Review: Since the fall of the Berlin wall, many--if not most--authors of espionage novels have had a hard time adjusting to the lack of an "evil empire" as an antagonist. John Le Carre has always been the exception, and it is so here. Perhaps it is because for his protagonists, the motivation was personal and intrinsic, not ideological. The story is vintage Le Carre. Quayle finds himself pulled out of his comfortable rut in the most brutal way possible, and discovers inside himself a seeker of truth. The lengths to which he goes to uncover the truth behind the murder of his young wife surprise even himself. As such, he is a classic Le Carre hero, with the same tired doggedness recognizable in Westerby, Leamas and Smiley in prior works. However, throughout all the Cold War novels and even in his most recent works such as Single and Single, the opposition was not portrayed as malevolent as it is here. And that, at the end of the day, is the book's greatest flaw. The antagonist is just not believable, except to anti-corporatist conspiracy theorists. Le Carre has avoided painting his prior villains as evil incarnate because in "the great game" of espionage, such labels were ambiguous at best. That made his stories more compelling and believable. Even the drug trade and the Russian mafia have come off better than the pharmceutical industry comes off here. He carries it too far with very thin justification.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must for Gardeners Everywhere
Review: I have been reading Le Carre for a number of years now and am amazed by this new novel -- talk about a green thumb! Sure the Cold War might be over, but love, LOVE, is eternal, and Le Carre knows a thing or two about the ins-and-outs (so to speak) of the new global economy. I can't recommend this slinky little thriller highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Where's the Ambiguity?
Review: This last Le Carre novel is a great disappointment. Having read so many of his previous books, I so missed the moral ambiguity that was at the heart of them. There are times in this novel when you see flashes of the old Le Carre, but they only make you shake your head and wonder why he has gone down on this path of lecturing readers on right and wrong. Granted, the international drug companies are lousy - in the sense that their much needed drugs are unafforable to most of Africa - but this kind of lecturing is not what people buy Le Carre for....we buy his books for these flawed characters who, in their heart of hearts, know that in most of the murky world, there is not that much that separates the good from the bad. George Smiley knew that about Karla. Why has John Le Carre forgotten it?
Rating:
Summary: This Garden Needed More Tending
Review: Let me preface my remarks by admiting that I am an avid reader - and re-reader - of John LeCarre's works. Since "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" I have I have awaited each of his subsequent books like...well, like I now await the next episode of Harry Potter! Still, unlike the professional reviewers that I have read, I do not find ""The Constant Gardner" among LeCarre's better works. A good read? Certainly. But the novel does not ring true. It does not carry the gravitas of his cold war novels, the mystery of his east european nights. And it lacks the emotional and narrative complexity of his earlier works. Perhaps most disconcerting his how little time LeCarre spends on the supposed central themes of his book. Africa: LeCarre skims over Kenyan life and politics like he never descended from the plane he is seen in on the book jacket. Africa IS as complex and as mysterious - and even as disappointing as the European backdrop of Tinker, Taylor and Smiley's People. But LeCarre does not understand it, and unlike Eastern Europe, he has not invested in it. Gardening? The central character is rarely shown gardening, and the floral references, while evident, don't drive your understanding, or define, parallel or predict the development of the character. An odd weight to an avocation that could easily have been replaced by chess, wine or birds, without having the slightest effect on the reader's experience. And what a shame to have missed the opportunity to immerse the reader in the sights and scents of Kenya's floral bounty. Last of all is the disappointinly shallow treatment LeCarre gives to the role of pharmaceutical companies in Africa and other developing nations. I applaud him for raising the issue to what will likely be hundreds of thousands of readers who might never have known of the abuses of major corporations upon the world's poor. I was just surprised at how little he did with it. Having said all that, I should also say that I finished the book in about 36 hours. Lovers of LeCarre will feel right at home with the main character; the somewhat lost, reflective individual driven to right great wrongs in the name of an even greater passion. In this regard, "The Constant Gardener" follows the lead of most of LeCarre's post-cold war novels: Our Game, Russia House and Single and Single among them.
Rating:
Summary: A Timely Masterpiece
Review: Le Carre, one of the most richly satisfying writers of any genre, has finally turned his attention to the most neglected continent, Africa. The result is his most politically resonating novel since The Little Drummer Girl. The story begins in the aftermath of the murder of the activist wife of a mid-level British diplomat stationed in Kenya. The bad guys are soon revealed to be agents for a greedy multinational pharmaceutical company and complicit corrupt government officials. The widowed husband, jolted awake from his bucolic stagnation not just by his wife's murder but by the cruel and clumsy coverup by his own colleagues that follows, unearths the plot, resolute and resigned to his personal fate. Lest one think that the political content of the novel is a convenient diatribe against corporate greed, I find that the tactics employed by drug companies when threatened by inconvenient research data (misleading press releases, hack advertisements under the guise of "medical reviews" by well-paid physicians, and character assassination of scientists whose views threaten the corporate bottom line) are quite accurately portrayed, minus the physical skullduggery which I consider a forgiveable theatrical device. And yes poor nations really do suffer when lobbyist-influenced government officials inhibit the attempt to produce cheap generic forms of patented life-saving drugs they cannot afford. The prose is rich and flawless as usual; I found myself rereading some paragraphs just for the beauty of the literary architecture. The characters are deep and well-formed, and quite believable, with few exceptions. The police interrogation of Woodrow and Justin is a gem within a general masterpiece. Long time readers of Le Carre will note the familiar theme of a middle-aged man called to idealism and action by a traumatic event, and this resonates well here. A minor point, at last we have a beautiful female character who is NOT a sexual libertine! In summary, one of Le Carre's best, and timely for all that. It is gratifying that Le Carre can still produce a work that is literarily exhilarating, and yet creates the desire in the reader to do something, even in a small way, to alleviate suffering in a stricken continent.
Rating:
Summary: The Constant Le Carre
Review: I must admit that I wouldn't have enjoyed this at all if the author's name were not John Le Carre. The writing and characterization are vintage le Carre but the plot about evil multinational pharmaceutical giants and conspiracy left me cold and wondering if it were more suited to perhaps a novel by Robert Ludlum? I look forward to Le Carre's new books because characters, plot and dialogue and emotion in his books always rang so true. The Constant Gardener delivers on these aspects (Le Carre certainly wears his emotions on his sleeve, for all readers to see) but the one dimensional pharmaceutical giant as villain stretches credulity quite a bit.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to put down, exciting and compelling
Review: Only Le Carre can put together a novel with deep, quirky, but realistic characters together with suspense that draws you ever onward to the final sentence. Far better than his last novel, Single and Single, The Constant Gardener presents us with an everyman hero, someone dedicated to his work but distracted by his pleasures, a man who discovers that he is oblivious to the tensions around him until an ultimate, irreparable tragedy brings him painfully to awareness. Though she dies at the start, still Tessa Quayle is present in the book through memory sequences as her husband Justin's quiet/passive but strong love for her drives him to understand her death, even if it is caused by forces that he cannot hope to avenge. This is a classic page-turner, hard to put down, so you may find yourself skipping meals and rest breaks because the next few pages are calling to be read. It's also a hefty book, well over 400 pages, so at the end you feel like you've had a banquet rather than a snack from the more lightweight suspense authors. The novel is satisfying, intriguing, fascinating, and significant. As other reviewers mention, the evils of irresponsible corporate tactics are exposed. The pharmaceutical industry is Le Carre's target, which is appropos to some scandals we in America are hearing about -- like a recent New York Times article exposing that our personal physicians may be hired by pharmaceutical companies to dispense drugs to us that we don't need or want in order to use us as unwitting guinea pigs. Other things come to mind: automobile air bags, MTBE in gasoline, genetically-modified corn. His story is right out of the news headlines. But it could be any industry that risks lives or even dismisses the value of human life in order to pursue their ultimate god, financial gain. I enjoyed Le Carre's espionage novels, but now he has found another niche that is contemporary and meaningful. I hope for many more novels to follow this one. As a note, if you liked The Constant Gardener, don't miss Tailor of Panama. Exposure of that book was damaged by critics who didn't like Le Carre drifting into irony and humor, but Tailor of Panama is just as well written,well-plotted, and suspenseful as The Constant Gardener, and would serve well as a follow-up should you have gotten addicted to Le Carre.
|
