The Constant Gardener

Rating:
Summary: What is ethics?
Review: "Just a small county east of London" in the view of Foreign Office diplomat Sandy Woodward. Le Carre begins his examination of the modern form of imperialism in Kenya with the murder of the wife of Woodward's colleague, Justin Quayle. Woodward has reason to know Tessa's murder may not be a random killing. His definition of ethics places him among those once called "the Silent Majority". A civil servant on the rise, he reflects how ethical values have been eroded by surging "globalization". The erosion results from a rising tide of a new imperialism - the multi-national corporation. There are billions of dollars to be made in developing new drugs and ethics aren't profitable. When government policy furthers the process, people like Woodward are there to help it along. How Le Carre's people deal with ethics is the central focus of this book.

The George Smiley trilogy gave us a lexicon of "spy industry" jargon. This book introduces "pharma" as a new buzzword. It identifies a new subversive adversary - the international pharmaceutical corporation. It's a term that is likely to be with us for some time. In the way that his spy novels kept us focused on the Soviets as cruel foes, the pharmas are depicted as influential, determined powers existing nearly uncontrolled. Unlike the image carried by the Soviet antagonists, the pharmas' image is ameliorated by the demand for their products. Everyone wants what they can provide. What cost are we prepared to pay in their bringing it to us? Le Carre bluntly confronts us with that question. Le Carre shows vividly how the response is clearly individual. No agency will front for us in dealing with the pharmas.

A departure from his spy novels, this book is hard to categorize. That's good, since it shows Le Carre has breadth and remains capable of surprise. He's on a campaign here, and wants us to join it. He shows the venality of government agencies under thrall to outside forces and depicts the people representing those elements with skill. Woodward is particularly well portrayed, as is Curtiss, the pharma baron. Justin Quayle is more difficult to diagnose. For a Foreign Office functionary, his ability to "go to earth" seems rather elevated, but Le Carre needs this to give us all the information we require. Only Le Carre could give a persona to someone dead, displaying it without providing a living voice at any point. Tessa speaks through Justin Quayle's memories and interpretation of events. It seems clear that the characters take a back seat to the message of the book.

Justification for the conclusion of this tale seems lacking. It's almost as if Le Carre had tired of writing and had to contrive an ending, no matter how illogical. There's no motivation given for the pilgrimage, especially with prior events related in the story. The scene is very nearly a reprise of Leamas at the Berlin Wall in Spy Who Came In From The Cold. There is the same sense of philosophical failure and bleak future. Clearly, this book will not launch a trilogy in the vein of Smiley's quest. Which is sad, since globalization is a force sweeping the world in ways that would have made Lenin cry out with envy. Le Carre shows how the morality of communism and corporatism stand at par, toppling governments, repressing dissent and manipulating lives. Once again, Le Carre has exposed a world hidden from most of us. He's exposed it with his usual skill at language and characterization. It's a book to be ignored at your peril.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Solid Effort
Review: Four stars really isn't fair. Judged against other fiction, this novel, like much of Le Carre's work, is simply a cut above. It's really not fair to judge it against more mundane fare. So, in an objective sense, it's five stars, but judged against his other work and, I guess, one's expectations when turning to the first page of a Le Carre book, it's three and half or four stars for me.

The beauty of the book for me was getting to know its protaganist, a wonderful creation and one of the more sympathetic characters Le Carre has created in a long time. I feel I know Justin; could anticipate things he might do in situations not presented by the book, for example, a wonderful sign that a complex character has been well developed. Some of the secondard characters are equally wonderful, but, unfortunately, I never felt I could understand Tessa, Justin's departed wife. She just didn't make sense to me, and without extended flashbacks or dialogue, I ended the book unable to really understand her. She seemed more two-dimensional than the rest of the characters; not surprising since she's already dead when the book begins. Still, she is a key, and this was a disappointment.

Like most Le Carre works, I continued to think about this one after I finished the book, and was engrossed throughout. He pushes all the right buttons, and unfolds a tale like no other. Takes you to a part of the world you probably don't know much about and inside an industry that is the same. The resolution was a little *too* bleak for me, but it is Le Carre after all. I may have just managed to say virtually nothing in about 500 words, so to close I'll just say it's worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: No weeds in this garden
Review: I had just finished reading The Informant: A true story by Kurt Eichenwald. The Informant is a non-fiction account of how the FBI used an Archer Daniels Midland executive to gather information in the lysine antitrust case the government brought against the corporation. I was ready to read more and Le Carre's The Constant Gardener fit the bill.

Often, when I read fiction such as Le Carre's, I wonder how much of it was based on truth. By the time I had finished the book I was sure that the pharmaceutical-government complex was up to something in not only Africa but elsewhere as well. Powerful companies who are not opposed to killing the people who stand in their way seem very likely to me. The suspicion surrounding the death of Karen Silkwood a Kerr-Mckey employee or even my recent novel about the military-industrial complex and an organization of fictitious aerospace contractors comes to mind.

John Le Carre has done a marvelous job at describing in detail his characters and their surroundings. The setting of the story is Kenya. Carre's writing and descriptions reminded me of how Hemmingway wrote about Africa in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories.

In John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener the plot moves fast and tense and his characters are well drawn. For me The Constant Gardner was an exciting book to read and one that I would recommend to any one who enjoys either a mystery or a thriller.

Rating:
Summary: Not his best work.
Review: I've been a Le Carre fan for many years. His Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is extraordinary. This lastest novel falls short of his best. Justin, a career British diplomat, has been content to grow yellow freesias for his beloved younger wife. Suddenly Justin's well ordered life becomes turbulent when Tessa, his wife, turns up brutally murdered. Then, the understated and boring Justin springs into to action to discover the true details of his wife's and her friend's murders. Justin slips away from the British Diplomatic Service and becomes a pretty good spy. As he uncovers the conspiracy of the world's largest pharmaceutical corporations, his life becomes endangered.

The story's premise and its characters didn't ring true. Tessa seemed a naive and well meaning do-gooder, not the hard-nosed lawyer she supposedly was. Justin was never quite able to fill the shoes of a strong leading character. His motive for becoming a spy, to avenge his wife's death, seems at times pathetic rather than heroic. The drug trial conspiracy would have been totally suspect as contrived if not for the recent scandals surrounding the cancer research facility in Seattle. This organization has been accused of some of the same abuses as the companies in the novel. Anyone who has followed the Seattle scandals will find the parallels in the book uncanny.

Despite its flaws, The Constant Gardener, would be an OK summer afternoon's read. Wait for the paperback.

Rating:
Summary: Gardener looks like a winner
Review: There is nothing as sure as a good John Le Carré book. Some are great, others not, but they are always at least enjoyable. The man writes with so much assurance and charm that people who like deep and well-written thrillers have to love and thank him for such a great material.

'The Constant Gardener' is a really interesting book. It has an engaging beginning that will be solved throughout the novel. Tessa Quayle is brutally murdered in a distant region in Kenya-- where the couple lives. Before her death, she and her husband --the gardener in the title-- had felt apart. Ever since they moved to Africa, she involved with humanitarian works, while he focused in his office duties. The crime will shad a new light in her life, and Quayle will learn that Tessa is far from being what he thought she was.

In a nutshell the novel is Quayle's quest trying to find out who killed his wife and why. The deeper he goes, the more dirty he finds. He learns that her death may be linked to the pharmaceutical industry and its market in the third world.

Le Carré has his special gift for drawing believable plots with by characters that are very human. Quayle and Tessa are people that may be anyone's friends. The dynamics of their falling apart is very true to earth. But not only them are believable, but also the supporting characters.

The narrative is in a worthwhile slow motion --in other words, it requires patience from the readers. But people who enjoy Le Carré's style will find it fascinating the way he unfolds the story until it ending. At the same time, the writer is able to touch upon serious issues like the capitalism and the pharmaceutical industry that causes at lot of harm to many countries --mostly in the third world.

All in all, 'The Constant Gardener' is quite a decent read, but it requires a lot of concentration from the reader. It is different from the fast pace explosive thrillers that are out there, but it is still very good on its own merits.

Rating:
Summary: Not His Best Work
Review: This is an ambitious and very well intentioned novel. Unfortunately, Le Carre falls short of his best work and this book has some significant flaws. The ambitious part of this work is an attempt to combine 2 disparate genres; a psychological novel and a socially relevant novel. The psychological part is Le Carre's description of the obsessive quest of his protagonist to reconstruct, and really to re-experience, the last days of his beloved wife. This portion of the book is done very well and displays Le Carre's ability to develop characters and the plot in a subtle and penetrating fashion. The socially relevant portion is Le Carre's effort to expose the miserable medical conditions in Africa and the moral corruption of many international pharmaceutical companies. Despite Le Carre's noble intentions, this aspect of the book is less interesting. His presentation of this issue comes across as very black and white. In one sense, this is legitimate, as Big Pharma has often behaved disgracefully in developing nations. As an artistic device, this is less successful. One of the best features of Le Carre's Smily novels was the persistent moral tension surrounding the ambiguity of his protagonist's conduct. What is permitted in the pursuit of a good cause? This type of tension is absent from this book and it lacks the interesting moral dimension of his best novels. I am afraid that the plotting is a little contrived as well. Another contrast between this book and the Smiley novels. Still, this is a good book. From almost any other writer of popular fiction, this book would be an unmitigated success. Le Carre's best work, however, raises expectations that this book does not meet.

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.