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Absolute Friends/Abridged

Absolute Friends/Abridged

List Price: $31.98
Your Price: $21.11
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A political rant, not a spy novel
Review: If you like LeCarre, don't read this book. It's my second Big Disappointment from a Big Name in as many months, but whereas Red Rabbit was just overwritten, Absolute Friends is offensive. It is an emotional political tirade thinly disguised as a novel. And it founders as thought-provoking fiction because it cannot get past the writer's seething anger over certain (real) world events, much like his own character Sasha, whose better judgment is impaired whenever one successfully plays upon his ideology.

The plot itself is not too shabby, though it bogs down in places, and not always due to the recurring commentary. True to form, we really care about what happens to the main character, warts and all. The story is character-driven in the deeper sense of the word "character". Like other books from LeCarre, the nature of the man is more important than the appearance: as with Smiley, I never formed a clear picture in my mind of what Ted Mundy looks like, because that's beside the point.

But as a reader I feel cheated. I expect the sort of grandstanding woven into Absolute Friends from sensationalistic talk radio, not from a book shelved and written up as though it were another of the Smiley series. The ulterior purpose practically ambushes the unsuspecting reader in a tactic every bit as despicable as the climactic scene of the book. This aspect so alienated me that the true purpose of the book, to cause the reader to look at world events from a different perspective, was thoroughly defeated.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Anti-Fundamentalism - not Anti-American
Review: The underlying theme of "Absolute Friends" is a profound fear and distrust of "fundamentalism" in all its guises; whether found in Islamic terrorist movements or in the "In God We Trust" born again "true believers" who le Carre sees as having hijacked power in America. The protagonists, as always w/ le Carre, are carefully and lovingly drawn. Le Carre yearns, in a sense, for the moral ambiguity that underpinned his cold war spy novels. He finds the "fundamentalism" the fuels actions based on simplistic conviction far scarier than the ideological complexity and confusion that drove much of post WWII history before the last decade. Islamic fundamentalism and its equally evil twin, and twined foe, Christian "evangelical" fundamentalism (which he sees in power in the US today), are ...well just made for each other and the destruction of "decency" that uncertainty can engender.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: When bad things bhappen to good books
Review: I was deeply disappointed in LeCarre's latest offering. I'm not bothered by the anti-Americanism that other negative reviewers note, though it is indeed there and center-front.

What struck me was that here was most of a very well-written novel that LeCarre seems to have gotten tired of after, oh say, page 400. At that point all of the naunced and thoughtful character development and observation gets heaved for a fantastic comic book finish done in large black and white strokes. The "Heidelberg Seige" as I believe its called in the book, is more the stuff of Tom Clancy than John LeCarre.

In the end even LeCarre's sense for people fails him and the last few pages are simply an accounting lacking in skill and subtleness that only serve to further beat his political drum.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Time Capsule of Friendship: Yesterday and Today's Rhetoric
Review: Having read the reviews of Absolute Friends with mixed feelings, I picked it up this week and just finished it. Many are put off by its ending accusatory plot threads tying themselves up in what is perceived to be an Anti-American diatribe. However, this book is a flowing beautifully intertwined tapestry on true friendship, fellowship, rhetoric and how they are taken advantage of. And of course, it is written by John LeCarre, a master of the language (making full use of all his brushstrokes) in his twilight years writing with all the passion (read piss & vinegar) of some of today's most vociferous new voices.

This is a story of two friends from two very different corners of the globe. The main character is Ted Mundy, a son of the Old Empire, and a bit of a loveable (but aloof for reasons as you will dsicover) outsider growing up in the normal "English" world. Not sure exactly of what he believes, he follows where he is swept off to. LeCarre masterfully presents Cold War Berlin and the student communities with all of the interesting political discussions and idealstic conflicts within. Enter Sasha, Mundy's foil. He believes in something, whereas Mundy is always tepidly English with slight radical leanings. The book, at points, takes on a free form discussion of old ideologies--and certainly shows the warning signs of the dangers of believing in radical (be they left or right) ideologies.

This pattern of ideological warfare creeps up in increasing stages of fear and suspense as story arcs over 30 years of their friendship. I was a bit shocked too by the tragic and surprising ending with its intimations.

Whatever your ideology, don't be put off by what some have said about this book's accusations. As a fellow fan of the written word, I beg you to recall first that this is a work of fiction, not fact--a detail many cannot distance themselves from with how vivid and real LeCarre makes his characters. This is no more "absolute" truth than Dan Brown's wonderful Da Vinci code. It's one hell of a ride and, yes, it will make you think--or make you appalled depending on where you have pitched your tent. That is not to say that there aren't grains of truth that plead with our consciences in the journey.

Thanks go to Mr. Le Carre, for a wonderful and very relevant new book. Happy reading, book lovers!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Riveting, but moreso it makes you think
Review: The shrill cries of "anti-American" written by other reviewers do not do justice to this well-thought out book. I love John LeCarre, and this book ranks among my favorites. He tracks the longtime friendship between a foreign-born Brit and an East German, both of whom were shaped by the traumas of their youth. On its own merits, the book is an excellent character study of not one but two characters. I enjoyed it tremendously. But, and this is more important to me, it made me think a lot more of the recent US policies, which have become increasingly arrogant. I am not a leftist but LeCarre is angry in his book and as I read it I felt myself becoming disturbed as well as he made me look at recent events in a different light. For that I would like to give this book 6 stars if I could. LeCarre fans will enjoy this book, and if you have not read LeCarre you might want to start with this one as it really shows him at his best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent, as (almost) always . . .
Review: I've been a Le Carre fan for several decades and I was a little concerned, back in the early '90s, that the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union would leave him nothing to write about. As has been obvious to everyone since then, I needn't have worried. Politics may change but people and their untrustworthy interrelationships don't. This time, though, there's a very specific, very contemporary focus to the events the author considers, from the radical student underground in West Germany in the '60s to the ill-considered U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- an event about which the author's own opinions are in no doubt whatever. Ted Mundy, expatriate Brit in occupied West Berlin in his youth, later recruited by Her Majesty's Secret Service to spy on the East Germans, is a professional liar, like many of the protagonists of Le Carre's recent novels. His closest friend, Sasha, is an "expatriate" East German, also in West Berlin, recruited by the Soviets to spy on the West -- but also, after he discovered just what his masters were capable of, a double agent for the British, through Mundy. But in all important ways, Sasha is a unflinching truth-teller, and that's his eventual downfall -- and Mundy's. As always, half the enjoyment of a Le Carre novel is in the convolutions of character development and in his unfailingly impressive use of the English language. In that sense, the plot almost doesn't matter. But as events roll on toward the present day, you can almost guess -- almost -- what Mundy's and Sasha's joint reaction will be, based on the way their lives have developed. Personally, I think Le Carre probably will never be able to duplicate the absolutely masterful Smiley series, but no book he's written has ever been less than excellent, and _Absolute Friends_ is proof of that.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Return to Form
Review: ...This is a great read, and LeCarre is a rare case of where a fine author goes off the rails (a bit) but later finds is form again. Far from being a strident kook, LeCarre's is the voice of what seems to be the majority of Europeans, and frankly, he makes the case for his point of view well, and with some humor, in this book.

Read it; enjoy it; and for God's sake put down the ...and read someone thoughtful for a change

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Le Carre Leads Us On A Merry Dance
Review: His command of the language is irrefragable, nor at any place in the story does his freedom to explore all facets of the characters that inhabit his underworld deteriorate. Having just finished the book, I can only announce the emergence of John LeCarre onto a new and higher plane, as a writer, story teller and, yes, even as a commentator on the human condition.

This book delivers everything a LeCarre afficianado has come to expect. Early in the going his prose has you mentally leaning forward as the story speeds toward the center where LeCarre commandingly slows the gait to allow a full sample of his character expressions. Masterful!

But then he trumps that with several clever and thought provoking scenes that allow us to wander a bit farther afield from any place he has previously allowed us to peek. I enjoyed the freedom and hope for a promise of more. Please sir, more.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: meandering plot with political diatribe thrown in
Review: This book has a slow, meandering plot with the author's anti-US/UK rantings thrown in. The characters, aside from protagonist Ted Mundy, do not stand out and are entirely too predictable. The dialogue is contrived and unrealistic.

I was very disappointed with this book and would not recommend it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Thinly disguised as a novel ... cliched soapbox propaganda
Review: Thinly disguised as a novel, John le Carre's Absolute Friends is a geopolitical treatise written contra the Bush/Blair preemptive strike against Iraq--a bombastic diatribe that degenerates into a shrill harangue.

The Berlin Wall has fallen and the "Evil Empire" (the Soviet Union) has crumbled into fragments. Not to worry, spy-novel fans. In the wake of the terrorist attack of September 11, le Carre spews his sputum toward a new villain: American-British neo-colonialism and imperialism.

The "absolute friends" of le Carre's new novel are Edward Arthur "Ted" Mundy, a good guy seeking to do the right thing, and Sasha, an atheist radical militant, a firebrand obsessed with leftist ideology who is not averse to cracking a few eggs to dish up a socialist-utopian omelet.

Ted and Sasha worked together as "spooks" in the good old days of the Cold War; their friendship stretches back through several decades.

In le Carre's new Weltanschaaung, the "bad guys" are now capitalist corporations, the military-industrial complex, the greedy plutocrats who cry wolf (weapons of mass destruction) and launch an ill-advised war against an oil-rich Arab state.

Having temporarily come in from the cold, Ted is working as a down-at-the heels English tour guide in Germany. The opening sentence of the novel reads: "On the day his destiny returned to claim him, Ted Mundy was sporting a bowler hat and balancing on a soapbox in one of Mad King Ludwig's castles in Bavaria."

Enter Mundy's "destiny," as Sasha sets in motion a series of events eventuating in clandestine activity, betrayal, and tragedy.

Le Carre writes from a soapbox of his own. An unabashed opponent of recent Anglo-American foreign policy (see his article, "The United States of America Has Gone Mad," published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 in the Times/UK, at http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0115-01.htm -- he scribbles a screed in which he rants, rails, and raves against the arrogance of a renegade superpower.

For example, we read: "Your little Prime Minister is not the American President's poodle. He is his blind dog. Supported by Britain's servile corporate media, he has given respectability to American imperialism. It was an old Colonial oil war dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty, and it was launched by a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-Nine Eleven psychopathic"

In his early novels, le Carre set his novels in a morally ambiguous universe. Now, however, he dishes out leftist political cliches that are but mirror images of fascist propaganda.

Le Carre doesn't seem to question whether we are too close to contemporary history to judge whether the invasion of Iraq will be salutary to world peace. His self-righteous leftist radicalism wearies one almost as much as does the holier-than-thou reactionaryism of the political right.

What is the point of this disjointed novel and its interminable rehashings of the past? Is le Carre saying that cynicism has become the only option for thinking people? Or is he pleading for us to hold on to our idealism in world gone amuck?

The message of Absolute Friends boils down to a double cliche: Things are not always what they seem, and we can't believe everything we are told. . . . But then we already knew this.

One does not have to be a supporter of Bush's war to find this novel offensive. Absolute Friends is not le Carre's finest hour.


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