Rating: 
Summary: Stunning
Review: This stunning book by John le Carre is probably his best work. I'd imagine the reason some people are a bit turned off by it is that le Carre doesn't pull any punches. His characters are real, the settings are real, and he give us, the reader, enough credit to allow us to make some jugdements for ourselves. Not everything is neatly wrapped up. There are no sermons. It's all there, brilliantly written, and with no rose colored glasses to block the glare.Also recommended: Catch 22, Life of Pi, Bark of the Dogwood
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely hypocritical
Review: Le Carre has lost his way in a book that is more a political statement than an espionage novel.His sympathetically idealistic character Sasha, described on the book's jacket as "seeker after absolutes" labels Israel's creation a "monstrous human crime" but doesn't want to be called anti-semitic.. He lambasts the Colation of the Willing's bombing of innocent Iraqis buts says nothing of Sadam's torcher and executions of hundreds of thousands of his own people. The author is clearly trying to make a statement but in so doing destroys what could have been one of his better books. The nuance and artfullnes of his previous books is replaced with the author's own obvious disdain for America, Israel and the war. The reader should be cautioned. If you cherished the Smiley trilogy, The Perfect Spy, The Little Drummer Girl and his other works as I did, do yourself a favor and don't read this book. You may become as disillusioned with the author is as the author is with us.
Rating:
Summary: First Rate Le Carre - Bravo!
Review: Many reviewers have already documented the premise of this book, the charcters,ideology and the story line. As a devoted reader of John LeCarre I felt this was an important book. LeCarre's characters always maintain a certain aura of mystery and it is left to the reader to deduce the careful planning of these characters in the whole scheme of the book. If you are not willing to know "his people" as they lead their lives and the intertactions that forge such a bond, or the minds of rationale of their beliefs, then you are doing LeCarre a great injustice. I found this a particularly interesting book and highly recommend it. I regret that some thought this book too political when, in fact, it is not as politically damning as it could have been had Mr Le Carre wove even more of the truth of the state of our world into this book of "fiction."
Rating:
Summary: An excellent read
Review: Another great le Carre book. If you liked The Honorable Schoolboy or The Spy Who Came In From the Cold you'll love this one. It depicts a world which has changed so much over the last 50 years, but sadly in many ways has not changed at all. It's not for everyone, but if you don't like where the world is heading you should take a look at this.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Five For This Absolute Friend!
Review: When a master artist sharpens his pen, his words can cut to the quick. In Absolute Friends, le Carre has done just that. This haunting story leaves us not with the famililar and therefore comfortable le Carre ambilvalence about the morality of his characters, their profession, and their actions, but with a stark vision of the terrifying reality in which we live today. Perhaps its starkness is why some reviewers here seem disappointed with this stunning work. Other reviewers perhaps found the novel's inherent critiques and probing questions too deeply troubling. Still others, unaccustomed to storytelling of this caliber, may have become impatient with the amount of backstory required to bring Ted and Sasha, Amory and Jay to such vivid life that the novel's end could feel so heartbreakingly devastating. For myself, I might have preferred this dramatic tale to end on a note of hope for the future of our society, but no. Instead, our absolute friend Mr. le Carre has offered us the greater gift of a heartfelt wakeup call--and a priceless mirror reflecting how we in the West are viewed today by the vast majority of people around the globe.
Rating:
Summary: Absolute Balderdash
Review: There's only one solution. Put Le Carre in the ring with Clancy and let these two relics have at it. On the left, John's slipped his moral and ideological moorings altogether but he can still land an actual English sentence. On the right, Tom is so punchdrunk in his latest he needs a designated typist. One woozy sentence from TIGER tells the whole story: "The sun rose promptly at dawn." And the winner? The evil of two lessers.
Rating: 
Summary: Not anti-american, pro-individualism
Review: I am not surprised many Americans don't like this book. Too close to an unpleasant truth. But it's a good one, athough not his best.
Le Carré is not anti-American: like the hero of this book, he has supported America when it was the country that everybody looked at as the symbol of freedom and individualism: like him, he's frightened and worried now that some leaders and corporate powers seem keen on imposing a New Order to their benefit, disregarding thruth and freedom.
Many of us share the same concern, all over the world; but only a few can transform it in such good writing.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite as good as usual
Review: I'll admit, up front, to being an "America-hating liberal" who agrees with about every statement Mr. Le Carre makes in this book. I'm a card-carrying dubya-hater and sometimes think I would love to move to Canada. That said, this is not Mr. Le Carre's best work. It is a rant disguised as a novel. Which is precisely what Le Carre intends, but if readers pick it up looking for his usual nuance, subtlety, and moral shadings, they will find it lacking. The first 300 or so pages are vintage le carre, as they trace protagonist Ted Mundy's life from birth through a shadowy cold war spy-land. But the last 150 pages are an excuse for the author to vent his spleen, which doesn't come naturally. It's rushed, poorly plotted, and disappointing. However, on the whole the book is a fairly good read, a good story, and thought provoking, and I'd recommend it- even to a conservative.
Rating: 
Summary: Far From His Best
Review: I concur with (most ) of the other reviewers that "Absolute Friends" is not up with LeCarre's best work. My impression is that he's been wrting this book (two deeply flawed characters, bound in a relationship of East vs.West) for the last forty years. It's not very interesting now, and I hope he gets back to the level of some of his better books.
Rating: 
Summary: Le Carré as barking moonbat
Review: John Le Carré still writes beautifully, but this former master spywriter's latest book - set partly in the post 9/11, post-Iraq War world - boasts all the political nuance and acumen of a Ted Rail America-hating screed. It's a genuine pity to see that he's become a barking moonbat who's only a half-step back (if that) from the folks who seriously insist that the CIA directed the 9/11 attacks on instructions from Evil Dubya & Co. Once an author whom I eagerly bought in hardbound, he'll get no more of my bookbuying dollars (or pounds sterling or Euros).
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