The Tailor of Panama

Rating:
Summary: 0
Review: With the conclusion of the Cold War, master spy novelist John le Carre has trained his sights on what he perceives as the new source of global disharmony: the strivings of the Western powers and their multi-national corporations to extend their hegemony across the underdeveloped world, and the reaction that arises to that dubious enterprise. "The Tailor of Panama", like his most recent, "The Constant Gardener", employs this geo-political backdrop to dissect the machinations of the covetous Super powers, and their corrupting influence on the mere mortals who become pawns and puppets in their global games. The "hero" of "The Tailor of Panama", Harry Pendel is a man who has for most of his existence lived a lie, a re-invented, self-aggrandizing, spurious autobiography with which he confronts the vagaries and disparate elements of his life -from his American wife and two children, to the politicos, big-shots, hustlers, and myriad other movers and shakers who patronize his tailor shop in the heart of Panama- a sort of Central American equivalent to "Rick's Cafe" in "Casablanca". Harry, half-Jewish, an emigre from England who obligingly took the fall and did jail-time when his boss decided to torch his business for the insurance windfall, is a kibbutzer par excellence. A man of many personae, he revels in his innate ability to be whatever man the customer or moment requires. That is until the fateful day one Andrew Osnard, a somewhat disreputable British Intelligence operative shows up at Harry's store, and cunningly enlists him as an accomplice in his superiors' plot to create a pretext for Anglo-American intervention in Panama, and thereby preempt the scheduled return of the canal to Panama's sovereignty on New Years Eve, 1999. Besides appealing to Harry's theatrical sense of self-importance, Agent Osnard is able to in effect blackmail Harry's into his complicity by assuming an onerous debt the tailor is shouldering on a failing rice farm, and on which he has secretly squandered his trusting and faithful wife's money. Building on this scenario, le Carre depicts how a deluding, and self-deluded man winds up not only betraying his own wife, family and closest friends -with one tragically fatal consequence- but, more deplorably, his adopted nation's fledgling struggle to gain independence and autonomy from the national Goliaths who vye to control her people and its destiny. As such, "The Tailor of Panama" is an important, poignant and compelling work. However, leCarre seems to have trouble settling on a consistent, unified tone and style to his novel. To be sure, it can be called a tragi-comic tale, but the two elements blend awkwardly, and far from seamlessly. Le Carre also opts for a rococo style of story-telling that gives the novel a disjointed, elliptical feel, and serves to ultimately weaken its power. Nonetheless, leCarre,in this novel, as with "The Constant Gardener", must be lauded for having the courage and integrity to direct his barbs and outrage at targets which other authors, more concerned with playing it politically safe and thus assuring healthy revenues, might cravenly give a wide berth.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic Spy Spoof
Review: Harry Pendel of Pendel and Braithwaite, formerly of Savile Row now of Panama city is at heart a good guy but not the tailor to royalty he purports to be. Andrew Osnard, a fat lothario and adaptable rogue from a declining upper-crust family, was bounced from Eton and joined "the spys" realizing that his options to make big money respectably were limited.

Harry, a Cockney ex-con and illegitimate son of a Jewish con-man and his Irish maid, was sprung from an orphanage by his Uncle Bernie who both used him to torch his garment business and looked after him as a youth. Though the pedigree of his firm is bogus, Harry is the top tailor in Panama with access to everyone who's anyone and is married to Louisa, the statuesque daughter of the respected assistant to the incorruptible head of the Canal Commission.

Osnard can't get a banker, businessman or reporter to be his "listening post" in Panama and convinces his boss Scotty Luxmore, the spook who bungled the Falkland Islands War, that Harry's their man. Harry needs the money and signs on. The Brits are looking to uncover a huge Japanese conspiracy to take over Panama, and Harry will tell them anything he thinks they want to hear, most of which he just makes up.

A series of misadventures, some funny some tragic, precipitate an American invasion. The Brits all leave in varying degrees of affluence or disfavor, and Harry walks off into the night.

I would have preferred a different ending, but loved the story.

Rating:
Summary: Okay.
Review: The Tailor of Panama(TOP) in my opinion, is an okay book, but nothing spectacular. I found the plot fairly intruiging, but the best part about it were the characters, some of them were done really well.
It's a pretty dark satire about the post cold war spy world, and basically involves spies and bad guys trying to get as much as they can out of the American handover of the Panama canal on 31/12/99. I found it too dark myself, the way the innocent were punished and the bad guys won, that's bad stuff.
This book is, like most LeCarre books, definitely not easy reading. LeCarre jumps from present to past scene so quickly, and trying to distinguish between Pendel's lies and the truth is difficult. You also need a pretty good general knowledge about the spy world to read this, a lot of spy slang terms are given without explanation, which can get confusing.
I didn't understand the end, I think the person in that scene walked to their death, but I don't know, it's so confusing.
In short, read this is you like LeCarre and a reading challenge, but if you like easy reading, don't touch this book.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Book
Review: This book is very bad. The history is poor.
I,m lost the money and my time

Rating:
Summary: Leave it on the shelf.
Review: "Panama" has the momentum of cold maple syrup. The story's location and Le Carre's name drew me to the book. But after reading it, I wept for my lost time. The main spy, Osnard, lacks depth; his background is revealed way too late in the story. Le Carre fails to legitimize Osnard as a cunning, capable spy. And it seems the reader should care about Panama's plight & the Canal's future. Yet the characters who own the passion & grit to fight for their Panama were obscured in the plot. What's left is a wimpy tailor with a past who's desperate for cash. And when I realized all of this, I still begged for something to happen. It just doesn't. For intrigue, momentum, and competent characters, try Ken Follett's work (favorite is "Triple").

Rating:
Summary: So-so tailor.
Review: The Tailor of Panama is only so-so.

It becomes muddled, confusing, too much attention is placed on the interactions of the various characters, a decent espionage plot is not given the attention it should.

This was not one of the better spy books.

Rating:
Summary: A must avoid !!
Review: I don't pretend to have the literary skills nor vocabulary of the author but would have thought that he would have realized that he had created a "stinker" when it was all done. Had this been his first it would surely not have been printed. The book started to unravel literally after about 10 pages with pages separating from the spine and this should have served as an omen to me. I have wasted many hours giving this book a chance and now that it is nearing the end and still not going anywhere.... Much like one turns off a bad TV show or walks out of a poor, boring movie, I will not finish this tattered disappointment but will throw it out as my time is too valuable to waste on such tripe. The language is vague, the conversations unreal, the situations unlikely....it goes on and on. So utterly painful that it is too bad we are unable to give a rating less than 1 star.

Rating:
Summary: Cheeky fun from the Master...
Review: See the movie. It might help you to get into something rather different from one of my favorite authors. If you like the witty and the sly, you will adore this book. It's a true "slice" of life, and you learn a lot about history and Panama as well. Love the characters - and the pace. LeCarre truly is, not only a good storyteller but a comic genius as well. One of his best.

Rating:
Summary: A truely forgettable read.
Review: It would be hard to imagine a worse book. Boring, implausable plot, and endless are only a few of things which this piece of trash bring to mind. Without a doubt the poorest excuse for a book which I've had the misfortune to read in the last few years.

Rating:
Summary: A different spy story...
Review: This is the new John LeCarrè. This is a story about lies, deception, crooks, con, politicos, media moguls, spies, tailors and morals.

Harry Pendel, cockney tailor of the tailors of Pendel & Braithwaite Co. Limitada, Tailors to Royalty, formerly of Savile Row, London and presently of the Via Espana, Panama City. And P&B for short. Except that they are not. Not any of the above, except for the fact that they are located in Panama. Harry Pendel dresses everybody. From the Panamanian President to the General in charge of the U.S. Southern Command. He claims to hear more confidences than a priest's confessional. It is this boast that leads to the downfall of him and everyone involved.

Andrew Osnard, 29-year-old ex-Eton lad. Expelled for venerity (just like James Bond was expelled from Eton for "trouble with one of the boys' maids". Osnard is, funnily enough, played by none other than...Pierce Brosnan!). One of the new Defenders of the Faith, member of the new post-Cold War British Secret Service. Womaniser, gambler, drinker, smoker and crook of the highest order. He is sent to Panama and encounters Pendel.

And the fun begins.

Pendel is an ex-con. This a secret which, of course, Osnard knows all about and threatens to reveal it to Pendel's unknowing wife, children and customers. This would ruin Pendel! But, wait. Pendel can prevent this from happening by, of course, spying for Andrew Osnard. Osnard beleives he has struck gold, but it's fool's gold. Pendel is a fool, a liar. Haunted by his dead uncle's ghost he has constant battles with his soul. He agrees. Osnard is ecstatic, he can make millions out of this and almost does. But, there is a complication. Pendel doesn't actually hear all this stuff. So, he makes it up. Some of it is the truth, "on the basis that a broken clock tells the truth every 12 hours". He makes up conspiracies and oppositions and plans for revolution and in doins so "sows" ("sews", get it?!) the seeds for a war and doesn't know what shockwaves this sends. Sent to London, to the Secret Service and a certain media mogul(based somewhat on Rupert Murdoch) and all this causes worldwide havoc causing the Americans to re-invade Panama for the safety of the canal.

This is a "remake" (for want of a better word) of Graham Greene's classic "Our Man in Havana" which focused on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Whereas Wormwold from "Our Man in Havana" drew a picture of the inside of a hoover and deemed it a Cuban Missile site and gave it to the Secret Service, Pendel is inspired by memories of a drunken ranting in a gentleman's club to create a Japanese canal-related conspiracy and by doing so transmogrifies a whole country. And LeCarrè hasn't done too bad a job of it, but unfortunately, gone are those brilliant scalpel-sharp dialogues and the attention to detail and all those excellent interrogations that became LeCarrè's trademark. All in all, not a bad book and quite a change from the usual LeCarrè puzzle but I prefer "Our Man in Havana". Thankfully, LeCarrè has now reverted back to his oldself (or as some might feel, a shadow of) with "Single & Single" and "The Constant Gardener".

As in all LeCarrè's novels the name of the novel has a significance' A Tailor, beautifies and changes and more importantly "fabricates" (get it?!). A Tailor disguises reality with appearance which is what Pendel does. I hope you like this novel. Not as good as some of his previous ones("The Spy who came in From the Cold" or The Karla Trilogy) but not as bad as most reviewers say. Try to look at the other layers LaCarrè has "woven"(steady on!) in this neat "tapestry"(I'm on a roll here!).