WEDNESDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2003
Looking down at the establishment - PERSPECTIVES - THE COMMENTARY
By Marlon Richmond
"At the age of thirty-two, the pseudo-artist, pseudo-radical, pseudo-failure and pseudo everything else he accuses himself of being has finally discovered his natural art form. On the other hand, there are snags. The strains of running two successful careers within a single marriage are well known; the strains of running three, less so - particularly when one of them is a top secret mission vital to the security of your nation, rated alpha double plus and not discussable with your partner."
The book Absolute Friends by John le Carré, to be released this January by Little Brown Books, is mainly about the lifelong relationship between two spies: Ted Mundy and the mysterious Sasha. The excerpt above describes the life of Ted Mundy, a Pakistani born Englishman, who becomes a radical during his college years at a Berlin University, the place where he first meets Sasha.
From there, Mundy bounced around the world before settling down in an English school with his wife. After being promoted to a position that allowed him to travel the so called 'communist arts circuit' (a steady collection of cultural conventions and festivals, primarily patronized by left-wing communist sympathizers), he meets up with Sasha again, who gets Mundy to become a spy working for British intelligence. Eventually, the Cold War ends with Mundy and Sasha as underrated participants, and by then Mundy's wife has left him. But after the recent Iraqi war, Sasha comes back to see Mundy, now working as a tour guide in Germany. Sasha suggests that Mundy help start a counter university, financed by an even more mysterious man named Dimitri. From there, you'll just have to read the book, but it does contain a fascinating ending, severely criticising the media and popular perception.
Prior to writing the novel, the author was very critical of the recent American war in Iraq. (An interview of le Carré's comments may be found here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-543296,00.html ) The novel is mainly a political piece about the changing times, and the difficulties of knowing who in fact is good or evil. The problem of our times is whether or not we are being told the truth, and whether we can trust our leadership. Sometimes, the real truth is only being told by underground journalists and those working outside of the mainstream media and political machine. The problem is that it is harder to accept that info from such unscrupulous sources is to be trusted, versus the more reliable mainstream press, which citizens have been conditioned to trust more often.
One problem I have with the novel is that the main character Mundy is presented as a very goody two-shoes character. He seems in the early stages to be very innocent, or at least somewhat naïve about the situations he has gotten into. At the beginning (the novel starts in Medias res), the protagonist gets defrauded by his business partner, and refuses to have sex with a Turkish prostitute (and mother), and who eventually becomes his common law wife. Being no literary scholar, I am not that knowledgeable about the true symbolic nature of literature, but I would guess that the concept of making the main character this innocent would be to make him appeal more sympathetic to the reader after all his plights. With the regular citizen, pseudo-radical getting screwed by the political establishment, the reader is meant to look down on the current political establishment.
For all fiction books and movies I will review, I will use the star system. The star key for books is explained below.
Absolute Friends by John le Carré gets: 3.5 stars out of 5
5 Stars: Give it the Pulitzer Prize
4 Stars: Definitely get it
3 Stars: If you're interested, get the hardcover
2 Stars: If you're interested, get the paperback
1 Star: If you're interested, find it at a used book store in a couple of years.
Absolute Friends (ISBN: 0446529761) by John le Carré, published by Little Brown Books, is $38.00 CDN.
Buy it now at Amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/067004489X/qid=1072760757/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/702-2383309-9116062
Questions and comments may be sent to: MarlonRichmond@shaw.ca