Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Lies, Loyalties, Love, May 10 2007
Strong friendships in the spy business are allegedly rare and even deemed impossible to maintain. Who can you trust? What is truth? On which side is the other? Who is the enemy, yesterday, today and tomorrow? In this latest endeavor to explore the spy thriller genre beyond the cold war, Le Carre explores these and other questions. First of all, this is the story of two unlikely friends: one English, with a strong colonial background, the other German, with an East German background. They first meet in Berlin during the late 60s student rebellion. From then on they get drawn together by circumstance or design over years and decades after, until ...
The story's centre is Ted Mundy, an unidentified narrator follows him and seems to view the world more or less from the same perspective. Mundy's on and off reflections of his increasingly complicated life expose him as an accidental spy. He feels like he's having multiple personalities. Drawn by a sense of responsibility toward his student friend, he gets enmeshed deeper and deeper in political intrigues even long after the Berlin Wall comes down. Why does he continue despite the alternative of a fresh start and a small piece of personal happiness? Does he have a real choice?
Sasha, his friend and German counterpart, incorporates traits of young German rebels of the day. He also typifies a certain type of former East German refugee in the West who is torn between dream and reality: anti-west as well as anti-east. The question keeps arising whether he has any real moral standing or is a floater, a prime candidate for the double agent. Several other players who stand out in their respective roles surround the two main characters. There are several attractive women, of course, and English and American spymasters. While all are a bit shady, the "honest" spymaster remains, not surprisingly, the Brit.
Le Carre knows how to draw people and create situations. His description of life in a student commune in Berlin of the time is brilliant in its accuracy and atmospheric depiction. Ted's childhood in India, then Pakistan, is conveyed through images that explain its influence on him, his ongoing nostalgia for the place and the people. A major strength of the book is these images and the characterization of Mundy as a result of all his experiences. Being familiar with the events of the time, especially in Berlin, I was captured by the story. For me Absolute Friends is more than a spy thriller - the core thriller only starts more than halfway through the story. While the first half is a build up of the two main characters for the later events, it also sets the stage for the ongoing exploration of friendships and the complexities of human relations. The final drama of the book has led to criticism of Le Carre. However, while unlikely in reality, within the context of the story it was a logical conclusion.
Absolute Friends has attracted friends and foes. Those interested in the European scene up to and beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall will find the story especially interesting. Those looking for the traditional spy thriller may be disappointed in the length it dedicates to the characters and their interactions. [Friederike Knabe]
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolute friends - absolutely marvellous, Oct 20 2005
With economy and grace, John Le Carre delivers a chilling message in this spy novel which is more than a thriller. As you get to know and like his protagonist, Ted, and his "absolute friend", Sasha, you also get to know that they represent a spectrum of characteristics that range from the heroic, loyal and faithful to the cynical and subversive - which of these characteristics will ultimately draw them to the inevitable conclusion?
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by John le Carre
by John Le Carre
by Carre Le
by John Le Carre
