John le Carre: Good is Bad, America is the USSR, Left is Right. Wow.

[JanMichael]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/04/1073151212354.html?from=storyrhs

I just started "Absolute Friends" and have to admit that I'm stunned by the anger, disappointment, which resonates from the first few chapters. He seems, like many of us, completely appalled by the complete wasting away of the End of the Cold War. The lost, squandered, opportunities for a better more humane World, by America and her "victorious" allies, is almost magnificent in its speed and completeness.

In the article you'll see the following quotes by le Carre and others:

"He is always a great read but this one has something else, a white-hot anger fuelled by his absolute comprehension of the evil that is being done to humankind in the name of politics, religion and profit."

"Sample the following: "What would it be like really and absolutely to believe?" Mundy asks himself at one point. "To believe that God sends you to war, God bends the path of bullets, decides which of his children will die, or have their legs blown off, or make a few hundred million on Wall Street, depending on today's Grand Design?""

"The London Daily Telegraph's Daniel Johnson sneered: "The author, having pensioned off Smiley a decade ago, is rather lost without him. Absolute Friends recycles lots of familiar Cold War material. Its villains, however, are no longer KGB spymasters but those who defeated them. The West is the new Eastern bloc; the sinister right is the new left; loyalty to the Atlantic alliance is the new treachery.""


So far the book is great, I can't wait to finish it.

Anyway, since we're talking about the great Cold war spy novelist coming in from the cold, read his "The United States of America Has gone MAD" article from just prior to the Iraq Invasion. Goodness.

He doesn't stop there though...In this article he slams the Immoral Big Pharmaceutical Industry which includes the following paragraph:

"And while they did this-whether in Southeast Asia, Central and South America or Africa-a ludicrous notion took root that we are saddled with to this day. It is a notion beloved of conservatives and, in my country, New Labour alike. It makes Siamese twins of Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It holds to its bosom the conviction that, whatever vast commercial corporations do in the short term, they are ultimately motivated by ethical concerns, and their influence upon the world is therefore beneficial. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a neo-Communist heretic."

Ouch that stung. I suppose it hurts because it's true. It's no wonder that the Rightwingers have turned on their beloved chronicler of victorious Allied spies...

[Lisa]

1. thanks to that book ...

... whenever I see Bush or one of his cronies pretending to be "nurturing" and "compassionate", I think of that scene where Mundy is captured and the Americans "appear tenderly before him" with hot beverages.

[JanMichael]

2. Don't give away too much!

Only on chapter four:-)

[Lisa]

4. sorry!

But I don't think I gave away too much, since the author's already made his distrust for the "cousins" (as they were called in the Smiley books) pretty clear!

Have you read "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", JanMichael?

[JanMichael]

6. I read it on a flight to Poland a few years ago.

It's in my top ten all time favorite books.

[acmavm]

11. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold was a great book. But you had

to also read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to get the full picture.

Then there was my all time favorite, Smiley's People, that brought most of them all back together again.

David John Moore Cromwell is his real name.

[ewagner]

3. I always loved his novels

but I like his commentary better!

This quote sums it up nicely:

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

[Q]

9. This can't be overstated:

"The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election."

[enough]

5. Please check in when you have finished the book

I've been wanting to talk to someone about the ending, and what exactly is LeCarre trying to tell us.

Happy reading!

[JanMichael]

8. Will do. I do have a question though. Has le Carre always been...

...somewhat (Actually I have no idea what his political beliefs are but they seem to be lurching Left) to the "Left" or is this a late life transformation?

[NuttyFluffers]

7. read the "The USA has gone MAD" article

and i agree, we as a nation has gone mad.

i'm still waiting until august to find out how bad the situation has become. if nothing really has changed measurable in america's collective psyche then we deserve another four years leading us headlong into utter destruction.

get your passports in order folks. you might *really* need it.

[KoKo]

10. I've read most of his books and his columns from GB during build-up to

"Iraq Invasion" were unbelievably great. I had no idea that he would speak out against Bush/PNAC's plans. I actually thought he was dead! I read his books way back about the Cold War.

I think "Smiley's People" may be his best, but it's hard to get into. Once you are into it and see the intertwining of all the clandestine activities of our intelligence agencies and how they deal with the "moral dilemna" of their life's experience you see how hard it would be to work for CIA/FBI or Brits MI5 and 6.

Thanks for the post and link on this. I love that there are still "oldies" who can give us some perspective. OMG we sure need it with this absent or Whore Media we have today!

[JanMichael]

12. I'll give "Smiley's People" a shot asap.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[Donkeyboy75]

13. I find all of his books to be this way,

but they always rope me in at the end. He's a great storyteller.