Product Description

ABSOLUTE FRIENDS is a superbly paced novel spanning fifty-six years, a theatrical masterstroke of tragi-comic writing, and a savage fable of our times, almost of our hours.

The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, British soldier’s son born 1947 in a shining new independent Pakistan, and Sasha, refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West.

The two men meet first as students in riot-torn West Berlin of the late Sixties, again in the grimy looking-glass of Cold War espionage and, most terribly, in today’s unipolar world of terror, counter-terror and the war of lies.

Deriving its scale from A PERFECT SPY and its passion from THE CONSTANT GARDENER, le Carré’s new novel presents us with magical writing, characters to delight, and a spellbinding story that enchants even as it challenges.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13762 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
John le Carré's Absolute Friends is his best in years, capturing the verve and mastery of the magnificent early work. In fact, as a prelude to the book, you could do worse than reread The Spy Who Came in from the Cold again, and be forcibly reminded how le Carré transformed the spy thriller 40 or so years ago. And the consolidation of his achievement came with the George Smiley sequence (inaugurated with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). As the Cold War came to an end, le Carré seemed to be in need of a new focus for his literary universe, but this was soon to come as the author explored newer social threats, with The Constant Gardener utilising the power of the pharmaceutical companies as nemesis, and producing yet another critical and popular success.

Absolute Friends, even before publication, had some of the best word of mouth any le Carré novel had enjoyed, and every word of it was justified. As a penetrating character study, it's nonpareil, with the (very different) friends of the title brilliantly realised.

Ted Mundy is the son of a British Infantry officer who left India under a cloud after partition, while Sasha is the crippled son of a religious German family who became a star of Far Left politics in the 1960s, at which point he encounters the ungainly Ted, taught by his father--and a committed girlfriend--to loathe British imperialism and all its current offshoots. In the present, Ted finds himself acting as an eccentric tour guide at Ludwig's palaces in Bavaria. When the two men meet again, they once more become involved in clandestine activities--with lethal results. If the author's own anti-Blair/Bush feelings are sometimes foregrounded, this is still le Carré at his considerable best, and a reminder of what a great talent the UK has in this writer. --Barry Forshaw

Raymond Seitz, The Times
‘This is le Carré with a twist, the Old Master developing new techniques for a new age'

Review
‘This is le Carré with a twist, the Old Master developing new techniques for a new age' (Raymond Seitz, The Times )

'Thoroughly gripping' (Sunday Times )

'Absolute Friends is vintage John le Carré: complex, often sardonically funny, always galvanically written.' (Daily Express )

'[Le Carré] has found a worthy enemy, a target for his moral indignation. Moreover he has hit a contemporary tune again. This is an anti-war novel and, very fiercely, an anti-American one. It's written with passion.' (Allan Massie, Scotsman )

'Truly thrilling' (Financial Times )

‘The master has not lost his touch . . . one of his most enthralling creations.’

‘A literary master for a generation’

Customer Reviews

A Gem
Is it still possible that a writer can create a so historically aware novel which is fiction and fabulation, but speaks directly to those who have experienced first hand the events and socio-political climates he weaves into his story? Le Carré is foremost a storyteller and his protagonists are fictious, albeit symbols. But to a person who demonstrated against the Vietnam war as a student, was there when Aldo Moro was kidnapped, lived through the Baader Meinhof era in Germany, and is proud of being a resident in a country where a stand was made about the intervention in Iraq, his book makes lots of sense.I disagree with other reviews about the end. Mundy and Sasha are two sides of the one coin united in a hopeless battle. Their demise is as symbolic as the rest of their very existence. They are incidental to the overall message. I revel in the clarity of the writing and the erudition which is a hallmark of le Carré's later writing. The Constant Gardner was his best book to date for me. This comes a close second. And I've read them all.

Unbelievably up-to-date thriller
This has got to be the book of the year. I'm not normally a great fan of spy stories but this book had me engrosed from the first page. The hero, Ted Mundy, is so believable that I'm sure that he exists. The story is based on fact and, if it were sold as a true story, I'd accept it. I'm giving this book to my friends as a christmas present and I anticipate a lot of e-mails of thanks in the new year.

A splendid return to form.
Smiley and Karla, Magnus and Rick Pym, now Ted and Sasha - Le Carre is at his best when he creates pairs of characters who lead each other to their fates, and in Absolute Friends he comes up with two true immortals.

Ted, in earlier Le Carre books, would've been a perfectly normal member of the espiocracy, the kind of dependable, solid agent who would've discharged his Circus duties without conscience or controversy. But contemporary le Carre characters have even more tangled depths - Ted's concern for justice and equality is rooted in a loathing of the mess that Britain left behind in India and Pakistan; this obviously leads him into anti-imperialism and the shadowy world of espionage. It is in Germany that he encounters the brilliant, disabled Sasha - firebrand politician and also committed to his own brand of liberty.

Absolute Friends shows two figures bound up into their systems striving to find their own individual justice, their own places in the world. States, systems, organisations are not to be trusted in the new Le Carre - loyalty is individual, morality is absolute. There are probably more overt attacks on Western liberalism and capitalism in this book than in the rest of his work put together; what was formerly presented as the "right" way is now merely the less repulsive of a set of fairly unpleasant alternatives.

Yet how can men like Sasha and Ted build a better world?

This is possibly Le Carre's finest book yet. It lacks the immediacy and some of the intimacy of "A Perfect Spy", although rivals it in scope. It lacks the intense intrigue and 'tradecraft' of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" though matches it for density and depth of tone.

It is a fine, mature and humane novel by a superb writer with an clear yet idiosyncratic view of honour, morality and duty. Wonderfully readable.