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questingnotcoasting's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
While I enjoy Le Carré's novels, I often feel like some of the details of his plots go over my head. However I was pleasantly surprised to find I had a handle on this one from the beginning. It's a more straightforward story than some of his others I've read but still has some unexpected twists and turns.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia and Islamophobia
Moderate: Police brutality
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
When the Cold War ended, a lot of espionage/thriller writers didn’t know what to do with themselves. Tom Clancy, in particular, invented new villains and resurrected old ones for the US to shadowbox with. We were the last remaining superpower and there really wasn’t anything threatening us.
And then 9/11 happened.
It was like plugging in an electrical socket. Overnight, there emerged a raft of anti-terrorist fiction that both purports to understand Islam (it does not) and/or the Middle East (ditto). It continues today, a veritable cottage industry of anti-brown and anti-Black Islamophobic garbage. If the War on Iraq and America’s many follies in the middle east should have taught us anything, it’s that we knew nothing. But we’re America (F YEAH!). No one will tell us otherwise.
Enter John Le Carré.
A cynical old school Cold Warrior who occasionally blessed us with his cynical lyricism penned in espionage form, no one knew better than he how the rot of the western world worked. A native of a hollowed-out post-empire that was ceding power to a new giant unaware of how the world worked, Le Carré’s fiction both before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain was poignant for its time and cutting in its examination of how the west wins battles and loses wars post-WWII.
This one is a tragic exploration of how the War on Terror impacts people in ways big and small. How players of an old order could not find their footing in the shifting sand of Bush/Blair’s boneheaded maneuvering. The book, like many of Le Carré’s works, is the slowest of slow burns, perhaps too slow at times.
And then the ending.
I cannot talk about the ending. But it did reify a belief I had: for all the lauding Le Carré received in his lifetime for being a master of the spy genre, he was really an expert at subverting it.
This one will stick with me for a long time and as we prepare to observe the 20th anniversary of 9/11, with the Biden administration waffling on a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, I’m reminded once more that we learn nothing and we learned nothing. It’s the lesson Le Carré was teaching all along.
And then 9/11 happened.
It was like plugging in an electrical socket. Overnight, there emerged a raft of anti-terrorist fiction that both purports to understand Islam (it does not) and/or the Middle East (ditto). It continues today, a veritable cottage industry of anti-brown and anti-Black Islamophobic garbage. If the War on Iraq and America’s many follies in the middle east should have taught us anything, it’s that we knew nothing. But we’re America (F YEAH!). No one will tell us otherwise.
Enter John Le Carré.
A cynical old school Cold Warrior who occasionally blessed us with his cynical lyricism penned in espionage form, no one knew better than he how the rot of the western world worked. A native of a hollowed-out post-empire that was ceding power to a new giant unaware of how the world worked, Le Carré’s fiction both before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain was poignant for its time and cutting in its examination of how the west wins battles and loses wars post-WWII.
This one is a tragic exploration of how the War on Terror impacts people in ways big and small. How players of an old order could not find their footing in the shifting sand of Bush/Blair’s boneheaded maneuvering. The book, like many of Le Carré’s works, is the slowest of slow burns, perhaps too slow at times.
And then the ending.
I cannot talk about the ending. But it did reify a belief I had: for all the lauding Le Carré received in his lifetime for being a master of the spy genre, he was really an expert at subverting it.
This one will stick with me for a long time and as we prepare to observe the 20th anniversary of 9/11, with the Biden administration waffling on a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, I’m reminded once more that we learn nothing and we learned nothing. It’s the lesson Le Carré was teaching all along.
jalfredsson's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
thesassybookworm's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't particularly enjoy this one, admittedly it isn't one of my favorite genres, but I thought the blurb sounded interesting and gave it a go. I found it pretty boring and had to force myself to keep reading hoping for a good ending, alas I was disappointed by that also. On a positive note the book is beautifully written and the author does know how to tell a tale, perhaps I just choose the wrong novel for my introduction to his work?
steveab's review against another edition
4.0
This is the emerging John Le Carre, still the master of the rich characters caught up in espionage, intrigue and suspense, but also probing one by the one the dark corners of the modern Empire.
matthew_p's review against another edition
5.0
One of my favorite novelists of all time from his Cold War-era novels is, hands down, even better writing about a post-Cold War world. I savored this novel like few others and didn't want to finish.
giuliana_ferrari's review against another edition
3.0
I'll be definitively be reading le Carré's books more often. It's an interesting piece of not-heavy-scientific-spy-lit, with human characters with their human flaws. I see nothing wrong with that. I will not give it 4 stars because I feel the end was rather abrupt, after being worked up for so long. But a good 3.5 stars.
ajcousins's review against another edition
4.0
John le Carre is a brilliant writer. And he sure is pissed off at post-Cold War Western governments. I am not unhappy with this: he is clearly a man who needs a reason to write and if he had been unable to find one after the Berlin Wall fell, then it would have been a tragic loss for Literature. But the heavy-handedness of his political opinions can occasionally go over the top, even for me, and I am someone who agrees with him. In A Most Wanted Man, happily, the heavy-handedness is almost entirely confined to the last page of the book. And if that last page had been written with the subtlety and grace that the rest of the novel possesses, then this would be a five-star review. It���s still excellent, because LeCarre is stellar at letting you feel that something terrible is looming over everyone, while you hope and hope that you are wrong this once and everything will work out. His characters are ambiguous and torn and very real, although they are (the main ones at least) most definitely not American, which may feel a little strange to some. This book of the complexities of the post-9/11 hunt for terrorists is a great read by a master writer.