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jimgosailing's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent. I’ve loved reading le Carre starting with his Smiley books. I was watChing this movie because it had Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it and was struck by how it plotted like le Carre; and looked on IMBD to find out it was le Carre.
I liked how the book spent time exploring the friction and backbiting among the agencies. And I can see how the role of Bachman would appeal to Hoffman
I liked how the book spent time exploring the friction and backbiting among the agencies. And I can see how the role of Bachman would appeal to Hoffman
rhour3's review against another edition
3.0
Okay. Lots of intrigue but not much really happens till the end and then it finishes.
donlee's review against another edition
5.0
John le Carre in his inimitable style with a story set in the present with links to the cold war. Gripping, with the usual le Carre twists and turns. I found the ending somewhat anticlimactic.
richardwells's review against another edition
5.0
It's always an occasion when John Le Carre publishes a new novel, and "A Most Wanted Man" is no exception.
A young, devout Muslim by the name of Issa sets the plot in motion by arriving in Hamburg, Germany, as an undocumented visitor. He carries a note that will open the vaults of a private bank, and provide him with the principal and interest on a deposit made by a Russian general in the early 1980's. Will Issa claim the money? What will it be used for? Who will be compromised? Remember, it is post 9/11, terror is the watchword, documents are the only acceptable proof of belonging, and even then you can't be sure. It's a world of deals and duplicity, do-gooders tainted by the times, and violence subtle and horrendous where good-hearted charitable donations outfit suicide bombers. As always, Le Carre reveals the anxiety and despair linked to power. It doesn't matter if it's the Red Menace, the menace of arms merchants and gunrunners, of pharmaceutical companies, dictators, or Islamic terrorists, anxiety touches all, and despair is the shallow water that leads to madness.
"A Most Wanted Man," is an exciting novel by an author who is never less than keyed into the zeitgeist. Le Carre handles character, description, and action like the master he is; and writes prose that is a joy. Anyone who can craft a sentence as elegant and clear as the 270 words that are paragraph two of chapter eight of this book has a place secured in Author Heaven. It's a sentence you can dance to, and I'll bet he had a lot of fun crafting it.
Finally, this quote from the young, civil-rights lawyer who has been retained by Issa; it gives a taste of the novel's world: "In my law school, we talked a great deal about law over life... It's a verity of our German history: law not to protect life but to abuse it. We did it to the Jews. In its current American form it licenses torture and kidnapping. And is infectious. Your country is not immune, neither is mine."
A young, devout Muslim by the name of Issa sets the plot in motion by arriving in Hamburg, Germany, as an undocumented visitor. He carries a note that will open the vaults of a private bank, and provide him with the principal and interest on a deposit made by a Russian general in the early 1980's. Will Issa claim the money? What will it be used for? Who will be compromised? Remember, it is post 9/11, terror is the watchword, documents are the only acceptable proof of belonging, and even then you can't be sure. It's a world of deals and duplicity, do-gooders tainted by the times, and violence subtle and horrendous where good-hearted charitable donations outfit suicide bombers. As always, Le Carre reveals the anxiety and despair linked to power. It doesn't matter if it's the Red Menace, the menace of arms merchants and gunrunners, of pharmaceutical companies, dictators, or Islamic terrorists, anxiety touches all, and despair is the shallow water that leads to madness.
"A Most Wanted Man," is an exciting novel by an author who is never less than keyed into the zeitgeist. Le Carre handles character, description, and action like the master he is; and writes prose that is a joy. Anyone who can craft a sentence as elegant and clear as the 270 words that are paragraph two of chapter eight of this book has a place secured in Author Heaven. It's a sentence you can dance to, and I'll bet he had a lot of fun crafting it.
Finally, this quote from the young, civil-rights lawyer who has been retained by Issa; it gives a taste of the novel's world: "In my law school, we talked a great deal about law over life... It's a verity of our German history: law not to protect life but to abuse it. We did it to the Jews. In its current American form it licenses torture and kidnapping. And is infectious. Your country is not immune, neither is mine."
danlemke's review
5.0
When you get right down to thinking about it, this book is relatively thin in terms of what's happening. Most of the length has to do with le Carre's narrative style, in which he goes into great depth about his characters and provides side commentary throughout. The story isn't very complicated, nor does it need to be.
At the heart of this book is a narrative about the nature of espionage. The spying game is nothing like James Bond (le Carre should know!), and it does not present like that here. This is probably the most accurate depiction of a espionage thriller that you will ever find, and it delves into the human costs and bureaucratic squabbles which dominate the intelligence community. Ultimately that is what this book is about, with the characters simply serving as means to carry the point.
Overall, a worthwhile read that shouldn't dominate too much of your time but should inspire some thought.
At the heart of this book is a narrative about the nature of espionage. The spying game is nothing like James Bond (le Carre should know!), and it does not present like that here. This is probably the most accurate depiction of a espionage thriller that you will ever find, and it delves into the human costs and bureaucratic squabbles which dominate the intelligence community. Ultimately that is what this book is about, with the characters simply serving as means to carry the point.
Overall, a worthwhile read that shouldn't dominate too much of your time but should inspire some thought.
coronaurora's review against another edition
4.0
With Corbijn's film around the corner I thought about diving into Le Carre's source text. And was absolutely gobsmacked by this little thing of beauty. I have not paid much attention to Carre before, and the overall rating here suggests this is far from his best. Well, considering even this took my breath away, I cannot wait to gorge over the back catalogue.
To write a political crime thriller where the necessity and inertia of forward propulsion in narration and plot almost always takes precedence to nuanced character sketches and meditations, Le Carre plays against-type and is able to concoct a gourmet chicken soup for the soul with one hand while balancing familiar genre plates in his circus-adept dominant hand. It's a rare thriller interested in its characters' inner lives and thanks to Le Carre's excellent prose, you are too. Archetypes they might be, but they are many shades more coloured than anything most mainstream spy thrillers are peopled with.
So what's it about? A bashed-up illegal immigrant lands on streets of Hamburg and is taken in by a Turkish immigrant family. He carries a reference number with him that must reach a private bank-owning millionaire, and aided by a legal firm with a conscientous female lawyer, the contents of the resulting Pandora's Box must be despatched as per the tortured, fleeing immigrant's wishes. Other than answering the standard queries of Who this man is, How did he come to be, in the world and in the country now, Is he really who he says he is, there is an extra layer of people watching this human drama play out. Sniffers. Plenty of these abound behind cameras and disguised common-men in this heavily surveillanced modern metropolis. Sniffers reporting to agents reporting to committees of German, British and American Intelligence agencies. Precisely how the warring and competing factions and sub-factions of these outfits manoeuvre and outmanoeuvre each other to extricate a meaningful transaction that involves taking down the Most Wanted Man is the plot's core.
The fleeing immigrant being Muslim, his moorings and subsequent entanglements give Carre a lot of space to write in the operational logistics of international terror and counter-terror networks along with the humanitarian injustices meted out at political and personal levels to one of the central characters. The cultural schizophrenia and the clash of manners when two of the three main characters share close quarters produces some intended and unintended hilarity, but the author's humanity and an attempt at contextualising this paranoid geopolitical space is redoubtable. It's been six years since its publication but it feels just as urgent and relevant given the post 9/11 contemporary reality of religious fundamentalism continues to be an everyday spectre. Le Carre wears his politics on his sleeve and the punchy, abrupt climax where more players from the shadows emerge drill home the contrasting attitudes and power-scales of security agencies between nations brilliantly.
Given his ouevre, he is clearly an old hand at drawing convincing spy agencies, and this is most easily visible at the dexterity with which he pens the institutional politics and push-and-pull within and between agencies. It's remarkably structured too, not only in keeping its cards close to its chest about the exact identity of the titular Man but in managing multiple narrative voice switches band intercutting between more than three scenes in parallel. There is none of the flabby exposition dumps that stand apart from the actual fictional narrative: a folly committed all too often by lesser craftsmen in their earnestness to give their reader a cast of characters intensely engaged with the real world as those here. For every history-byte paragraph there is a well-calibrated, clipped-phrases, easy-read conversation. All in all, this is a compulsive page turner that makes you feel sorry for reading too fast and not dwelling on the measured prose long enough. But that's what repeat reads are for.
To write a political crime thriller where the necessity and inertia of forward propulsion in narration and plot almost always takes precedence to nuanced character sketches and meditations, Le Carre plays against-type and is able to concoct a gourmet chicken soup for the soul with one hand while balancing familiar genre plates in his circus-adept dominant hand. It's a rare thriller interested in its characters' inner lives and thanks to Le Carre's excellent prose, you are too. Archetypes they might be, but they are many shades more coloured than anything most mainstream spy thrillers are peopled with.
So what's it about? A bashed-up illegal immigrant lands on streets of Hamburg and is taken in by a Turkish immigrant family. He carries a reference number with him that must reach a private bank-owning millionaire, and aided by a legal firm with a conscientous female lawyer, the contents of the resulting Pandora's Box must be despatched as per the tortured, fleeing immigrant's wishes. Other than answering the standard queries of Who this man is, How did he come to be, in the world and in the country now, Is he really who he says he is, there is an extra layer of people watching this human drama play out. Sniffers. Plenty of these abound behind cameras and disguised common-men in this heavily surveillanced modern metropolis. Sniffers reporting to agents reporting to committees of German, British and American Intelligence agencies. Precisely how the warring and competing factions and sub-factions of these outfits manoeuvre and outmanoeuvre each other to extricate a meaningful transaction that involves taking down the Most Wanted Man is the plot's core.
The fleeing immigrant being Muslim, his moorings and subsequent entanglements give Carre a lot of space to write in the operational logistics of international terror and counter-terror networks along with the humanitarian injustices meted out at political and personal levels to one of the central characters. The cultural schizophrenia and the clash of manners when two of the three main characters share close quarters produces some intended and unintended hilarity, but the author's humanity and an attempt at contextualising this paranoid geopolitical space is redoubtable. It's been six years since its publication but it feels just as urgent and relevant given the post 9/11 contemporary reality of religious fundamentalism continues to be an everyday spectre. Le Carre wears his politics on his sleeve and the punchy, abrupt climax where more players from the shadows emerge drill home the contrasting attitudes and power-scales of security agencies between nations brilliantly.
Given his ouevre, he is clearly an old hand at drawing convincing spy agencies, and this is most easily visible at the dexterity with which he pens the institutional politics and push-and-pull within and between agencies. It's remarkably structured too, not only in keeping its cards close to its chest about the exact identity of the titular Man but in managing multiple narrative voice switches band intercutting between more than three scenes in parallel. There is none of the flabby exposition dumps that stand apart from the actual fictional narrative: a folly committed all too often by lesser craftsmen in their earnestness to give their reader a cast of characters intensely engaged with the real world as those here. For every history-byte paragraph there is a well-calibrated, clipped-phrases, easy-read conversation. All in all, this is a compulsive page turner that makes you feel sorry for reading too fast and not dwelling on the measured prose long enough. But that's what repeat reads are for.
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review against another edition
4.0
I read this after seeing the really wonderful film adaptation. There are, of course, some differences.
I have to say, that while I enjoyed the cynical outlook and the conflicts within all the characters, I found Issa's character to be really annoying, which I guess is the point.
I have to say, that while I enjoyed the cynical outlook and the conflicts within all the characters, I found Issa's character to be really annoying, which I guess is the point.
borborygmus's review against another edition
3.0
I tend to find le Carré's writing just that little to obtuse to be really enjoyable. I am sure that all the duplicity and double-crosses are vaguely realistic, but I still don't really know what happened.
aalamb's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0