January 7, 2004
Adding Reality's Worries to a Thriller
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
"Absolute Friends," John le Carré's ham-handed and didactic new novel, is really three very different books.
It is an old-fashioned bildungsroman, tracing the sentimental and moral education of a typical le Carré hero as he is drawn into the shadowy world of espionage during the cold war and an even murkier world of terrorists and political operatives in the new millennium.
It is also a far-fetched action-adventure-thriller with nerve-racking cat-and-mouse games with double agents, a frightening reconnaissance mission and a bloody shootout with SWAT teams and special forces. And last and most disappointing, it is a clumsy, hectoring, conspiracy-minded message-novel meant to drive home the argument that American imperialism poses a grave danger to the new world order. ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/books/07KAKU.html>
Carl
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