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Absolute Friends
A "stunningly timely spy novel" that takes readers from 1960s West Berlin to the Iraq War ( Entertainment Weekly ) from the author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.
Today, Mundy is a down-at-the-heels tour guide in southern Germany, dodging creditors, supporting a new family, and keeping an eye out for trouble while in spare moments vigorously questioning the actions of the country he once bravely served. And trouble finds him, as it has before, in the shape of an old German student friend, radical, and onetime fellow spy, the crippled Sasha, seeker after absolutes, dreamer, and chaos addict. After years of trawling the Middle East and Asia as an itinerant university lecturer, Sasha has yet again discovered the true, the only, answer to life -- this time in the form of a mysterious billionaire philanthropist named Dimitri. Thanks to Dimitri, both Mundy and Sasha will find a path out of poverty, and with it their chance to change a world that both believe is going to the devil. Or will they? Who is Dimitri? Why does Dimitri's gold pour in from mysterious Middle Eastern bank accounts? And why does his apparently noble venture reek less of starry idealism than of treachery and fear? Some gifts are too expensive to accept. Could this be one of them? With a cooler head than Sasha's, Mundy is inclined to think it could.
In Absolute Friends , John le Carre delivers the masterpiece he has been building to since the fall of an epic tale of loyalty and betrayal that spans the lives of two friends from the riot-torn West Berlin of the 1960s to the grimy looking-glass of Cold War Europe to the present day of terrorism and new alliances. This is the novel le Carre fans have been waiting for, a brilliant, ferocious, heartbreaking work for the ages.
“A searing, startling novel that sweeps through much of the twentieth century and up to the present conflict with Iraq.” —Lev Grossman, Time
Today, Mundy is a down-at-the-heels tour guide in southern Germany, dodging creditors, supporting a new family, and keeping an eye out for trouble while in spare moments vigorously questioning the actions of the country he once bravely served. And trouble finds him, as it has before, in the shape of an old German student friend, radical, and onetime fellow spy, the crippled Sasha, seeker after absolutes, dreamer, and chaos addict. After years of trawling the Middle East and Asia as an itinerant university lecturer, Sasha has yet again discovered the true, the only, answer to life -- this time in the form of a mysterious billionaire philanthropist named Dimitri. Thanks to Dimitri, both Mundy and Sasha will find a path out of poverty, and with it their chance to change a world that both believe is going to the devil. Or will they? Who is Dimitri? Why does Dimitri's gold pour in from mysterious Middle Eastern bank accounts? And why does his apparently noble venture reek less of starry idealism than of treachery and fear? Some gifts are too expensive to accept. Could this be one of them? With a cooler head than Sasha's, Mundy is inclined to think it could.
In Absolute Friends , John le Carre delivers the masterpiece he has been building to since the fall of an epic tale of loyalty and betrayal that spans the lives of two friends from the riot-torn West Berlin of the 1960s to the grimy looking-glass of Cold War Europe to the present day of terrorism and new alliances. This is the novel le Carre fans have been waiting for, a brilliant, ferocious, heartbreaking work for the ages.
“A searing, startling novel that sweeps through much of the twentieth century and up to the present conflict with Iraq.” —Lev Grossman, Time
456 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2003
About the author
John le Carré
336 books9,884 followersJohn le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England), was an English author of espionage novels. Le Carré had resided in St Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than 40 years, where he owned a mile of cliff close to Land's End.
Le Carré died at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, on 12 December 2020, aged 89. An inquest completed in June 2021 concluded that le Carré died after sustaining a fall at his home.
abridged from Wikipedia
Le Carré died at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, on 12 December 2020, aged 89. An inquest completed in June 2021 concluded that le Carré died after sustaining a fall at his home.
abridged from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 3, 2022
Hab's entweder nicht verstanden oder es kommt einfach nicht an die bisher gelesenen Werke des Autors heran ... Ich habe mich mühsam durch das Buch gearbeitet und war sehr erstaunt über das Ende. Spannung Fehlanzeige.
August 11, 2024
Rezension folgt.
January 20, 2008
Sicherlich einer der besten Le Carré-Romane. John Le Carré bewegt sich wieder in seinem angestammten Genre, dem Agenten-Thriller, beleuchtet die Seltsamkeiten der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte und stellt das Schicksal eines getriebenen Menschen in den Mittelpunkt. Brillant und spannend erzählt, ohne moralisierenden, erhobenen Finger, aber mit Moral.
August 16, 2011
Schöner, deprimierender und etwas kaltblütiger Spionageroman, der das Desinformationspogrom im Vorfeld Irakkrieges als Ausgangspunkt für eine Geschichte der Lüge und Spionage im kalten Krieg und der daraus folgenden, fatalen Freundschaft zweier ehemaliger Regimegegner und Doppelläufer. Liest sich nicht schnell, weil detail- und kenntnisreich, ist aber sauspannend.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews