The Constant Gardener

[andyfox]

Yes, a movie review on the politics forum. Because the movie, while a Le Carre story, isn't so much a spy story as a political story about Africa, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and what people can or can't do to make a difference.

A stunning movie. Great performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, but it's the movie itself that sears iself on your conscience. Really, I had a hard time getting out of my seat at the end. But then the audience got up and applauded and I joined them.

Don't miss it.

[SheetWise]

Is this a remake of the Peter Sellers movie in the '60s?

[bobman0330]

I agree, just saw it tonight. Terrific film. I usually disagree with Le Carre's politics, but his characters and stories are amazing.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I usually disagree with Le Carre's politics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seeing as LeCarré's "politics", at least as we came to know them through his books (and the movies of his books), were strictly anti-Soviet, what exactly did you find wrong with them ? Are you a Carla mole ?

--Cyrus

PS : I cannot forget, though, the man's totally disgraceful stand in the Salman Rushdie affair (http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/burning/le-carre-vs-rushdie.html). At the time, anything less than total support for Rushdie's right to write whatever the hell he wished (and also not get killed for it!) was disgraceful.

[sirio11]

Thanks for the review Andy.

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
Seeing as LeCarré's "politics", at least as we came to know them through his books (and the movies of his books), were strictly anti-Soviet, what exactly did you find wrong with them ? Are you a Carla mole ?

[/ QUOTE ]

LeCarre covered the cold war from the middle and deleved into the moral ambiguities of both sides from the beginning. Most reviewers and readers acknowledge that LeCarre's more recent books have a decidedly leftest slant.

[ QUOTE ]
PS : I cannot forget, though, the man's totally disgraceful stand in the Salman Rushdie affair (http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/burning/le-carre-vs-rushdie.html). At the time, anything less than total support for Rushdie's right to write whatever the hell he wished (and also not get killed for it!) was disgraceful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll check this out tomorrow but now I need sleep.

Rick

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
At the time, anything less than total support for Rushdie's right to write whatever the hell he wished (and also not get killed for it!) was disgraceful.


[/ QUOTE ]

After reading your link, I can not agree with your statement.

[andyfox]

I find this statement of le Carre's disgraceful:

"there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity."

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
Seeing as LeCarré's "politics", at least as we came to know them through his books (and the movies of his books), were strictly anti-Soviet, what exactly did you find wrong with them ? Are you a Carla mole ?


[/ QUOTE ]

Read Absolute Friends or The Little Drummer Girl or, indeed, The Constant Gardener. Even the classic Cold War books like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold make it pretty clear that he only prefers the West because, in his mind, they were very slightly better than the Communists.

The Rushdie stuff, which I wasn't really familiar with, further reinforces my doubts about his politics. He remains an outstanding storyteller though.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Absolute Friends or The Little Drummer Girl or, indeed, The Constant Gardener, even the classic Cold War books like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold make it pretty clear that he only prefers the West because, in his mind, they were very slightly better than the Communists.

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW and IMHO, LeCarré's "position" in his books is most emphatically on the side of freedom which he equates with the West. LeCarré's "good guys", such as Smiley, are resolutely on the side of "the Free World" but they are living in the West and, thus, are afflicted with the "malaise of the West" (apathy, ennui, pettiness, waste, etc). Like most intelligent people who have not lost their soul totally.

Two adaptations of LeCarré's novels, one for the small and one for the big screen, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guiness, and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold with Richard Burton, are among the best films ever for me.

But they age not too well, IMO. People who have not lived through the Cold War cannot truly be moved by set pieces such as crossing Charlie point or intellectually digging up deep cover spies in a London decrepit flat.

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
I find this statement of le Carre's disgraceful:

"there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity."

[/ QUOTE ]

But, why?

Maybe you think that all religions may be insulted with impunity. If this is the case, I don't agree with you. But hardly I can qualify either case (yours or Le Carre's) as disgraceful.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
"There is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity." -- LeCarré

[/ QUOTE ]

This is completely disgraceful - coming from a writer no less. I hope you understand why.

Do not think only of the "direct" insults (eg Kazantzakis' "Last Temptation Of Christ", Rushdie's "Satanic Verses", H. L. Mencken's all). Think of the inherently irreverent nature of Art, including fiction writing.

Without irreverence, we have nothing.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guiness,

[/ QUOTE ]


Was this a PBS 'series' back in the mid 80's. I remember a Smiley 'Spy'. It was many years ago but from what I recall it was great and well done.

-Zeno

[LomU]

it was BBC.

i really want to see this, will most likely be 6 months before it comes to New Zealand :/

[John Cole]

[ QUOTE ]
People who have not lived through the Cold War cannot truly be moved by set pieces such as crossing Charlie point or intellectually digging up deep cover spies in a London decrepit flat.



[/ QUOTE ]

So, what do you say to the over 50 forum?

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
I find this statement of le Carre's disgraceful: "there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity."


[/ QUOTE ]


I find it repugnant.

I guess this is just something we will disagree on. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

-Zeno

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guiness,

[/ QUOTE ]


Was this a PBS 'series' back in the mid 80's. I remember a Smiley 'Spy'. It was many years ago but from what I recall it was great and well done.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]


Their were two PBS mini-series,Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (http://tinyurl.com/9jd7a) and Smiley's People (http://tinyurl.com/c9pyb) taken from the first and third novels of LeCarre's great George Smiley Trilogy.

His middle novel of the trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy (http://tinyurl.com/bartd) made 100 or so pages on bureaucratic infighting to find funding for a spy mission interesting and real.

To the young these books and series may seem dated and irrelevant, but for me they were the best novels ever written about the Cold War.

~ Rick

[vulturesrow]

I think that this thread has become the de facto over 50 forum. Look at all the geezers in here!! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Cyrus]

The reason both series were great ("Tinker" as well as "Smiley's people", the former even more so) as were most of LeCarré's spy novels, is that there was never any certainty.

Neither operational certainty nor, more importantly, moral certainty. When the "good guys" (and they are all presented as humans, "good" and "bad" guys, even the Soviets) engage in torture, for example, to gain some ground in the spooks' war, that does their cause no good.

There is also tremendous empathy with the persons. Plus, a brilliant transfer of the whole Oxbridge climate of old schoolboys switching their allegiance from merry Albion, which nourished them and made them what they are, to the Soviet bear - because of the fascist threat and because of young men's idealism.

SPOILER : The climactic yet swift encounter in the military prison yard, where the mole is held, after being discovered and captured, between the mole and his lover of yore is among the best scenes on film, ever. To Ian Richardson and Ian Bannen go the honors.

[andyfox]

Yes, all religions, all everything, may be insulted by a writer with impunity. And certainly without the threat of being killed for it.

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, all religions, all everything, may be insulted by a writer with impunity. And certainly without the threat of being killed for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's my understanding than Le Carre didn't threat to kill Rushdie, so, for the sake of the discussion, lets not mix that.

So, "all everything may be insulted", I guess with the exception of a writer's writing. This kind of meta-statements are confusing to me.

So, I decide to write a book to bash the Californian bees; and nobody can write about bashing my book or my ideas in the book?, and if he does, his writings are disgraceful?

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
Without irreverence, we have nothing.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree we need irreverence.

I just don't think there are intouchables and the masters of irreverence should be the new saints or martyrs as decided by some different ellite. I have no problem with Salman's irreverence; and I have no problem with somebody being irreverent to Salman.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]

So, I decide to write a book to bash the Californian bees; and nobody can write about bashing my book or my ideas in the book?, and if he does, his writings are disgraceful?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure you can, and he can, and all that's fine. However it's not fine if some leader of some bee-worshiping cult or church says you are to die for your book about bees. That person's position would be indefensible, and LeCarre is more or less defending that position by refusing to condemn it. He's even taking it more or less as a matter of course, and deflecting the matter back to Rushdie. If LeCarre were to say, "There is no law in life or nature that says the great philosophy and history of bee-keeping may be insulted with impunity" he'd be taking essentially the same position in the hypothetical example.

The problem lies with the warped views of the fanatics, not with Rushdie's writings, and the focus ought to stay there.

Now, normally I would expect Andy Fox to say I'm just seeing things in "black-and-white", but apparently Andy Fox is capable of seeing a few things in "black-and-white" as well /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
It's my understanding than Le Carre didn't threat to kill Rushdie, so, for the sake of the discussion, lets not mix that.

[/ QUOTE ]
LeCarré was not categorically and unequivocally against the fatwa. Anything less that that was and is disgraceful.

It was a very bad moment for LeCarré, to put it mildly.

[ QUOTE ]
So, "all everything may be insulted", I guess with the exception of a writer's writing.

[/ QUOTE ]
Who said anything like that? Both Rushdie's and LeCarré's writings should be subject to free and unrestricted criticism!

It is death threats (by heads of state, moreover!) that put a serious chill to our right to criticize (and insult) any kind of text, inclduing religious text.

It is the fatwas that we should be against, and nothing else.

[ QUOTE ]
So, I decide to write a book to bash the Californian bees; and nobody can write about bashing my book or my ideas in the book?, and if he does, his writings are disgraceful?

[/ QUOTE ]
No. Of course not.

The point is this : If the Supreme Head of the Cult of The California Holy Bee decides that you have been blasphemous to the sacred insect with your book and issues a call to his faithful to do you harm (or kill you), well, even though I don't think I'd like your book or the bees very much, I should immediately protest the religious leader's call and express my total support for your right to write whatever the hell you want.

Especially if I am a writer.

[andyfox]

MMMMMM and Cyrus (the odd couple?) have expressed my sentiments (better than I would have).

[nicky g]

I just don't get LeCarre. I love spy thrillers (I just finished one twenty mintues ago, and bought another lunchtime today) but reading his books makes me want to tear my hair out. A combination of prose that feels like wading through treacle, general confusion at what's going on most of the time, and a clubby atomsphere of annoying upper class characters who have endless unbearable conversations about nothing. I also find them and their subject matter unglamourous and anti-escapist to the point of being depressing. I really wish I could get into him as he's clearly the master and they're vastly more sophisticated than most of the tosh on the market, but I can't. I'm looking forward to the film though. Maybe I should buy his books on tape; I find reading them such an effort, perhaps listening to them would be easier.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I just don't get LeCarre. Reading his books makes me want to tear my hair out. A combination of prose that feels like wading through treacle, general confusion at what's going on most of the time, and a clubby atomsphere of annoying upper class characters who have endless unbearable conversations about nothing. I also find them and their subject matter unglamourous and anti-escapist.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, I don't think you're getting into the Over-50 club any time soon.

[sirio11]

Well, I guess it's just a matter of interpretation. In no way I find Le Carre's comments as supporting the fatwa. And he did condem it.

But I guess you expect like Salman and his followers to ok Le Carre at least 2 conditions:

a) A full condemnation

AND

b) Not writing anything that could sound as a criticism of Salman's writings, because then you're in the Ayatolla's camp. (Frankly, this remind me of the Bush followers)

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
I just don't get LeCarre. I love spy thrillers (I just finished one twenty mintues ago, and bought another lunchtime today) but reading his books makes me want to tear my hair out. A combination of prose that feels like wading through treacle, general confusion at what's going on most of the time, and a clubby atomsphere of annoying upper class characters who have endless unbearable conversations about nothing. I also find them and their subject matter unglamourous and anti-escapist to the point of being depressing. I really wish I could get into him as he's clearly the master and they're vastly more sophisticated than most of the tosh on the market, but I can't. I'm looking forward to the film though. Maybe I should buy his books on tape; I find reading them such an effort, perhaps listening to them would be easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

I read most of the LeCarre cold war novels about ten to twenty years ago. During this period I also read one Robert Ludlum novel and skimmed a few others.

In the Ludlum novel it seemed the hero was some dashing suave superman who vanquished all foes with ease and certainty. He bedded the most beautiful woman and if I recall correctly the climatic chapter featured several world leaders including the President and the Soviet Premier and if memory serves the Pope. I think Ludlum's hero saved the world from nuclear annihilation or worse.

In the LeCarre trilogy the hero was George Smiley. He was a tubby, quiet middle aged man who still mooned over his lost marriage and there were no dazzling beauties ever to be found at his side. He constantly agonized over his loyalties but in the end he rationalized the way of the West was better. He was never involved in a violent encounter of any sort. Most of the trilogy revolved around ferreting out and vanquishing a mole within the British Secret Service, redeeming the Services reputation with a carefully planned plot, and finally tricking the mastermind of the the Soviet Union's secret service into an act of treason. I don't recall any chase scenes or memorable action.

Ludlum was instantly forgettable. LeCarre and George Smiley will stick with me forever.

~ Rick

[Zeno]

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation


*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*


Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's anthology, Europe and Elsewhere.

The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed.

[Cyrus]

Yep. You got it:

[ QUOTE ]
[George Smiley] constantly agonized over his loyalties but in the end he rationalized the way of the West was better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Beware of dead certainty.

[nicky g]

Let me say that I've never read a Robert Ludlum novel the whole way through.

As I said I'm sure LeCarre is much more sophsticated than anything else, and am sure it stays with people longer than most (although honestly TTSS hasn't stayed with me; probably because even while I was reading it I doidn't have much of a sense of who anyone except Smiley was). Butg I just can't read the things. Mainly it's just the writing I don't like. I like clear prose, and find that Le Carre's is more like looking at things through the bottom of a wine bottle than a window pane. And I think they could be just a leeetle bit more glamourous/gadgety/violent/ whatever. They're a bit like watching a chess match from a distance. One day soon I will try again though.