The Constant Gardener

My holiday reading in Morocco was John le Carre's "The Constant Gardener", the novel about malfeasance in clinical and field trails of pharmaceuticals. It's difficult to believe that the twisting of science which he reports upon, really happens, especially because I have been involved in pharma discovery for so many years. Does it really? I suppose it might, although all the scientists I have know have been upright and honest people, who like to feel that they are working for the benefit of society as well as their company and their own pockets. But I suppose that much of that end of the business is run by lawyers and marketing people and accountants, whose very raisons d'etre are the twisting of regulations and truth to their own purposes.

All in all, it was a gripping yet depressing read.

Le Carre is a complex writer, with a precise and complicated prose style and an eye for many little details which enliven the readers' visions of people and location. As a middle-aged man, I find his sympathy for men like me very touching; his themes of faith and treason, hope and betrayal run through every book which I have read. In this case, there is an overarching betrayal of the common man by the rich, uncaring and powerful which is contrasted by the faith and steadfastness of a single man. He's good at late-flowering love, or perhaps it's just that romances between people of different ages is a theme which attracts him. And there is always that thread of betrayal and loss.

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It's been eighteen months since I read another Le Carre. In that case it was "Little Drummer Girl", which is a more complicated story but with the same themes of love and loss, faith and betrayal. There, the setting was the terrorism of the Arab-Israeli war transposed to Europe in the 1970's. I had read it first in the early 80's, and upon re-reading, it appeared that nothing in the political situation had changed. I remember discussing it with Kaa whilst we were sitting in a park, where we were both decrying the lack of progress in the Middle East and trying to make sense of the book's complex rendering of right and wrong.

It's time to try the Naive & Sentimental Lover, next.

:o/