The Constant Gardener. - Review - book review

Ecologist, The, March, 2001 by Lucinda Labes

By John le Carre HODDER & STOUGHTON 2001 [pound]16.99

John le Carre, that old doyen of the defunct Cold War has a new enemy: big business. With the superpowers gone -- or one of them, anyway -- the spy novelist has found a far more terrifying predator than atomic Russia: the multinational corporation.

Le Carre's latest tale begins with bloodshed: beautiful, young Tessa Quayle, wife of Justin, a middle-ranking British diplomat in the Kenyan High Commission, is found brutally murdered on the shores of Lake Turkana. Bright and idealistic, Tessa had spent her last few months investigating a giant pharmaceutical company which is attempting to sell its new tuberculosis drug in Africa. Her mentor and alleged lover has disappeared from the scene of the crime. The Constant Gardener traces the steps of Tessa's husband, Justin, as he tries to discover why his wife has been killed. His search draws him into a murky world of corrupt business deals, computer hacking and ruthless brutality. In the process, he discovers his own integrity.

The subject matter is close to le Carre's heart. In his afterword, he goes so far as to urge readers to send money to the BUKO Pharma-Kampagne, a German watchdog set up to sniff out malpractice in the pharmaceutical industry. For, as le Carre says, researching 'the pharmaceutical jungle, I came to realise that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard'.

Certainly The Constant Gardener tells a tale that will be familiar to readers of The Ecologist; a tale in which independent scientists who don't toe the corporate line are robbed of their jobs and their reputations; where sick people in the 'Third World' are used as guinea pigs to test out new drugs, or given pills that have been discontinued elsewhere due to their adverse effects. In The Constant Gardener, le Carre depicts a society that treads a fine line between brute mafioso-style thuggery and civilisation. Interestingly, we realise that the 'status quo men' -- those port-swilling inhabitants of the Nairobi golf club -- are as ruthless in their apathy as the corporate henchmen are in their violence. Wherever self-interest supersedes integrity, a dog-eat-dog mentality rules the day.

The fictionalisation of this real-life drama is in line with a rash of new Hollywood blockbusters demonising multinational corporations: Erin Brockovitch, for example, or Mission Impossible 2. Faceless and all-powerful, today's corporations have become the populist bogeyman. This is no bad thing. By bringing this important issue into public consciousness, such dramatisation could help temper corporate excesses. However, whilst Hollywood's heroes reign victorious, in The Constant Gardener, status quo rules; in le Carre's world, idealism is punishable by death. Nevertheless, The Constant Gardener is a telling depiction of the struggle to reclaim humanity from the throes of Mammon.

Le Carre is a master thriller-writer, of course -- that's why he's on his eighteenth novel and still going strong. Despite the intricacies of the plot, his pace is fast, and he bandies the narrative voice seamlessly between characters.

May le Carre write many a novel on this same important theme; there are plenty more stories to be told where that one came from.