February 19, 2002

The eighteenth novel of le Carre, The constant gardener, is more relevant to the entire world — first, second, and third — than its predecessors. Le Carre has perforce changed his villain from the patently wicked but dead USSR (and unholy power in general) to a multinational pharmaceutical company and the unscrupulous distributors of its product in Africa.

Wrapping the wonderland of fiction around a cancerous truth, le Carre has achieved a pearl of a book. To it he brings his unmatched talents for creating suspense, and storytelling, and his penchant for delving deep into the psyches of his characters.

The constant gardener of the title is Justin Quayle, a member of the British diplomatic mission in Nairobi. A placid upper-class Englishman devoted to horticultural pursuits, and polite to a fault, Quayle finds the tranquillity of his life destroyed by the murder under mysterious and brutal circumstances of his beloved wife, Tessa. A molting ensues, and the serene gardener acquires a dogged constancy in completing the dangerous and self-imposed mission of his wife.

Conscious of legal vultures waiting for fatalities, le Carre has prudently rushed to assert in his author’s note that all his characters are fictitious, that, no drug by the name of Dypraxa was being tested and dumped by the pharmaceuticals on hapless Africans, and that the British bureaucracy which he treats with disdain in his novel were actually a set of very respectable men. However on a more sincere note he ominously declares that his story is ‘as tame as a holiday postcard’ in comparison with the reality.

And if the reality is as terrible as Tessa Quayle discovers, and as le Carre claims, then it is no less alive than a burqa clad spouse of terrorism ; the difference being that terrorism is held up to condemnation everywhere, while the victims of unscrupulous and unrestrained capitalism are buried in stealth, unnoticed by the world. Wanton capitalism therefore basks in the glow of all the approval that prosperity and overt generosity can command.

But to return to the novel, which spins a literary web around an essentially journalistic concern - bringing it to life though it must be acknowledged — le Carre uses in it all the ingredients of his style that delight his readers. From the unhurried unraveling of the plot to the indefatigable uncovering of character and motive, in minute steps, it is all vintage le Carre. Yet, his suavity notwithstanding, after reading his books I often get the feeling that he is an undercover romantic. Or if that sounds too drastic, then he is at least a man with a heart — a heart that is like a pea under twenty mattresses of urbanity.

While his earlier work, Single and single comes closer to revealing the presence of the unprofessional cardiac organ, in The constant gardener le Carre takes great pains to divulge, posthumously, Tessa Quayle’s unblemished and touching fidelity to her husband, in spite of appearances to the contrary. As a matter of fact Tessa Quayle’s character is astonishingly perfect. Her beauty, compassion, generosity, lovemaking, loyalty, and intelligence are all described in the superlative. Even her circumspection is such that she boasts, ‘compared to me the grave is a chatterbox’.

Another oddity was the interrogation by two members of the police, of Justin Quayle and Sandy Woodrow, following Tessa’s murder. It is almost like a sideshow focussing on the author’s other great strength, the revelation of character, and though extremely interesting on its own, it is too implausible to sit comfortably in the narrative.

On the whole I have to say that the book does not disappoint — not even le Carre’s habitual readers. As a matter of fact it is hard to put down. But beyond the satisfaction it affords as a wonderful novel, it leaves one with a heightened awareness of a stealthy terror. Listen to what Sir Kenneth Curtiss, importer and distributor of the drug Dypraxa and head of the dreaded House of Three Bees tells Donohue, the Secret Service man:

‘Kenneth Curtiss: Go back to fu...g Sunday school. It’s “God save our multinationals” they are singing these days.’

It will be interesting to know what the theme of le Carre’s next novel is going to be, specially post 9/11.

The constant gardener
By le Carre
Coronet Books
Hodder and Stoughton
570pp. Rs 570

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