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March 20
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Single & Single
by John le Carré
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Reviewed by Len Abram
Important writers make it seem as if life were imitating their art. Their
imaginings become a frame of reference, illuminating our perceptions of
the world. Several weeks ago, a New York Times story discussed the
breakup of the Soviet Union and its effects on the port of Vladivostok.
Among the narrative and descriptions, the journalist compared a Russian
bureaucrat to a character in a John le Carré novel.
The tone of the article, with the rusting of the vaunted Soviet Pacific
fleet and the scurrying of its land-lubber sailors to find enough to eat, is
right at home in le Carré's newest novel, Single & Single. In the
aftermath of the Cold War, le Carré sees a new disorder arising by default
that may be as dangerous as the steel-fisted order it replaces. He also
sees nationalism, centuries old, flare into conflicts now that the lid of
Soviet domination has been pried off.
No writer has been so identified with the Cold War as le Carré; indeed the
war was a far greater stage for his talents than this latest novel has: the
clash of titanic ideologies, the trillions in cash and millions in lives. What
contemporary event could replace such an epic battle? le Carré can place
his stories in the past as he did in The Perfect Spy, but the urgency of
the events--up to the mid-1980s the outcome of the Cold War was still in
doubt--diminishes the drama. His spies and counter-spies are involved in
a game whose end we know as familiarly as the last World Series.
Set in the Gorbachev era of the early 1990s, Single & Single brings le
Carré back to his favorite locales and conflicts, but with a new threat:
Russia, a macrocosm of Vladivostok in decline, has replaced its
commissars and bureaucrats with opportunists and criminals. They will
sell anything to make a ruble (though they prefer dollars, of course). It is
very big business, with illicit trade accounting for perhaps ten per cent of
all world trade (illegal drugs are an eighty billion dollar business in the
US alone). Russian mobsters find willing accomplices from the West, like
the financial House of Single. Together they corrupt their governments.
The wealth and weapons accrued by the Soviet Union, at the expense of its
people's treasure and blood, are up for sale. Of utmost significance in the
novel is the attempt to sell blood, donated by patriotic Russians, to the
West. This repulsive idea, a stereotype of what the Communists believed
about capitalists, helps set in motion the betrayals of Tiger Single and the
Russian-Georgian Orlovs, his partners.
Tiger appears in the Financial Times, above the fold, as a finance
visionary, but he sees no further than his greed. le Carré traces Tiger's
rise from Liverpool to the British counterpart of Wall Street in London,
building character through what others say about him, his wife, mistress,
butler, son. Tiger is a self-made man utterly focused on himself. The
Russian character Zoya tells Tiger's son Oliver that people like his father
and her husband Hoban can only possess, not love. Oliver is capable of love,
even for his rejecting father. Blinded by hubris, Tiger believes that he can
control his Russian partners; the murder of a close associate teaches him
through terror who really is in control.
The legitimacy of Single's commercial ventures degrades into money
laundering. The corruption is corrosive. The Orlovs and their henchman
Hoban sell drugs to the West and arms to Middle Eastern tyrants and South
American narco-terrorists. Single transforms the illicit money into what
they call the white economy. For this and other crimes, Oliver betrays his
father to Her Majesty's Customs Service, and for four years is a spy. The
investigation is led by a dedicated officer, Nat Brock, whom George Smiley
would admire.
Hoban too betrays his bosses' trust because he is loyal to none but
himself, whereas the Orlovs, peasants with cell phones, love their
families and their village, but feel no compassion for their victims.
Betrayal is a constant in le Carré's writing, part of the definition of being
a spy. Some betray their countries and others, lovers, family or friends. le
Carré's protagonists, like the young woman in The Little Drummer Girl,
decide to enter the dangerous game of espionage on one side or the other.
The moral issues of the story demand that they do this, and their
characters are realized through their moral rise. In the novel of action,
physical courage has its analog in moral courage.
The emphasis on making the right choice, which may be ennobling or
heroic, is reminiscent of characters in Joseph Conrad's novels. Oliver
Single has made a mess of his personal life, in part because of his life
with Single & Single. He needs to redeem himself. Oliver's final risk in the
story--and its climax--is to try to save his father's life.
The post-Cold War world remains dangerous, demanding that people like
Aggie, a member of Nat Brock's team, Oliver and Brock himself oppose
greed and criminality.
Single & Single is a novel of action that is interleaved--and some may
say slowed down--by subtle characterization and motive. le Carré is a
demanding writer, who moves between the past and present of his
characters' lives so glibly that he may leave his readers behind. He is also
rewarding. His skills as a novelist are best represented not by action or
political thought, but rather by the many smaller characters, crafted so
well that they could step off the page.
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