Review: The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener by John le Carré
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting in how this both, to use baseball terminology, hits home runs and strikes out. First, I must fall on my sword and admit that I listened to an abridged audio version of this book. I tend not to do that, as I find that often the abridgement hurts. It hurts the story, it hurts the flow. This was one of the problems here – the story was confused. At times, you couldn’t tell you had moved into what in a visually read book was a new chapter. Instead, you were often jarred into realizing you were reading about another characters perceptions, thinking you were continuing along with the previous character. This abridgement, unfortunately, has these problems. Sometimes, to the benefit of a book, an abridgement cuts out some storylines that aren’t necessary for the main story, and cuts out characters. Here, it seems like some plotlines were excised, and perhaps some introductory descriptions of new characters, but there were a large number of characters to keep track of here. The choices for this abridgement seemed a bit weak. This is surprising because the author seems to have been involved – he’s the narrator. As a narrator, le Carre was great. His pacing is methodical, his character voices are distinct, interesting, and funny when they were supposed to be. As for the story itself, I found myself intrigued by the way le Carre has moved beyond traditional spy stories while keeping his hand in. While a great example of an author/narrator’s art, the abridgement difficulties hurt this too much to whole-heartedly recommend.

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