This novel could be subtitled “The Book of Disillusionment.” It’s the story of two young friends, Ted Mundy and Sasha, who meet as young idealistic university students in Germany. Both men have father’s whose legacies are embarrassment and a more than a touch of shame.
Ted saves Sasha’s life. Later, Sasha more or less returns the favor.
Their idealism makes them vulnerable to those without it. Ted and Sasha stumble into becoming spies. They work to bring down East Germany and when that happens, Mundy is cast adrift. He drifts into marriage, drifts into jobs, drifts out of marriage. He seems mostly directionless.
Then Sasha reappears and the two vulnerable men are reunited. They again are subject to exploitation as Sasha urges Mundy to open a university financed by a very mysterious man.
John le Carre’s disdain for American foreign policy under the George W. Bush administration is abundantly clear in this book, but is not the centerpiece. That is reserved for the story of a friendship that survives the pulls of time and place, but is ultimately and tragically victimized by the men who pull the strings.
An interview with John le Carre.