The Tailor of Panama
by John Le Carre
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Le CarreEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-07-30
ISBN: 0345420438
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Tailor of Panama
Book Review: 0
Summary: 4 Stars
With the conclusion of the Cold War, master spy novelist John le Carre has trained his sights on what he perceives as the new source of global disharmony: the strivings of the Western powers and their multi-national corporations to extend their hegemony across the underdeveloped world, and the reaction that arises to that dubious enterprise. "The Tailor of Panama", like his most recent, "The Constant Gardener", employs this geo-political backdrop to dissect the machinations of the covetous Super powers, and their corrupting influence on the mere mortals who become pawns and puppets in their global games. The "hero" of "The Tailor of Panama", Harry Pendel is a man who has for most of his existence lived a lie, a re-invented, self-aggrandizing, spurious autobiography with which he confronts the vagaries and disparate elements of his life -from his American wife and two children, to the politicos, big-shots, hustlers, and myriad other movers and shakers who patronize his tailor shop in the heart of Panama- a sort of Central American equivalent to "Rick's Cafe" in "Casablanca". Harry, half-Jewish, an emigre from England who obligingly took the fall and did jail-time when his boss decided to torch his business for the insurance windfall, is a kibbutzer par excellence. A man of many personae, he revels in his innate ability to be whatever man the customer or moment requires. That is until the fateful day one Andrew Osnard, a somewhat disreputable British Intelligence operative shows up at Harry's store, and cunningly enlists him as an accomplice in his superiors' plot to create a pretext for Anglo-American intervention in Panama, and thereby preempt the scheduled return of the canal to Panama's sovereignty on New Years Eve, 1999. Besides appealing to Harry's theatrical sense of self-importance, Agent Osnard is able to in effect blackmail Harry's into his complicity by assuming an onerous debt the tailor is shouldering on a failing rice farm, and on which he has secretly squandered his trusting and faithful wife's money. Building on this scenario, le Carre depicts how a deluding, and self-deluded man winds up not only betraying his own wife, family and closest friends -with one tragically fatal consequence- but, more deplorably, his adopted nation's fledgling struggle to gain independence and autonomy from the national Goliaths who vye to control her people and its destiny. As such, "The Tailor of Panama" is an important, poignant and compelling work. However, leCarre seems to have trouble settling on a consistent, unified tone and style to his novel. To be sure, it can be called a tragi-comic tale, but the two elements blend awkwardly, and far from seamlessly. Le Carre also opts for a rococo style of story-telling that gives the novel a disjointed, elliptical feel, and serves to ultimately weaken its power. Nonetheless, leCarre,in this novel, as with "The Constant Gardener", must be lauded for having the courage and integrity to direct his barbs and outrage at targets which other authors, more concerned with playing it politically safe and thus assuring healthy revenues, might cravenly give a wide berth.
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