The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre

On the strong recommendation of my colleague R., I decided to give John Le Carre another shot. I made an ill-fated attempt to read The Russia House in the early 90s, and found it (and the subsequent movie) so deadly dull I wanted to claw my eyes out. But I was willing to concede that either I or Mr. Le Carre could have changed in the intervening 15 years, so I gave him a whirl. I sincerely regretted my decision for the first third of the book, but then things slowly started to change. Many people seem to equate "literary" characters with "not quite likeable", and that certainly seems to be the case here. No one was very interesting, certainly no one was likeable, and I didn't really give two bits what happened to the lot of them. But then the events of the novel began to transform these deadly dull folks into different people, and it became clear to me that it was all on purpose and that John Le Carre is a genious. Okay, maybe that's overstating it a bit. In the end I enjoyed the book quite a bit, despite it being very rough going from time to time. I understand that this is just about to be released as a movie in the US, and I think it has quite a bit of potential as a film. Plus, Ralph Fiennes is perfect for this role (he does tortured grieving so well...), and is awfully easy on the eyes to boot. Sounds like a winner to me.