Although it's been a couple of years since I've seen the excellent movie version of The Constant Gardener – starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz – I found that I couldn't get it out of my head as I read the novel.The Constant Gardener is the story of married couple Justin and Tessa Quayle. Justin is a British diplomat posted to Nairobi and Tessa is his much-younger wife. At first glance, it appears that Justin is a passive guy with a passion for gardening who is seemingly oblivious as his wife takes on controversial aid work, and has an affair with a black Belgian doctor. But then, when Tessa is murdered, Justin embarks on a multi-continent search to ferret out a conspiracy that Tessa had apparently uncovered, and to find some justice for the both of them. (By the way, the murder thing – not a spoiler. You find out on page one.)
As a result of extraordinary movie bias, I don't feel like I can accurately judge the book. I didn't think it was as good as the movie – and Le Carre uses a decent amount of British slang, which I found to be annoying – but perhaps the book never had a proper shot. Since I'm feeling ambivalent about just about everything right now, I'll leave it at that.
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