So far, A Most Wanted Man by John le Carre focuses on the lives of two very different characters. One is a Chechen Muslim boy named Issa. Extremely thin, he shows up at boxing champion Melik's house with a note saying that he is a medical student in need of a place to stay. After much hesitation, Melik lets him stay for a little while. He slowly learns that Issa was in prison and escaped with the help of some "friends." He had "a beaten body" and "bruised legs"(Carre 14). Melik's mother suggests that he might have been accused of something because of his race, saying: "Everybody persecutes Chechens except us...Putin persecutes them and Mr. Bush encourages him. As long as Putin calls it his war on terror, he can do with the Chechens whatever he wishes" (Carre 8). Then he becomes very sick, leaving Melik completely clueless as to what to do. The other is an English Banker Tommy Brue, a very successful man with a dirty secret within the vaults of his bank. When his father had run the bank, he had run a clean practice, except for his involvement with the Lipizzaners, part of the Russian mafia. After the death of his father, Brue moved the bank from Vienna to Hamburg to prevent problems with the police. Now, years later he gets a phone call from a lawyer saying "My client instructs me to pass his best wishes to a Mr... Mr. Lipizzaner... I think your bank knows the Lipizzaners very well" (Carre 24). She wants to speak to Brue as soon as possible. Not knowing what else to do, Brue schedules an appointment the lawyer.
Both Brue and Issa have to suffer for something that they had no control over. Issa suffers because government officials have made his race a scape-goat for the war on terror. Brue suffers from decisions his father made for reasons unknown to Brue. These difficulties hardy seem fair. In the first part of A Most Wanted Man, Carre starts to show that life is anything but fair, and that anyone who thinks it is needs a serious reality check. He also shows that people should always think about how the decisions they make will affect others. One can only guess if Brue's father new the kind of trouble he might cause for his sons when he started banking for the Lipizzaners. If is doubtful though, that the end of the Lipizzaners' affair is in sight
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4 comments:
Good post. I do agree what you said about Issa suffering. I don't like how Issa is treated when he is in prision. He is innocent; born into this life. It wasn't his fault that his father did horrible things.
I like your comparison to both characters. We can really see the difference. It is sad that Issa is so brutally persecuted, but it's a good thing that the people let him into their home. I agree that its not fair when these things happen. Like Brue having to face the consequences for what his dad did, that isn't just.
It is almost heartwarming to see the acceptance the boxer Melik has for the boy Issa. The man has every right to deny the boy a space to stay but chooses to do so anyway, ignoring the fact that in reality he really knows nothing about him. The difficulties he seems to face are sad certainly, but what would life be without difficulties. That is why nothing makes for a better story than the tale of people who overcome real life struggles.
I definitely agree with your analysis. Life is rarely if ever fair. There will always be obstacles that one has to overcome. But it is especially difficult when these obstacles are due to the actions or beliefs of someone else. It is very sad that Issa has to suffer for something completely out of his control-something that SHOULD be irrelevant. It is also frustrating how Brue is forced to deal with the choices that his father made.
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