The Mission Song: A Novel
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: 2008-08-01
ISBN: 0316016764
Number of pages: 449
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of The Mission Song: A Novel
Book Review: Idealism and naiveté betrayed
Summary: 4 Stars
"I'm just not sure who the heathens are." - Bruno Salvador experiencing disillusionment
First published in 2006, THE MISSION SONG has a racially mixed protagonist - half Black, half White - named Bruno "Salvo" Salvador. Perhaps author John le Carré foresaw the election of the Democratic Party's and America`s ostensible savior, President Barack Obama, in his crystal ball. Salvo is a hero candidate for our times.
In any case, Bruno, who was born of an Irish Catholic missionary and a Kenyan mother and subsequently orphaned by the age of ten, was supplied with a birth cover story courtesy of the British Consul of Kampala and sent off to live in England at a boarding school for "ambiguous Catholic orphans" in Sussex. Now, eighteen years later, Salvador, a loyal adopted son of Her Majesty and the crumbled Empire, is a gifted translator specializing in obscure African tribal dialects working in the electronic surveillance section of the Secret Service. Then, on the recommendation of his revered boss, Salvo is plucked from his passive intelligence role and given the opportunity to participate in a more proactive mission, i.e. to translate at a meeting of certain principals negotiating in secret to "rescue" Bruno's homeland from its unending condition of war, government corruption, natural resource exploitation by outsiders, and widespread poverty. Salvo is thrilled to be of service to both his adopted and home countries.
Over the years in scenarios that reflect contemporary times and tensions, the author has populated his espionage thrillers with a virtuoso variety of leading characters, each of which is a far cry from the molds that have given us Quiller, Bond, Gabriel Allon or Spider Shepherd. In that sense, le Carré's stories have much in common with that other word master, my favorite author of the genre, Gerald Seymour. In the worlds of these two writers, victories are subtle and ofttimes Pyrrhic. More like the real world, I suspect.
As with all le Carré books, the joy for the reader is in the journey, not the destination, and the term "thriller" is misapplied. However, in the case of THE MISSION SONG, I found the conclusion so understated and Salvo's victory so nebulous to the point of tragedy - his ultimate fate so abruptly unexplored - that I cannot award five stars, but must settle on four.
Summary of The Mission Song: A Novel
Hailed everywhere as a masterpiece of suspense, John le Carré's return to Africa is the story of Bruno Salvador (aka Salvo), the 25-year-old orphaned love child of an Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Quickly rising to the top of his profession as an interpreter, Salvo is dispatched by British Intelligence to a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, where he hears things not meant for his ears - and is forced to interpret matters never intended for his reawoken African conscience. By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, THE MISSION SONG recounts Salvo's heroically naïve journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness."A ragingly readable adventure tale. . . . Every issue of today is here: class warfare, race, torture, immigration, language. But THE MISSION SONG is also a tender love story, a fast-paced thriller, and a story with as many brilliant minor characters as major. Like another favorite of mine, The Constant Gardener, it 'gets' the centrality of Africa to our world today." -Salon
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