The Mission Song
Good Thriller - A book about a whistle-blower who happens to be an interpreter. I liked the insight given into the world of an interpreter - different from a mere translator - and was captivated by both the beginning and end of the tale. The middle bit, which concerns a conference of African leaders and miscellaneous other folk, was for me a bit laboured. Maybe someone who knows more about African politics would have found this easier.
Will Salvo save the day? - This isn t the type of book I d usually read - usually I prefer to stick to more light-hearted stuff, or at least, books that don t contain too much politics. It s not a subject that really interests me, so I usually steer clear. However, The Mission Song certainly kept me interested throughout.It tells the tale of a translator with a murky past, and a questionable childhood. All the moving around in his past, however, has given him an excellent grasp of several languages, which is why he is chosen for a secret project. Taken from his normal life, he is asked to change his identity and his clothes, and is transported to an unknown island for a couple of days where he is to sit in on a conference, and translate conversations between several different people of varying races. He is also expected to listen to private conversations taking place in bugged rooms. Having overheard several very interesting conversations, Salvo realises the whole project he is attending is corrupt. There are underhand deals and much more going on. Towards the end of the conference, Salvo steals evidence of these deals, and goes home. He tries to do what he thinks is right and out the truth. But nobody believes him... or at least, they pretend not to. Eventually, Salvo has no idea where to turn, he doesn t know who he can trust, and who is on whose side. In the meantime, his personal life is undergoing a huge change as he has met a black nurse, whose homeland is not so very far from his own, and they share interests and passions - and fall in love. But Salvo is married to a woman who he no longer loves, and also suspects is cheating on him. Overall, a very harrowing time for our young hero, as he desperately tries to begin a relationship with the woman he believes to be his soulmate, and to also stop the corrupt powers of the conference bringing a country to its knees.This book certainly kept me hooked. The plot is intriguing, packed with politics and corruption (which I suppose go hand-in-hand anyway), and a real sense that you want the young hero to save the day. You ll have to read it to find out if he does. But this isn t a book you can rush, because you ll lose the plot. A very involving and intriguing tale.
A great addition to Le Carré s post-Cold War output - Bruno Salvador, with an Irish Missionary father and Congolese mother, works as a freelance interpreter. As well as English, French and Swahili he also speaks a range of less common African languages.As a loyal British citizen he is proud to be called on by unnamed government departments to assist in sensitive negotiations. But when he is asked to leave at short notice to attend a conference of unnamed people for unknown purposes on an anonymous northern island things go awry for him. As an interpreter he is expected to hold everything in strict confidence but as the conference progresses he sees and hears things that can only be detrimental to peace and progress.It is very well done how Le Carré portrays Salvo as initially very enthusiastic and naïvely supportive of what is being planned and how he gradually has his innocence ripped away from him.The Mission Song is well plotted (complex but believable) and whips along at a great pace. An exciting read but without any crazy chases or gun fights. Another great addition to Le Carré s post-Cold War output.Can businessmen, Civil Servants and politicians be so corrupt and self-serving? Yes, probably.
Beautifully constructed, unfortunately credible - In The Mission Song John le Carré re-visits the world of espionage that we associate with his writing. He is a master of the clandestine, the deniable, the re-definable. Bruno Salvador is a freelance linguist. His parentage is complex, his origins confused, but his skills beyond question. By virtue of an upbringing that had many influences, he develops the ability to absorb languages. Having lived in francophone Africa and then England, he is fluent in both English and French plus an encyclopaedia of central African languages. His unique gifts, considerable skills and highly idiosyncratic methods qualify him for occasional assignments as an interpreter. He is trusted. He is also, he discovers, pretty cheap, and already has considerable experience of working for those aspects of government and officialdom which sometimes transgress legality. He is also, therefore, vulnerable. So when a new assignment - so urgent that he has to skip his wife s party - drags him to a secret destination, he initially takes everything very much in his stride.But Bruno is much more than a linguist, certainly much more than a translator and, as a result of the application of conscience, considerably more than the interpreter his employers have hired. His perception of language is so acute that it provides him with an extra sense, a means of interpreting the world, no less, not just a method of eliciting meaning. But he also has the intellectual skills to identify consequences, to interpret motives. And it is here where he begs to differ with his paymasters. The Mission Song is the kind of book where revelation of the plot, beyond this mere starting point, would undermine the experience of reading it. Suffice it to say that Bruno s task is both what is seems to be and also not what it seems. Bruno s ambivalence in relation to its aims prompts him to go beyond the call of duty. And, in doing so, he learns more about his near-anonymous employers. But, of course, they learn more about him, a reality that eventually has fairly dire consequences.The Mission Song is also a love story, or two, one on the way in and one on the way out. It s also about privilege and power, plus their use, misuse and abuse. In many ways it inhabits similar territory to John le Carré s Absolute Friends, but is singularly more successful, especially in the credibility of the eventual denouement.Fans of John le Carré will need no convincing. For those who have found his work less than satisfying, The Mission Song shows the author at his best, presenting a complex, highly credible plot in a skilful, illuminating, informative and yet entertaining way. Its eventual message about the abuse of power is subtly threaded into the very substance of the plot and makes its point with strength and relevance. We know a little more about the world by the end.
On top form - I cannot understand why other readers of this book have been disappointed. Perhaps they expected a trademark tale of intrigue instead of an accurate description of the tawdry intrigues in which the Uk government regularly indulges in order to protect its interests in Africa (for which, read big business). Instead, Mr le Carre has given us a dark farce, seen through the eyes of the delightfully drawn central character. Whilst the surface story is fairly straightforward, once you begin to think of the underlying assumptions that are being exposed, you see that the fierce anger at the way the West has treated Africa still burns.As for being literary . Well, Mr le Carre has always been that. He has chronicled the dark heart of our civilization and all the forms of betrayal on which it based ever since he started writing. It is high time his work was recognized for this - if ever there was a contender for the Nobel prize, it is John le Carre.