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Loading... The Mission Song (2006)by John le Carré
While almost everyone who has reviewed this novel by LeCarre was disappointed by his non-Smiley, main character, Bruno Salvador (Salvo), I loved the fact that it was far removed from his other, cold, distant Smiley novels! What first got my interest was the fact that the protagonist was an interpreter (I am one also!)---not the usual MI-6 character. Still the novel was intriguing, a bit complicated at times with the back-and-forth but revealing a little more about his main character all the way to the very end. Yes, it is a bit of a removal from his earlier novels, but that is precisely why I liked it! It shows that LeCarre can write outside of his usual USA-British-Russia spy novels. Lovely writing and took me at a olympic bobsled speed throughout the novel. I am a big leCarre fan, but unfortunately I didn't feel this book was quite up to his usual standard. There was substantially less intrigue and maneuvering than usual, and I felt like many of the narrative passages meant to "teach" me about Africa dragged on rather too long. Additionally, I found Salvo's relationship with Hannah somewhat implausible, especially toward the beginning. I did love Salvo's observations of London society and his scathing assessment of the U.K.'s meddling in international affairs -- something that I am sure reflects leCarre's own opinions, given his position of other conflicts in other novels (such as the Afghan/Iraq wars in Absolute Friends). Perhaps a more careful editing of this novel would have sped it along a bit more. I listened to this book on audiotape, and I loved, absolutely loved, the narrator's voice. Him, I can recommend wholeheartedly! I was not impressed. It did end very well for me. I was not impressed with Le Carre' and a terrible ending.
“The Mission Song” illuminates with animated personifications a portion of the globe’s daily misery that tends to be, in American news, at least, murky and abstract.
References to this work on external resources.
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I'm not sure what the reason was, but after page 20 or so I felt reluctant to pick up the book again and read on. I gave it untill page 100, like I usually do, but.... no.
This one will be listed as started, but not finished. :-( (