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Executive Times |
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2007 Book Reviews |
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The
Mission Song by John le Carre |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Translator John le Carre is at his best when he delves into the dark sides
of human behavior, and allows readers to understand that aspect of our
nature. The best parts of his latest novel, The
Mission Song, do just that, and some of these characters behave in the
darkest of ways. The protagonist, Bruno "Salvo" I am not one to believe in portents, auguries, fetishes,
or magic white or black, although you can bet your bottom dollar it’s in
there somewhere with my mother’s blood. The fact remains that my path to
Hannah was flagged all the way, if I’d only had eyes to see it, which I
didn’t. The first recorded
signal occurred on the Monday evening preceding the
fatal Friday in question, at the Trattoria Bella
Vista in I had not intended to be eating
recycled cannelloni. The day being the fifth anniversary of my marriage to
Penelope, I had returned home early to prepare her favourite
dinner, a coq au yin accompanied by
a bottle of finest burgundy, plus a ripe Brie cut to
size at our local deli. I should by now have become accustomed to the
vagaries of the journalistic world, but when she called me in flagrante -- it
was me who was in flagrante,
I had just flambé’d the chicken joints — to
inform me that a crisis had arisen in the private life of a football star and
she would not be home before midnight, I behaved in a manner that afterwards
shocked me. I did not
scream, I am not the screaming kind. I’m a cool,
assimilated, mid-brown Briton. I have reserve, often in greater measure than
those with whom I have assimilated. I put the phone down gently. I then
without further thought or premeditation consigned chicken, Brie and peeled
potatoes to the waste-disposal unit, and put my finger on the GO button and kept it there, for how
long I can’t say, but for considerably longer than was technically necessary,
given that it was a young chicken offering little resistance. I woke again,
as it were, to find myself striding briskly westwards down There were
six diners at the oval table of the Bella Vista, three stalwart men in
blazers and their equally heavy wives, all clearly accustomed to life’s good
things. They hailed from Rickmansworth, I quickly learned, whether I wished
to or not, and they called it Ricky. They had been attending an open-air matinée of The
Mikado in ‘I will speak,’
he announced defiantly into the middle air. ‘I owe it to myself. Therefore I
shall’ — a statement of
personal principle, addressed to himself and no one else. After which he set course for the largest of the three
stalwart men. The Bella Vista, being Italian, has a terrazzo floor and no
curtains. The plastered ceiling is low and sheer. If they hadn’t heard his
declaration of intent, at least they should have heard the ping of his polished shoes vibrating
as he advanced, but the dominant wife was treating us to her views on modern
sculpture which were not merciful. It took the little gentleman several loud Sirs to make his presence known. ‘Sir,’ he repeated, speaking as a matter of
protocol strictly to the Head of the Table. ‘I came here to enjoy my meal and
read my newspaper’ holding up what was left of it, like a dog-chew, as court
evidence. ‘Instead of which, I find myself subjected to a veritable deluge of
dialogue so loud, so trivial, so strident, that I am —yes’
— the yes to
acknowledge that he had obtained the attention of the table — ‘And there is one voice, sir, one voice above all the rest — I will not point the finger, I am a
courteous man sir, I entreat you to restrain it.’ But having thus spoken, the little
gentleman did not by any means quit the field. Rather he stood his ground
before them like a brave freedom-fighter facing the firing squad, chest out,
polished shoes together, the dog-chew stowed neatly at his side, while the
three stalwart men stared incredulously at him, and the offended woman stared
at her husband. ‘Darling,’ she murmured. ‘Do something.’ Do what?
And what will I do if they do it?
The big men from Ricky were old athletes, it was plain. The crests on their
blazers exuded an heraldic lustre.
It was not hard to suppose they were sometime members of a policemen’s rugby
team. If they elected to beat the little gentleman to a pulp, what did one
innocent brown bystander do, apart from get himself beaten into an even worse
pulp, and arrested under the Anti-Terror laws into the bargain? In the
event, the men did nothing. Instead of beating him to a pulp and throwing
what was left of him into the street and me after him, they fell to examining
their brawny hands, and agreeing among themselves in loud asides that the
poor fellow was obviously in need of help. Deranged. Could be a danger to the
public. Or himself. Call an ambulance, someone. As to the
little gentleman, he returned to his table, laid a twenty-pound note on it
and with a dignified ‘I give you good-night, sir’ directed at the bay and
nothing at all at me, strode like a miniature colossus into the street,
leaving me to draw comparisons between a man who says, ‘Yes, dear, I
completely understand,’ and puts his coq
au yin into the waste disposal, and the man who braves the lions’ den
while I sit there pretending to read my Cromwell,
Our Chief of Men. Le Carre’s prose brings pleasure to most readers, and he
maintains he skills throughout The
Mission Song. The novel falls short with some implausible plot lines, and
the ways in which relationships don’t seem to make much sense. Less than
stellar le Carre is still better than most novels,
but my expectations fell short from the latest novel by this master. Steve Hopkins,
June 25, 2007 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the July 2007
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
Mission Song.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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