Book Reviews

Amazonia Revisted

Andrew Pyper (Author)
The Trade Mission. Harper Flamingo
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Reviewed by Gordon Fisher

In 1848, two British naturalists, Alfred Wallace and Henry Bates, arrived in Brazil to study the central Amazon River area. In 1850, they split up. Two years later, Wallace returned to England. Bates stayed on the Amazon for eleven years. Bates and Wallace both made significant contributions to the development of the theory of evolution.

In Andrew Pyper’s The Trade Mission, two brilliant young computer geeks, Marcus Wallace and Jonathon Bates, travel to the Amazon region for a few days of sightseeing as a break from a Canadian government-sponsored trade mission to Brazil. In Sao Paulo, Wallace and Bates are selling Hypothesys, variously described as “a universal human mind,” “an electronic Everyman. Or Everywoman,” and “a compendium of contemporary ethics.” Upriver from the city of Manaus, Wallace and Bates get into deep trouble. They (and their companions) are kidnapped and tortured by pirates; they escape, encounter friendly (or at least, not hostile) natives, and eventually split up. One is saved.

The obvious question that arises is “What is the connection between the earlier and later Wallace and Bates?” Unfortunately, the answer isn’t easy to find. At the simplest level, The Trade Mission appears to be a thriller, but it’s not all that thrilling. While there are life-and-death situations to deal with, the unknown threats are (as always) fearsome, the heat oppressive, and the tropical rain thunderous, they are all described in a way that suggests a touch of verbal dysentery—not an unusual experience in the florid environment of Amazonia.

Perhaps Hypothesys is meant to represent a grand new advance in our understanding of human nature, and therefore, our understanding of human evolution. The characters in the novel are faced with serious moral dilemmas, but it’s not clear how Hypothesys would help them make decisions, or explain or illuminate those decisions.

Wallace and Bates are portrayed as wunderkind; they attract attention in the way that young entrepreneurs attracted attention during the recent dot.com boom. But their intrinsic interest—even as they make life-and-death decisions in their escape from the kidnappers—is as shallow as the boom that preceded the dot.com bust. The narrator turns out to be a woman— lizabeth Crossman, the interpreter for Wallace and Bates. How significant is the name? Does she provide penetrating insights into the character of Wallace and Bates? No.

One clever touch that does work is Bates’s frequent use of a Palmcorder to record events going on around him. Like all the electronic devices promoted to “capture” real life as it happens, it distances the observer and reduces the experience of real-life to the passive watching of a tiny electronic screen.

In The Trade Mission, Pyper follows the pattern of his earlier novel, Lost Girls. Both novels begin with a prologue featuring unidentified characters. Uncertainty and mystery permeate each novel. In both novels, characters are distant, alienated, and generally at odds with the world around them. In the end, the anonymity and uncertainty seem unnecessarily coy, and the alienation spreads to the reader.

Is it basically a psychological thriller with an “illustrious” hook? Or a subtle commentary on the evolution of individuals and/or society since the time of Darwin, Bates, and Wallace? Whatever the authorial aspirations, the end result is not quite satisfying on any level.

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This review originally appeared in Canadian Literature #182 (Autumn 2004), Kevin Kerr. (pg. 165 - 166)

***Please note that the articles and reviews from the Canadian Literature website (www.canlit.ca) may not be the final versions as they are printed in the journal, as additional editing sometimes takes place between the two versions. If you are quoting from the website, please indicate the date accessed when citing the web version of reviews and articles.