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Rating: When does a passion or an ideal become a true obsession?
A difficult question to answer, as it conceals a complex tangle of problems and reflections that are very complicated to unravel. Moreover, if fanaticism is combined with anger towards a world that does not understand our ideas and thus always relegates us to a shadowy position, to what extent can we go to make our voice heard?
This time Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul tackle a thorny subject, difficult to extricate, and they do it with the straightforward and simple language of the adventure novel, an interpretative module that many consider perhaps too banal, not "high" enough compared to other examples offered by world literature past and present, but in the end, it has the great merit of reaching everyone, especially dreamers, those rare examples of individuals who still seek the sun behind the clouds, who, when their eyes glide over the pages of a book like the one I am presenting now, feel the scent of the ocean, the adrenaline of battle, or the sweetness of the kiss of a beautiful woman, different for each but for that moment alive as the air we breathe.
A romantic scene, certainly, old-fashioned, obsolete but for some, perhaps for few, a small corner of peace where in the eyes of men, ideals and feelings can still be glimpsed. The story's setting is Africa, and it opens with the usual historical preamble, specifically in 1896, where we find a group of men attempting to cross the Kalahari desert, pursued by members of the Herero tribe, from whom they have stolen a precious treasure, won with years of sacrifice and blood.
Once the excursion into the past is over, we are thrust directly onto the Congo River, where Juan Cabrillo's men are engaged in a delicate mission to locate the base of a group of rebels, led by Samuel Makambo, by staging a fake arms sale, within which bugs have been placed. The operation, which at first seemed to have gone well, suddenly deteriorates, and from then on the Oregon and its crew will be engaged in dealing with an unusual kidnapping, the recovery of a ship missing for over a century, and the threat of a dangerously eco-terrorist attack.
As you might have guessed, the story's protagonists are once again the members of the Corporation, a paramilitary organization that, although working outside the U.S. government, helps the latter (and those who can afford to hire it) in dangerous and high-risk missions. Neither in this situation do Cussler and Du Brul hold back regarding action and adventure, constructing a complex web of plots and subplots that keep the reader literally glued to the pages, especially when Cabrillo finds himself alone in the desert and decides, instead of waiting for help from the Oregon, to move by paraski (to see what it is, read the book!).
Despite this, the work in question also hides another soul, the one I alluded to at the beginning, that is, it aims, besides entertaining, also to make you think, without pathos or unnecessary rhetoric, but simply showcasing an extreme and paradoxical situation that stems, however, from a fundamentally good and shareable ideal, that is, environmental protection. Another leitmotif of the entire novel is anger and envy, dangerous and insidious feelings like a snake that slithers stealthily in the night ready to attack the prey and devour it, in fact, they sneakily make their way, gradually poisoning the mind, distorting reality and eventually leaving their victim empty, lost, and engaged in useless wars against those who, almost always, have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Certainly, there is also positive anger, the one that pushes you to get back up every time you fall and fight, never giving up, but this is not what the two authors want to talk about; instead, they shift the focus to the dark side of man and his pain towards the world, all, however, seasoned with that lightness and optimism that makes a good adventure novel that kind of mirror in which the reader can see a different reality, where the good eventually prevail, friends are honest, and dreams do not seem all that unattainable.
Now I would like to close this (perhaps last) review of mine with a phrase spoken by Captain Cabrillo on page 465 of this novel: "To achieve changes, you need to offer alternatives, not ultimatums". These words struck me, I’m not quite sure why, but they did, and I decided to share them with you (who may never read "Skeleton Coast"), without any specific purpose, just because I felt like doing it; take it as the silly whim of a dilettante dabbler who enjoys reading and listening to music solely for the purpose of continuing to dream.
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