The Parsifal Mosaic
Encyclopedia
The Parsifal Mosaic is a spy fiction
novel
by Robert Ludlum
in 1982.
. Jenna had been marked for execution because she had been proved to be a KGB
double agent.
He immediately leaves the intelligence world, something he had been considering doing for some time and goes sightseeing in areas he had previously visited. In Athens
, Pyotr Rostov, a senior director of the KGB
forces a meeting with Havelock. Rostov denies that Karas is an agent of theirs. Later, in Rome
, Havelock sees Jenna alive at a train station. She flees him, frightened, and he pursues her.
He makes contact with a former source at the US Consulate called Colonel Baylor, and begins his search for Jenna throughout several countries. Meanwhile, strategists for Consular Operations in the US government decide that he is a paranoid
schizophrenic and must be terminated, lest he compromise entire networks across Europe. All the evidence available to them indicates that Karas was a double agent, and was successfully terminated on the Costa Brava. So one of them, "Red" Ogivile sets up an ambush on the Palatine hill in Rome with the intention of taking Michael in. However, the two mercinares he hired are taken out by Michael, the gas grenade he uses only affects him when michael lashes out, and after being convinced of Havelock's innocence, he ends up taking an accidental bullet from Colonel Baylor who was sent to kill Havelock.
Back in the United States, however, the US government has a problem of its own: Anton Matthias, Secretary of State
, acknowledged by the entire world as a genius and trusted with powers far beyond those his office allow him, has gone completely insane. Before anybody realized that he was insane, he negotiated treaties with parties he believed to be representing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
and the People's Republic of China
, each agreeing to a nuclear strike
against the third party, but in fact with a man who identified himself as Parsifal
. Parsifal demands a huge ransom to keep the documents from being released, thereby triggering a nuclear war. Once the ransom is paid, however, he does not touch it, having confirmed how desperate Washington is. Havelock, who as a child had been one of the few survivors of the massacre at Lidice
, has a special bond with Matthias, a fellow Czech
who had advised him in graduate school. Somehow Matthias's insanity is linked to the order to terminate Jenna Karas.
For her part, Karas has been told that Michael is a Russian spy and that he is trying to kill her. Consequently, she is not especially eager to meet him.
When Michael finally traces Jenna to an isolated farm in Pennsylvania
, they realize that they were both deceived and that each had been told that the other was an enemy. They then work together with the President
of the United States, Charles Berquist, and several trusted advisors to find Parsifal and stop him.
They are opposed by Arthur Pierce, a brilliant and murderous Soviet mole highly placed in the State Department. Pierce has ordered the murders of the strategists of Consular Operations ( two of them are crushed by a bulldozer in their car and driven off a cliff and another is shot), and then a string of successive killings - all in his own quest to gain evidence of Matthias's insanity. Pierce is working not for the regular KGB, but the VKR (Voennaya Kontra Razvedka), a fanatical branch of Russian intelligence identified as an offshoot of the OGPU. He is also, for that matter, a paminyatchik - an agent under deep cover, who has lived in the United States since infancy. For much of the novel, Pierce's true loyalties lie undiscovered. One of Havelock's allies, Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford, realizes that Pierce works for the VKR, but he is murdered by the ever-alert Pierce before he can warn anyone else. Pierce also solicits the murder of Rostov, who loathes the VKR and has tried to help Havelock.
When Michael finally finds Parsifal, a friend of Anton and a Paminyatchik who is less fanatical than Arthur Pierce, he finds out that the documents were not produced to provoke nuclear war, but rather to demonstrate that no one man could be trusted with vast amounts of power. Pierce, however, has had his operatives murder Michael's bodyguards and breaks into Parsifal's house just as he agree's to burn the documents. However hearing that Rostov has been mudured, Prarsifal decides to sacrifice himself by using his body to block Pierce's gun allowing him and Jenna time to get out. Michael and Jenna then kill Pierce's operatives by stabbing them and Michael then flanks Pierce and guns him down. They conclude that the documentary evidence of Matthias's insanity is best destroyed. Havelock tells Berquist of this; he is informed, in turn, that Matthias has just died . Finally safe, he and Jenna move to New England, where Havelock accepts an academic position.
has been attached by Universal to direct the film adaption of the Parsifal Mosaic, according to Variety.
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum was an American author of 23 thriller novels. The number of his books in print is estimated between 290–500 million copies. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.-Life and...
in 1982.
Plot summary
Michael Havelock, (an anglicized version of Mikhail Havlíček), is an intelligence officer working for the US State Departments black operation division "Consular Ops". At the beginning of the novel he believes he has just witnessed the execution of his partner and the love of his life, Jenna Karas (anglicized version of Jenna Karasova) along an isolated stretch of the Costa BravaCosta Brava
The Costa Brava is a coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, Spain, in the comarques of Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà and Selva, in the province of Girona. Costa is the Catalan and Spanish word for 'coast', and Brava means 'rugged' or 'wild'...
. Jenna had been marked for execution because she had been proved to be a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
double agent.
He immediately leaves the intelligence world, something he had been considering doing for some time and goes sightseeing in areas he had previously visited. In Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Pyotr Rostov, a senior director of the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
forces a meeting with Havelock. Rostov denies that Karas is an agent of theirs. Later, in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Havelock sees Jenna alive at a train station. She flees him, frightened, and he pursues her.
He makes contact with a former source at the US Consulate called Colonel Baylor, and begins his search for Jenna throughout several countries. Meanwhile, strategists for Consular Operations in the US government decide that he is a paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
schizophrenic and must be terminated, lest he compromise entire networks across Europe. All the evidence available to them indicates that Karas was a double agent, and was successfully terminated on the Costa Brava. So one of them, "Red" Ogivile sets up an ambush on the Palatine hill in Rome with the intention of taking Michael in. However, the two mercinares he hired are taken out by Michael, the gas grenade he uses only affects him when michael lashes out, and after being convinced of Havelock's innocence, he ends up taking an accidental bullet from Colonel Baylor who was sent to kill Havelock.
Back in the United States, however, the US government has a problem of its own: Anton Matthias, Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
, acknowledged by the entire world as a genius and trusted with powers far beyond those his office allow him, has gone completely insane. Before anybody realized that he was insane, he negotiated treaties with parties he believed to be representing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, each agreeing to a nuclear strike
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
against the third party, but in fact with a man who identified himself as Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
. Parsifal demands a huge ransom to keep the documents from being released, thereby triggering a nuclear war. Once the ransom is paid, however, he does not touch it, having confirmed how desperate Washington is. Havelock, who as a child had been one of the few survivors of the massacre at Lidice
Lidice
Lidice is a village in the Czech Republic just northwest of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which, as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was on orders from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal...
, has a special bond with Matthias, a fellow Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
who had advised him in graduate school. Somehow Matthias's insanity is linked to the order to terminate Jenna Karas.
For her part, Karas has been told that Michael is a Russian spy and that he is trying to kill her. Consequently, she is not especially eager to meet him.
When Michael finally traces Jenna to an isolated farm in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, they realize that they were both deceived and that each had been told that the other was an enemy. They then work together with the President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the United States, Charles Berquist, and several trusted advisors to find Parsifal and stop him.
They are opposed by Arthur Pierce, a brilliant and murderous Soviet mole highly placed in the State Department. Pierce has ordered the murders of the strategists of Consular Operations ( two of them are crushed by a bulldozer in their car and driven off a cliff and another is shot), and then a string of successive killings - all in his own quest to gain evidence of Matthias's insanity. Pierce is working not for the regular KGB, but the VKR (Voennaya Kontra Razvedka), a fanatical branch of Russian intelligence identified as an offshoot of the OGPU. He is also, for that matter, a paminyatchik - an agent under deep cover, who has lived in the United States since infancy. For much of the novel, Pierce's true loyalties lie undiscovered. One of Havelock's allies, Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford, realizes that Pierce works for the VKR, but he is murdered by the ever-alert Pierce before he can warn anyone else. Pierce also solicits the murder of Rostov, who loathes the VKR and has tried to help Havelock.
When Michael finally finds Parsifal, a friend of Anton and a Paminyatchik who is less fanatical than Arthur Pierce, he finds out that the documents were not produced to provoke nuclear war, but rather to demonstrate that no one man could be trusted with vast amounts of power. Pierce, however, has had his operatives murder Michael's bodyguards and breaks into Parsifal's house just as he agree's to burn the documents. However hearing that Rostov has been mudured, Prarsifal decides to sacrifice himself by using his body to block Pierce's gun allowing him and Jenna time to get out. Michael and Jenna then kill Pierce's operatives by stabbing them and Michael then flanks Pierce and guns him down. They conclude that the documentary evidence of Matthias's insanity is best destroyed. Havelock tells Berquist of this; he is informed, in turn, that Matthias has just died . Finally safe, he and Jenna move to New England, where Havelock accepts an academic position.
Characters in "The Parsifal Mosaic"
- Michael Havelock (b. Mikhail Havlicek), an exhausted and embittered veteran operative of Consular Operations. Born in interwar CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Havlicek witnessed the murder of his entire village of LidiceLidiceLidice is a village in the Czech Republic just northwest of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which, as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was on orders from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal...
by the Nazis. His father survived the war, only to disappear at the hands of the Soviets in 1948. Brought over to the United States, he proved an invaluable operative for US intelligence.
- Jenna Karas (b. Jenna Karasova), Havelock's faithful partner and lover, and a capable agent in her own right. Her apparent death on the Costa Brava sets Havelock off; the revelation that she is still alive causes him to go rogue.
- Anthony Matthias (b. Anton Matthias), the brilliant, beloved American Secretary of State. Matthias has a close bond to Havelock, who was once his graduate student. The strain of his exalted status, as well as his own ego, drive Matthias over the edge.
- Pyotr Rostov, the KGB's Director of External Strategies. Rostov is a dedicated director of the KGB, but despises the fanatical VKR. He first seeks to investigate Havelock's departure from Consular Operations and then offers him the opportunity to defect.
- Emory Bradford, a controversial but brilliant Undersecretary of State. Bradford, once a renowned hawk in the Kennedy and Johnson years, became a convinced dove once he realized the damage caused by Vietnam. When the President was faced with Parsifal's demands, he turned to Bradford as an invaluable counsellor.
- President Charles Berquist. Berquist, who hails from rural MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
is a deeply intelligent man, but nonetheless is caught off guard by Matthias's actions and the presence of a mole in the State Department.
- Arthur Pierce (b. Nikolai Petrovich Malyekov), the highest ranking paminyatchik in the State Department. Utterly fanatical and utterly ruthless, Pierce has an outwardly impeccable record, including valiant service in Vietnam. He is dead set on obtaining Parsifal's evidence and using it to bring America to its knees. His strategic cunning and the assistance of fellow paminyatchiki make him one of Ludlum's most fearsome villains.
- Parsifal, a mysterious figure who has somehow collaborated with Anton Matthias to bring the world to the edge of catastrophe.
Major themes
- The Parsifal Mosaic is the one Ludlum novel focused entirely upon the Cold WarCold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, and upon the possibility of nuclear warNuclear warfareNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. Other novels such as The Matarese CircleThe Matarese Circle-Story:US Intelligence agent Brandon Scofield and Soviet KGB agent Vasili Taleniekov make their way through the obstacles and ravages of a cabal known as the Matarese. They find out that the Matarese has infiltrated the highest ranks of the society...
and The Aquitaine ProgressionThe Aquitaine Progression-Plot summary:Joel Converse is a lawyer, having previously been a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. Because of his wartime experiences with Command Saigon, in the form of a psychopathic general named "Mad" Marcus Delavane, he is chosen to thwart a cabal of former generals bent on world...
use the Cold War as a backdrop, but do not focus on it to the same degree.
- Anton Matthias, the much revered Secretary of State, bears some resemblance to Henry KissingerHenry KissingerHeinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
. Both men are immigrants to the United States, and both have an advanced academic background. While Kissinger was not nearly this revered, he did accumulate great amounts of unchecked power. Like Parsifal, Ludlum was deeply fearful of the concentration of power.
- The Parsifal Mosaic conveys Ludlum's general loathing of fanaticism. Havelock's life journey is haunted by the actions of fanatics, from the village of Lidice, to the Costa Brava. The novel frequently reminds us of this early part of his life: while searching for Jenna he encounters first an escaped Nazi war criminal, and then a man who has constructed a concentration camp in rural Pennsylvania. As he dispatches Arthur Pierce, Havelock remarks that it was people like him who forced him to live in the forest.
Movie Rumors
Ron HowardRon Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
has been attached by Universal to direct the film adaption of the Parsifal Mosaic, according to Variety.