Snowdrops: SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2011

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 22nd February 2021.

Snowdrops. A.D. Miller.

This was a book on which it was very interesting to hear everyone’s views, and these views differed quite a lot. Some readers enjoyed it: “good easy fast paced read”; “very expertly written (amazingly so as it was apparently his first novel) as an exercise in noir”. Others thought it was “slow-moving and not a particularly interesting read”; “I thought if I got to the end something exciting or interesting might turn up. Unfortunately it disappointed,”; “took too long to build up and then lead to the conclusion”; and “did not find it very engrossing”. Everyone agreed that the descriptions of Moscow were very vivid, depicting it as bleak in the extreme – cold, violent, unfriendly and full of corruption, everything unremittingly grimy, squalid and depressing. One reader found her romantic concepts of Moscow entirely destroyed, and several people commented that they were entirely put off any idea of visiting the place.

As regards the characters, again, some found the them believable and convincing; others said they “couldn’t fully engage with it - definitely wanted to know what happened but not too concerned about the characters”. One reader thought the character of Nicholas was “insipid and not very interesting”.

Everyone did agree that Nicholas was naive, and/or fatalistic, possibly because he was wanting a life more exciting than that of his parents, and he went along with the property scam even though his common sense told him it would end badly. Likewise the romance with Masha, about which he suppressed his misgivings.

Other impressions of the book were that it portrayed “a world of illusion where no one does anything other than go along with it”. Was this the real Russia, they asked, or just our perception of it? Was the “local colour”, the big- and small-time crooks and gangsters and the over-glamorous women, a cliché, or is that really how things were?

The format of the narrative, which is put in the form of a confession by the author to his fiancee, was also criticised both ways. Some readers did not like this; others found it interesting. One thought that it boded ill for the narrator’s intended marriage. Another questioned why he would make such a confession – the affair with Masha was before his relationship with his fiancee, so there was no disloyalty in it, and the scam he was part of made him the victim, not any kind of perpetrator. Why would he bother telling her about all this? What would she have thought of it?

One reader commented that the book suffered from its lack of contrast – there was too much emphasis on the unpleasant aspects of life in Moscow at the time, the bribery, the corruption, the poor housing, the ghastly people, the unbearably cold and long winter and the general grittiness of everything. Some lighter elements could have been brought in to good effect. Another comment was that it would make a good film, being intensely visual in its descriptions.

A short book, both interesting and horrifying, easy to get through but an uncomfortable subject. The element of the book which was perhaps most commented on was the description of Moscow itself, and the author’s relationship with it. One reader thought this was what the novel was really about – the author’s nostalgia for Moscow, despite its hideous aspects. A D Miller was the Moscow correspondent for the Economist magazine for some years, and evidently these are his impressions of it.

This book was read during February 2021 and the continuing social distancing because of the Covid-19 virus, and so the discussion was not 'live' as usual, but took place via a Facebook group, email and telephone conversations.