Snowdrops by A D Miller

[Fran]

Unfolding over the course of a Moscow winter Snowdrops takes its title from the Russian expression for a dead body hidden by the winter snows and only appearing with the spring thaw. The book is set in the post communism era in a Russia where absolutely everything is for sale, including people, and where corruption and vulgarity are rampant and nobody and nothing is to be trused. I found his depictions of the seedier side of Moscow nightlife & those who inhabit it (natives & foreigners) both bleak & sad. The central character and narrator is unbelievably naive, shallow and downright stupid IMO and his efforts to excuse his actions spineless & pathetic ... but then maybe I'm the naive one maybe men really are led to utter stupidity by one organ of their anatomy!

The stereotypes of Russian gangsters, drunken taxi drivers, rude babushkas & almost naked prostitutes & absolutely everybody on the make all of the time became somewhat tiresome and excessive but he does get a few laughs in occasionally especially at the expense of the taxi drivers!

The book reminded me somewhat of Heart of Darkness in the sense of a fairly ordinary man out of his depth, in moral decay & corrupted by easy debauchery & lack of familiar social constraints.

It's a short book and zips along at a brisk pace and I quite liked his style of writing. I do not expect it to make the shortlist but then I've been wrong before.

[Gannon]

Howdy there Fran. Your review just makes me interested enough to add it to my TBR list. Interesting to see if it makes the short list.

[Fran]

Howdy there Fran. Your review just makes me interested enough to add it to my TBR list. Interesting to see if it makes the short list.

I'll look forward to your opinion Gannon ... a male perspective could be interesting!

[apeman]

A.D. Miller,
Snowdrops

The title comes from Moscow slang for a corpse that lies buried under the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw. In this narrative of an expat lawyer’s experiences of corruption, bribery and cynical murder in post-communist Russia, ‘Snowdrops’ is the perfect metaphor haunting the pages of a disturbing novel.

Nicholas Platt, an English company lawyer, is a hardnosed observer of the inner workings of power in a morally bereft and economically declining state. He, almost knowingly, makes two bad mistakes early on: he tends to believe what people tell him and he falls in love with a girl who promises much but delivers only what all pretty Russian girls are apparently schooled to give. ‘What am I doing here in this crazy country in my turquoise shirt? I’m thirty-eight, I’m from Luton.’ His cynicism deepens as he becomes involved with a cartel that mysteriously vanishes once he has put his company’s imprimatur on their false documents. Anything and anybody, he discovers, can be bought and sold, used and disposed of. ‘In my experience,’ Nicholas tells us – or rather, his fiancée to whom the whole confession is addressed – ‘you could roughly gauge the level of depravity in a Slavic city by the time it took, after you arrived, for someone to offer you women.’ Despite his hard-bitten exterior, Nicholas is essentially a benevolent innocent in a corrupt and corrupting world.

The prose of Snowdrops is bare and factual, the narrator’s tone spare and Chandleresque. His cynicism is expressed mainly in hyperbole and extravagant metaphor: Old-fashioned felt boots are issued to the traffic police as ‘an ancient Russian precaution that kept their feet from falling off while they hung around extorting bribes from people.’ It’s a tough hard-drinking world that takes no prisoners. After all, this is Russia where individual needs and human rights are traditionally mere matter for sad jokes. Apart from the police, perhaps the notaries are the most bribeable profession: ‘They are essentially pointless functionaries left over from tsarism, whose job it is to issue and stamp the legal documents that you need to do almost anything in Russia.’

This is a gripping and intriguing novel. It may not give the most balanced picture of contemporary Russia, but while reading it I found this story of an almost innocent abroad totally convincing.