Miller is a journalist working at The Economist newspaper and spent many years reporting from Russia. This experience inspired him to write Snowdrops, a book set in the early years of Putin’s presidency, as the oil tycoons continued to accrue the ‘benefits’ of Russia’s new found capitalist zeal and the people of Russia grew accustomed to rule by the oligarchs. The book itself is about a British lawyer, an expatriate living in Moscow who falls, against his better judgement, for a con artist called Masha.
The ‘Snowdrops’ alluded to in the title of the book are not the winter flowering plant, but the bodies of people who died in the early Russian winter and whose bodies are quickly covered in snow – only to emerge in the spring. The message is clear – scratch the surface of modern Russia, and you will only find the morbid below.
Nick, the lawyer, is engaged in the business of drawing up business contracts, a murky world to say the least; indeed he describes it as ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. He has a fairly high opinion of his ability to navigate the Russian way of living; proud of his ability to spot cons, avoid entrapment and to keep his soul relatively clean. The problem with him is that he is too clever by half, so sure of his ability to spot a con that he doesn’t take sufficient precaution in case he is mistaken – and it is this that causes him all the problems in the book.
The story has two parallel narratives that never really cross: a business deal with a mysterious and nefarious man known as ‘The Cossack’, and his involvement with the gorgeous and enigmatic Masha. The narrative device is a sort of confessional: a letter from Nick to his unnamed fiancée. The plot is entirely predictable – both the deal and the relationship are destined to end in failure and ruin, a fact never hidden by Nick. Yet it is the very predictability of the plot that gives it power. The book reads like a crash in slow motion: we know how it will end, and deep down probably so does Nick, be he and we are powerless to prevent it.
The characters in the book are a little caricatured. Masha is the stereotypical Russian temptress, familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Bond film. Nick is the gullible business man. The Cossack and other officials are also instantly familiar and they all perhaps lack a nuance that one would expect from a Booker shortlisted book.
The book is, however, successful in two key ways. The first is in the picture it paints of Moscow. Miller shows a vision of the Russia capital that is both “attractive and appalling”, a fact that he clearly believes that can be extrapolated to describe the country itself. His descriptions, though occasionally a little flowery, are very effective in drawing you into a world of corruption and murky dealing.
The second is in the narrator himself. As I said earlier, the device is as a sort of ‘Confessional’ but it is clear that though Nick starts off regretful, it turns out that he has become rather wistful. He recognises the evils of Russian officialdom, but he misses it: as a prisoner may miss his captor. Trapped in boring old Blighty, he misses the exciting and dangerous Russian way of life that he escaped. Yes he got conned, lost his reputation, his money and a portion of his soul, but what a ride!
7/10
Favourite Quotes
“I could tell that one of the Russian proverbs he loved was on the way. 'The only place with free cheese is a mousetrap'”
“That's what I learned when my last Russian winter thawed. The lesson wasn't about Russia. It never is, I don't think, when a relationship ends. It isn't your lover that you learn about. You learn about yourself.”
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