30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good story for bibliophiles, August 22, 2011
This review is from: The Bathtub Spy (Kindle Single) (Kindle Edition)
I enjoyed this story. It did have some good moments. It is the story of a man who lives in Washington DC doing translation work who deals with an unbearable boss. Minor spoiler here but it turns out his boss actually loves literature. It took me all of about 15 minutes to read this so this is much shorter than most of the Kindle shorts I have read.
The story didn't move me as much as I would have liked for a literary work but it did have its moments. I liked how the author explained how our feelings for imaginary characters can be more important to us than real people. I loved how the main character's opinion of his boss changes after a bad book recommendation. I have felt the same way when it has happened to me. It was a good diversion for a few minutes but I don't think that I will be thinking of the story in a years time.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing without even a hint of intrigue, August 22, 2011
This review is from: The Bathtub Spy (Kindle Single) (Kindle Edition)
Sliced, diced and cubed - after spending most of his life abroad teaching English (Mexico, Peru, Japan, Saudi Arabia) Paul Tregwynt, 53, is back in the United States where he now inhabits a nondescript cube in a gray, windowless D.C.-area high-rise while working as a translator for a intelligence agency, a spook house, three Metro stops past the Pentagon.
After almost a lifetime as a foreigner in strange lands, he now feels more of an alien than he ever did overseas. He is surrounded by geeky nobs, members of the spy community who play cloak-and-dagger by giving false names when ordering out for pizza.
The spies in this romp of a story spend more time playing computer solitaire and cutting up with a Nerf ball than they do spying. There's a saying where he works that, "You can spot the extroverts here because they look at your shoes instead of theirs." Tregwynt wonders if the War on Terror is one waged between opposing sides of nitwits.
Tregwynt who is six feet, five inches long spends hours and hours of his free time scootched into a too-small bathtub thinking and reading but mostly reading short stories in French or more recently Russian novels foisted upon him by his super-geek team leader Wayne Mullenbach. For Tregwynt, the bathtub is as warm and soothing as a womb. Reading in the tub for him is transporting, "This is my real life. All the rest is fiction."
Books, especially obscure Russian novels, also are a big part of his bosses' life. Whether he reads them or simply has them around for display isn't really certain. The Russian novels give boss and translator an odd connection.
The boss brings in the books and hands them to the translator with a firm directive: read this book. Translator reads and returns the book to have it replaced with an equally obscure Russian text the following day in a repeating pattern that reminded me in a vague way of the same type off kilter office behavior in Melville's classic short story "Bartelby the Scrivener."
Tom Rachman's debut novel "The Imperfectionists" was a huge success and for me it struck a note of melancholy. "Bathtub Spy" has its share of comic rifts but like his novel the tone is more bleak than upbeat. It is in its own way wistful but with some laughs thrown in to round things out.
In a few pages Rachman develops strong characters in his two protagonists; their characterizations and oddball similarities are what give this Kindle short its kick. It's a story about spies without a hint of espionage. It's a story built around a lack of intrigue, and in a way that's what makes it so intriguing.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic read!!, August 22, 2011
This review is from: The Bathtub Spy (Kindle Single) (Kindle Edition)
Excellently captured the unglamorous working world of government employees. Sucked me in to the daily grind of frustrated intel-analysts sidelined by the incompetent people running the show. Loved the caricature of military commandos with their gruff mannerisms and hilarious lingo-laden speech. Tom's vivid story-telling allowed the opportunity to laugh about experiences that usually make me grimace. Highly recommend this single-- and not only for those who have ever worked in government!
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