Customer Reviews

Spies

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In a marked departure from his previous humorous novel, Headlong, Frayn delivers a wonderful look at the complicated world of a child. During his own childhood (the early years of World War II), Frayn's best friend makes the statement to him, "My mother is a German spy." In writing this novel, Frayn takes this true event and plays the "what if" game. The two friends know that this is just a game, just a means of passing a summer afternoon, but what if they spy on her and start to see actions that might indicate that she truly is a spy? It's a wonderful look at how perplexing the adult world can be to a child, and how wrong our impressions -- either as a child or as an adult -- can be when we don't explore the full picture. Frayn throws a clever curveball at the very end of the book, one which could have been predicted by the careful reader. It's unfortunate that this book has come out at the same time that Ian McEwan's book, Atonement, was issued, since they are somewhat similar in theme (the wide ramifications of a child's actions during World War II), and it may ultimately get lost in the literary shuffle. That's a shame, for reading it on its own is a terrific way to spend a weekend.

Looking back on events of his childhood from the wisdom of old age, Stephen Wheatley recounts important events from his childhood. Frayn tells a story of 2 boys inventing a world around them, with the second world war unfolding around them, unsurprisingly they are obsessed with the idea of spies in their midst. Their increasing obsession with their game, leads them to some unexpected discoveries.

This book is full of acute observations of youth. Outlandish games, the fickleness of children towards each other, the towering and unquestionable domination of adults over their lives.

I enjoy stories where the innocence and naievity of youth is retold through knowing adult eyes and this book was no exception. Its part mystery, part rites of passage. Well written and incredibly evocative of childhood and days gone by.

I was compelled to read this story by a recommendation from an Amazon reader, but couldn't put it down from the first page. I have often associated certain earthy smells with my childhood and neighborhood. That Stephen Wheatley felt this strong urge as an old man to retrieve memories by returning to the Close, especially given the events that took place there, was a terrific and realistic conscept in which to form the basis for a story by Frayn, and he pulls it off with style. I can think of no other author who can describe the relationships of a timid and unpopular big-eared 12 year old boy. Stephen was the follower of Keith, who was the idea man, which led them into a scheme that went from childish play to true adult horror. Keith knew that his mother had a secret and recruited Stephen to help him discover what it was. But I believe that Keith was subtley calling for help, and fearing his father, he drafted his only friend. To be sure, the vision of a wounded German pilot hiding and receiving aid produced fear and anxiety in Stephen, his loyalty to Keith and his later sense of empathy for Keith's mother, caused him to have a keep heavy secret that traumatised his very soul. What are we to make of this? There is a war, there are children, and they are affected in ways adults cannot know. Sixty years later we know that childhood trauma can result in a host of lifelong conflicts within a human's mind.
That the affairs were part war related and very related to matters of the heart, yet tragic to several families, does not diminish the suspense because nothing is really revealed until the end. I applaud Michael Frayn for his excellent work and look forward to reading his other works.

Michael Frayn's "Spies", the 2002 Whitbread Prize winner, is a quintessentially English novel that recalls L P Hartley's classic "The Go Between". Both novels begin with an old man indulging in the queasily pleasurable habit of visiting the past when as a young boy he was innocent of the tragedy his childish detective games would set in motion for the adults and end with a stark recognition that resonates with an indescribable pain we feel for the ruined lives they have caused. The rush of familiar smells and the recollection of other childish secrets like a misspelled password trigger off a flood of memories for the adult Stephen Wheatley. These in turn become the catalyst for unravelling the secrets that underlie the mystery that consumed the boy Stephen and his playmate Keith one fateful summer.

Frayn flits skilfully between past to present but when we enter the world of the boy Stephen, we become child observers too. We don't have a head start in our understanding of what is happening among the adults because our senses are his. Even Keith's mother - like all mothers - doesn't have a name. The suspicious routines that preoccupy Keith's mother - her constant shuttling between home and her sister's or the post office, and her mysterious disappearance from sight every time she turns the corner - is shrouded in a mystery that deepens with vague hints of cruelty and abuse that only the adult Stephen is able to discern. Indeed, the relationship between Stephen and Keith is hardly a friendship, more an emblem of their class differences, which allow the middle class Keith to play leader to the socially inferior Stephen. In the same way, Keith's parents exude a distance and coolness that is slightly unnerving.

Frayn's characterisation is flawless. His characters are all vividly drawn personalities that leap out of the pages at you. Stephen's torment and debilitating lack of confidence as a socially underprivileged child is especially resonant and a masterpiece of characterisation. Then there's Keith's mother. Her icy elegance and well groomed exterior conceals the desperate and terrible turmoil beneath it. Keith's father, constantly at work in his home garage, is a lurking and quietly menacing presence. Then there's Keith. His haughty silence and his cruel smirk, duplicating his father's, is a precursor for when he draws blood. Finally, there's Barbara. Her precocious spitefulness makes her every pre-teen boy's nightmare big sister.

"Spies" is a delicious psychologically thriller that fans of the English novel will delight in. It is beautifully written and a real page turner. You will find your pulse racing as the story approaches its climax. But Frayn eschews an explicit revelation, so you might have to read the last chapter carefully (if not twice) to get it. Sadly though, he decides to wrap with a contrived shock revelation about Stephen's own family history that is unnecessary and brings the story to an end on a false note. "Spies" is otherwise an excellent and ingeniously crafted little novel that deserves to be read and enjoyed widely. I'm glad it won the Whitbread.

Remember the stereotypical figure of a spy in his overcoat silhouetted against the night sky? The figure was pretentious, intriguing, and alluring in some romantic fashion. Michael Frayn's "Spies" is much the same.

Frayn's narrator is Stephen Wheatley, a boy living in England during WWII. He and his friend Keith begin keeping tabs on Keith's mother, believing she is a German spy. What starts out as an innocent game leads to discoveries about life, love, and betrayal. The tragedies of war are funneled through this story into the damaging affects of family secrets. Stephen and Keith, our young spies, will never be the same. With finesse, Frayn leads us through the foggy tunnels of a British neighborhood and the foggier tunnels of his narrator's mind. Stephen is a complex and well-drawn creation. Symbolism plays a pleasing and unifying part.

"Spies" does so many things efficiently that it's easy to overlook its faults. Perhaps my greatest hindrance in plodding through the first 150 pages was the conspicious brevity of dialogue. Too bad. When the characters spoke, I found myself actually involved in their story. We spend so much time in Stephen's head that I found it hard to know or care deeply for any of the periphery characters. Stephen is so self-absorbed with his own insecurities and logic that he gives us little time to know others around him. Sure, that may be his personality, but I found it distracting. Who, reading this book, wouldn't like to know more about Keith or Barbara or Keith's mother or...? Well, I don't want to give anything away.

Having scanned reviews before reading the book, I expected to dislike the ending much more than I did. Actually, I felt the slow unveiling of the truth was well-paced and surprising without being forced. The final chapter was, indeed, a flightly sketch of Stephen's entire life. Although I wanted to know more, by that time I was so tired of being in his head that I was simply ready to turn the final page.

Overall, I enjoyed the elements of story, plot, and setting. If you're ready for a jump back into childhood days of imagination, then take the time to know young Stephen Wheatley. You'll be spending a lot of time with him.

First of all: Frayn is a good writer. Best known as a playwright, this is not a play trying to be a novel-- there is dialogue, yes, but also lots of description and atmosphere. I applaud him for knowing which medium this story demanded, and for his versatility and skills.

The six immortal words that change Stephen's life are his best friend Keith's "My mother is a German spy."

Of course, any adult reader doubts that right away, but Keith is so odd and creepy that as he and Stephen (the narrator) set to trailing his mother there is an awful sense of tension and looming tragedy.

It's impossible not to think of L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, if you've read it-- in that book likewise a man remembers being a child engaging in a mystery that was not what it seems. That book really does amount to heartbreak and inevitable tragedy. Partly that's because the adult reader understands what is going on better than the narrator.

In Frayn's novel, the older narrator has barely more insight than he did as a child-- and there's an irritating sense that things are being deliberately held back from the reader. The revelations, when we finally get to them, are not satisfying enough for me.

As a portrait of tension, suspicion and wartime paranoia, along with the awkwardness of adolescent friendships and loyalties, Frayn succeeds. But as a mystery, it's frustrating...the tension is both too much and not enough. The reader knows that whatever theory the boys come up with is wrong, and it takes too long to see that there is a mystery at all... so it never grabbed me with its urgency.

If you read it for the mood and not for the story, it is well written and worthwhile... for me it never really gelled.

Frayn took a simplistic wartime storyline and made it unfold for the reader like a film. The characterization comes alive with the needling of going through the visage between childhood and adulthood, and innocence and wisdom. There's a yearning at the core of the story with an ending as if it were a short story, with a meaningful return to present reflections. It is a pretty good read!

Michael Frayn's "Spies" recounts a childhood incident of a boy named Stephen Weatley who narrates the story through the perspective of a now grown man. Stephen pieces the story together using nostalgic smells and sounds as a memory trigger. When Stephen's friend Keith announces that his mother is a German Spy, the boys embark on a childish game of espionage as they try to solve the enigma of Keith's mother's actions. The boys' innocence and childish mentality are exploited as they delve into issues of friendship and morality. Frayn demonstrates his skillful ability to manipulate the plot to keep the reader in anticipation, and to keep the boys in the dark long enough to keep your attention up for clues. When Stephen finally discovers the answer to the puzzle the "world had changed forever." Frayn develops Stephen's persona, mixed up in the ongoing wartime in Britain, through a complex process of metacognition that rings of Joycian style.

See also my review of Frayn's Headlong: A Novel.

This is a delicious little novel about the abiguities of memory and sentiment. The story centers on the recalled events of the main character's childhood during World War II in England. The character, Stephen Wheatley, is about 10 or 11 years old and definitely a square peg. Stephen's apparently only friend confides that his mother must be a German spy and the two boys begin an adventure of "spying" on her that leads them where they never dreamed. Frayn's pacing is deliberate and precise, and each new revelation in the adventure raises more questions than answers. The novel, however, is mostly about Stephen's growing up, learning about himself, what he is capable of, and what it means to live in the world of adults. It traces a path that many children go through at that age, and I found I had a lot of sympathy for Stephen. An excellent story.

As a boy in wartime London, Stephen Wheatley is a target for bullies. His only friend is Keith, a neighbor boy with a seemingly perfect life. Keith is the leader whose imagination leads them on a series of games. When Keith says that his mother is a German spy, the borders between imagination and reality become blurred. The boys begin to spy on her and find that she does indeed have mysterious comings and goings. Years later, the harshly seductive scent of blooming privet takes Wheatley back to that time, to evaluate his boyhood actions and their consequences. Spies is a quiet book that builds to a suspenseful climax. As an old man, Wheatley reflects on that time and notes, "What we did to each other in those few years of madness! What we did to ourselves!" I finished the book before looking at the reviews, and must admit, I found the final pages to be a less than satisfying end to a thoughtful novel. But the mood of the story and the scent of privet are what remain for me now that the reading is done.