Spies - Michael Frayn

Close to the neighbourhood where Stephen Wheatley grew up is a place called Paradise. It's no accident that Michael Frayn, the author of Stephen's story, chose that particular name. His novel 'Spies' is set in an almost surreally self-contained community, neither town nor country, a mini-suburbia bounded by railway lines, allotments and rural dereliction. Within this setting, secrets are uncovered. Innocence is tarnished. Paradise is lost. Michael ...
...or so plays, and several translations of Chekhov. But Spies, published last year (2002) is the first of his books that I have read. It won the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award and was also nominated for the Booker Prize. It's a shortish story (272 pages in paperback) told from the point of view of Stephen Wheatley. In his early 70s, he revisits the place he grew up in wartime England, trying to make sense of the disturbing events that changed his life. ...

Silverback 01.04.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Spies - Michael Frayn

I first read this book at the end of last year, and thrououghly enjoyed it. A bildungsroman from the perspective of Stephen Wheatley as both a ten year old boy and as an old man. The book provides an insight to what a child sees and how the child thinks, especially in a time of war. The adventures that lead to more than Setphen and Keith had wished for were only started as fun... but the mystery of Uncle Peter is unwrapped as a tunnel becomes an ...
...^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Through following the dual narative, the reader picks up the thoughts and feelings of Stephen Weatley more and more as the book goes on. We are able to understand the childs thoughts and feelings, however naive, but we can also understand the old man's thoughts when he adds to and questions his childhood memories. leaving us with an almost full understanding of Stephens past Class ^^^^^^^ With Frayn touching on every aspect of ...

chris213west 15.07.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Spies - Michael Frayn

...think maybe this is why Spies is rather successful, the books realism, depth and at times understanding is somewhat pleasurable. AUTHOR Frayn started off writing for the Guardian and later, the Observer, publishing plays and novels. What year I am unsure, however I know a few of his novels which include Tin Man (1965), The Russian Interpreter (1966), Alanding on the sun (1991). So as you can Frayn has been writing for a great number of years. Frayn ...
...truth. THE NOVEL Spies is not a novel for those who enjoy a happy ending as such, Frayn remains still to this day haunted by his heretage and his childhood, Spies is a novel that condenses into a few hundred pages a mans childhood story and experience of death, defiance and the start of understanding the hidden truths of Who he really is? At times the modern novel is not an easy read, not for the faint hearted as other reviews have pointed out, ...

jpearson772 05.08.2006 (03.11.2008) · Read full review
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Review of Spies - Michael Frayn

In the enclosed world of Stephen and the boy it is his "infinite good fortune" to be best friends with, Keith, a simple make-believe game of spying gets out of hand, and over the course of the summer, Stephen and Keith will discover secrets about Keith's mother far beyond the limits of their childish imaginations, in the distant world of adulthood. The story is told by both the younger Stephen, constantly on the cusp of adolescence and understanding ...
...and the older Stephen, who has made his journey back to England to remember the events of sixty years ago. This dual narrative is one of the most striking devices in the story, as Frayn weaves motifs of beautiful sensory imagery to hint to the reader into the younger Stephen's narrative, whilst withholding information from the older Stephen's storytelling, leaving a the reader with a disjointed patchwork of events which they must piece together to ...

lexyloo 26.05.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Spies - Michael Frayn

This is a very good novel and would be enjoyed by any one who has an interest in World War 2. The book is written frm the perspective of a man who lived through the war, he analyses the way he behaved as a child. The story is set around two children from different backgrounds who believe they have discovered a german spy and the far reaching consequences of their childish games.The story invetigates the way children behave and think, and how as adults ...

foxmul42 11.04.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Spies - Michael Frayn