Synopsis
Nicholas Platt is a British lawyer who sees the opportunity to make a lot of money in Russia in not-quite-clean deals, especially in the oil industry, so makes the move to cold, harsh Moscow. As far as Nick is concerned, it's a take-what-you-can world, and he's willing to 'put lipstick on a pig' if people are determined not to see what's really going on. His lusty excesses soon zero in on Masha, a woman over fifteen years younger than him. Masha is a strongly independent woman, so, wanting to be needed, he falls all over himself to help when she needs to broker a legal deal for her aunt's new apartment in Moscow's strictly-controlled housing market.Reason for Reading
Shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.Why you should read this book
Snowdrop (n): Moscow slang. A corpse that lies buried or hidden in the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw.Intrigued? I certainly was. Crime, greed, lust: Snowdrops has it all. Are you a bad person if you don't know (or admit to yourself) that you're a bad person? Does not questioning things make you any less culpable? Miller poses some dark questions in his novel as we start to question whether Nicholas is being corrupted by do-what-you-can-get-away-with Russia, or if it was in him all along. There is a double-edged love story at play here, as the novel is penned as a confession to Nicholas's future bride, asking if she can still love him despite the things that happened in Russia, despite the young woman he once loved - possibly more than her. Interpret the events as you will: should Nicholas be scorned or pitied? Was he a pawn in someone else's game, or a complicit player?
Why you should avoid this book
This probably isn't the book for you if you don't like to consider the bad or sleazy things that people are capable of doing. Also, I don't know if the foreshadowing is too heavy or if the narrator is trying to build sympathy for himself, but it becomes pretty clear where this train is headed before we've hit the last station.Opening Paragraph
I smelled it before I saw it.There was a crowd of people standing around on the pavement and in the road, most of them policemen, some talking on mobile phones, some smoking, some looking, some looking away. From the way I came, they were blocking my view, and at first I thought that with all the uniforms it must be a traffic accident or maybe an immigration bust. Then I caught the smell. It was a smell like the kind you come home to if you forget to put your rubbish out before you go on holiday - ripe but acidic, strong enough to block out the normal summer aromas of beer and revolution. It was the smell that had given it away.
Fabulous quotes
I kissed both girls on the cheek. Tatiana Vladimirovna followed me as I swam across the parquet to put on my coat and shoes.
'Goodbye,' I said. 'Enormous thanks. Until we meet again.'
'You haven't eaten anything,' she repeated as she shut the door behind me. I bolted down the stairs, escaping the suffocating childlessness.
'Okay,' I said. 'Of course. If I can help you, I will. I will try. I promise, Oleg Nikolaevich.'
He came toward me, and for a second I thought he was going to grab me or punch me. But instead he put his hand on my left shoulder, and his mouth very close to my right ear, so that when he spoke his tongue was virtually in it.
'Respected Nikolai Ivanovich,' he said, 'only an idiot smiles all the time.'
