Rating: 
Summary: a haunting read
Review: "Spies" is one man's poignant and haunting recollection of events that took place during WWII. It's also a disturbing yet immensely compelling read. Michael Frayn does a wonderful job of projecting the tense yet excitingly secretive world that the boys (protagonist Stephen Wheatley and his more affluent friend Keith) inhabit. In some ways, "Spies" reminded me a lot of L. P. Hartley's "The Go-Between," in that it also dealt with the similar theme of a young boy who becomes involved in the secretive lifes of the adults around him, and who had little real understanding of what was really going on, and what the stakes really were. It's true that the language with which Frayn has chosen to tell his story takes a little getting used to. But I did think that it lent itself to the ambiance of events that were unfolding before my eyes. I also liked the manner in which Frayn fleshes out the unlikely and quite improbable friendship that Keith and Stephen share: Keith is the leader and goes to the "right local preparatory school" while Stephen is portrayed as a follower and someone who is rather ineffectual and who also goes to the "wrong" prep school. As such it is true that it is a little difficult to take Stephen to heart, esp as he seems to be a rather feeble and hesitant child-hero. But we should remember that Stephen is a still a child (11 or 12) in this novel, with a child's natural fears and qualms, and that it is no wonder that he becomes totally overwhelmed by the situation. I enjoyed this novel very much. It may not be to everyone's liking, in that it does not make for easy straightforward reading. But "Spies" did make for a really affecting and compelling read. and if you're looking for something a little different from the same old thing, this should satisfy.
Rating: 
Summary: Michael's Frayn's Proustian Turn
Review: A fragrance, a taste, a numinous sense of deja vu--all familiar literary devices that, in a sensual rush, transport a narrator and reader to a lost moment vividly, but narrowly, recalled. In the course of the tale, the recollection expands, through paths at first dimly remembered but, over time, recovered with increasing clarity. Michael Frayn deploys these Proustian materials brilliantly, detailing with quick strokes a lost world of childhood in wartime London, of proto-suburban enclaves that are more like thatch villages than city neighborhoods, where even hidden lives seem transparent, everyone seems to be watching everyone else, and nothing escapes the attention of the village children, those custodians of every local scandal, romance, adventure, and suspicion. The story begins meekly, as a trip down memory lane, and slowly, like a Ravelian Bolero, gains in intensity and pace. One of Spies' most impressive aspects is, in the interplay between narrator and narration, the way in which Frayn withholds from the reader information that the young Stephen could not yet have figured out or understood. This allows the story, despite the older Stephen's omniscient point of view, to unfold naturally and almost perfectly from a child's-eye view, but blended with adult-perspective hindsight to provide texture and depth and, in some instances, additional layers of ambiguity. Spies will appeal strongly to readers of a certain age, who as children in a pre-television era relied on their own resourcefulness and imagination to entertain themselves, who literally assembled their own universes from found materials. Spies is, moreover, one of the very best depictions of a child's groping to make sense of the adult world from within the conspiratorial know-it-all world of childhood. I must confess, however, that I was tempted to dock Frayn a star for the unsatisfying--for me--way in which he handled aspects of the concluding 20-30 pp (it's no spoiler to mention this--plenty of reviews already have). But the sated sense of satisfaction in which I basked as I closed the book precluded anything other than full credit. With economical prose, vivid characterization, and superbly realized WWII fringe-London mise-en-scene, Michael Frayn has added another small gem to his oeuvre, one you will tear through in a sitting, pausing only, I'll warrant, to reflect on your own lost world of childhood.
Rating: 
Summary: A visit down memory lane . . .
Review: A man called Stephen travels down memory lane, remembering his childhood in London during the war. He and his friend, Keith, lived out many adventures, their imaginations coming alive. Upon his friend's words that his friend's mother was a German spy, the two boys set out to spy on her. What Stephen discovers will change the rest of his life. The book has a slow start. Many times I doubted that I would like the book because it seemed too slow and dull, however, by the end, I was glad I stuck with it. It's a touching story about the innocence of a child who is put into a situation no child belonged in. His fear and confusion was real throughout the book, and perhaps the most honest account of someone in his shoes. He was an ordinary boy in extraordinary circumstances. The main character wasn't a child "hero" like so often in books these days starring children. This book isn't about a boy saving the day. It is more a tragic story. The book did not grab me the way other books sometimes do. It was a bit vague and confusing at times. However, overall, it was a good read and would be worthy of discussion in any book group.
Rating:
Summary: The Ambiguity of Childhood Memories
Review: An old man struggles to recall a summer in his youth he spent living in a small English suburb during WWII. It's a beautifully written story rich in contrasts -- class differences, childhood friendship vs. rivalry, loyalty to family vs. country, reality vs. fantasy, the routine of daily life vs. life-threatening adventures -- and brilliantly evocative of the time and place. But what I found most compelling about this book was its deft examination of how memories work, especially with events of life-changing importance. What we perceive as a child may or may not represent reality, but when filtered through years of experience, it's amazing how that perception can be questioned and transformed. If the reality ultimately shines through, as it does for this narrator, it can bring surprising insights.
Rating:
Summary: The Ambiguity of Childhood Memories
Review: An old man struggles to recall a summer in his youth he spent living in a small English suburb during WWII. It's a beautifully written story rich in contrasts -- class differences, childhood friendship vs. rivalry, loyalty to family vs. country, reality vs. fantasy, the routine of daily life vs. life-threatening adventures -- and brilliantly evocative of the time and place. But what I found most compelling about this book was its deft examination of how memories work, especially with events of life-changing importance. What we perceive as a child may or may not represent reality, but when filtered through years of experience, it's amazing how that perception can be questioned and transformed. If the reality ultimately shines through, as it does for this narrator, it can bring surprising insights.
Rating:
Summary: The Scent of the Past
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Spies
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric, but doesn't really gel
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Like a Film - Great!
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: The reader as spy?
Review: Harking back to the days when children spent most of their after-school hours outdoors, making "forts" and hideyholes on vacant land still thick with scrub, Frayn recreates the atmosphere of the early 1940's in a small town outside London. Stephen Wheatley, now in his mid-60's and living abroad, is drawn back to his childhood home by the "sweet and luring reek" of privet, a scent which evokes memories of his twelfth year, when he naively "spied" on his neighborhood from inside privet bushes with his friend Keith Hayward. Announcing one day that his mother is a German spy, Keith "crosses the frontier into another country altogether," and the boys begin dangerous meddling in real lives, manipulating events which they do not fully understand. Huge, personal costs to others result from their meddling and still puzzle Stephen fifty years later. As he tries to retrieve memories, make necessary connections between events, and put his personal demons to rest, he is a sympathetic figure, and the reader both understands his curiosity as a child-spy and observes with ironic detachment and adult judgment the unfolding disasters he provokes. Frayn is in full control of his material here, recreating the rather matter-of-fact atmosphere of a suburban London neighborhood during the war--the errant bombing of a neighborhood house and killing of an old woman, the blackouts and alarms, the separated families, the rigid social distinctions, and the indifference toward those of lower class. His depiction of the child's motivation is flawless, the adult Stephen's confusion is plausible, and the dramatic ironies for the reader continue to the end. Much has been said about the ending. I confess that I, too, was startled, at first, by the last twenty pages, and initially, I agreed with those who felt it was too pat. As I started thinking about why Frayn would choose this ending, however, I began to think that perhaps, with all the secrets and spying that take place in the novel, he wanted one final irony--to show that the reader, too, is a kind of spy, a voyeur observing what takes place in the novel and jumping to false conclusions based on partial knowledge, no better than the characters. If that's the case, he certainly gets the last laugh.
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