The many western companies that have fallen foul of Russia's unique business culture will be fascinated by AD Miller's Snow Drops. The novel tells you more about the pitfalls and problems of doing business there than any formal guidebook.
Q&A:Author’s grounding in Moscow
How does the author know so much about Russia?AD Miller was The Economist's man in Moscow for four years in the wild "noughties", when a series of high-profile corporate scandals occurred in the country.
The characters all sound very unsympathetic. Is there anybody good in the book at all? Not really. Even the widow who has her apartment stolen comes across as naïve and stupid, an inevitable victim. Journalists will probably have some empathy for Steve Walsh, the hard-drinking British hack who has seen it all, a "citizen of the republic of cynicism" but who will never leave Moscow because he has fallen for its charms.
The Nick character is a lawyer. Aren't they supposed to be on the right side of the law?Supposed to be, but in Snow Drops, everybody is, or becomes, corrupt. "Forbidden only means expensive," explains one character. Nick's job is to ensure industrial projects meet the requirements for big loans from the international banks, a process he thoroughly denigrates
The cleverness of Mr Miller's book is that it simultaneously shows the pros and cons of Russian corporate life: the immense opportunities presented by a commodity-rich but consumer-naïve economy, contrasted with the horrors of rampant corruption, fraud and everyday, casual crime.
The narrator, a thirty-something lawyer, Nick, who becomes entwined in two frauds, finally confesses that, despite his experiences, he has fallen in love with Moscow and its brash decadence.
He has fallen in love, too, with Masha, a classic Russian femme fatale who lures, entraps, deceives and finally disappears, leaving Nick wounded in business and in love. The novel is in the form of a long revelation to another unidentified woman, whom Nick hopes to marry.
The "snow drops" of the title are the corpses that appear every spring as the Moscow thaw reveals the skullduggery that took place while the city was enveloped in snow. Some of the best narrative passages of the book are of the Muscovite climate, and the effects it has on the city's inhabitants.
Within this fine lyrical writing, two stories of slushy human greed unfold.
In one, western banks are duped into handing over hundreds of millions of dollars for an oil pipeline that turns out not to exist at all; in the other, an old widow is robbed of the attractive downtown apartment she owns thanks to her late husband's services to the Soviet state. Some, especially Muscovites, will complain that the book simply repeats stereotypical negatives about the country and reinforces clichés that are no longer relevant in the "new Russia" of Putin and Medvedev.
Top 5: Books on the 2011 Man Booker Prize shortlist
1 Snow Dropsby AD Miller
2 The Sense of an Endingby Julian Barnes (winner)
3 Jamrach's Menagerieby Carol Birch
4 The Sisters Brothersby Patrick deWitt
5 Half Blood Bluesby Esi Edugyan
But the likes of BP and Ikea - both recent victims of the country's corporate culture - will know better.
The Quote: "In Russia, there are no business stories. And there are no politics stories. There are no love stories. There are only crime stories." Steve Walsh, a character in AD Miller's book Snow Drops
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