The Russian Interpreter

This is Frayn's second novel, and my copy was an impulse buy in a second hand bookshop which I picked up almost on a whim, having enjoyed [b:Spies|287022|Spies|Michael Frayn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347813589i/287022._SY75_.jpg|2300254] a couple of years ago.

This book is an interesting mixture of styles - part Englishman abroad farce, part spy thriller. The main character Manning (the book is written from his perspective by an omniscient third person) is in Moscow "working" on a PhD thesis under the benevolent eye of his tutor Sasha. At the start of the book he hears from various acquaintances that his "old friend" Proctor-Gould is looking for him - though he has no memory of the man in show more question. Proctor-Gould, on old boy of Manning's Cambridge college, is on good terms with the Soviet authorities and runs a business the nature of which remains unclear, and as a non-Russian speaker he hires Manning as a personal interpreter.

Meanwhile Manning meets and falls for the mysterious Raya, but loses her to Proctor-Gould as soon as they meet. This sets in chain a complex plot full of entertaining and surprising turns in which nothing other than Manning's naivety is entirely what it seems. The first half of the book is comic in tone, the second half a little darker.

All in all an easy but very enjoyable read. show less

It’s all got a bit much, what with the constant and alarming global news, the new Ipcress File adaptation on TV, and me diving into Michael Frayn’s 1966 Cold War novel The Russian Interpreter (Faber). The author has a good eye for Soviet era Moscow, having visited several times in the 50s and 60s and his depiction is confident and convincing. The interpreter in the title is a British PhD student at Moscow University who is ‘commandeered’ to act as a translator for his brand new, oldest best friend and an attractive Russian blonde lady. The book is mysterious in places, funny in others, occasionally confusing and probably representative of what it was like to be in situ at the time, particularly when slightly naïve of what show more really is going on. I need a sorbet course book next. show less

A breath of fresh air. Not a new author - just newly discovered by me. Lovely writing. A slight resemblance to Andrei Makine, only less lyrical and more matter-of-fact. A British man with some knowledge of Russian becomes an "interpreter" to his compatriot British businessman in the Soviet Union in 1960s. A very unusual course of events ensues. Couldn't put it down.