Spies (novel)

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Spies

Author	Michael Frayn
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Faber & Faber
Publication date	1 April 2002
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	302 pp (hardback edition) & 272 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-571-21286-7 (hardback edition) & ISBN 0-571-21296-4 (paperback edition)

Spies is a 2002 novel by the British author and playwright Michael Frayn. The story takes place during both World War II and the present day, as narrator Stephen Wheatley returns to the scene of his seemingly ordinary suburban childhood. Stephen is unsure of what he is actually trying to find and, as he walks once-familiar streets he hasn't seen in fifty years, he unfolds a story of childish games eventually colliding cruelly with adult realities. The novel is sometimes studied as part of the UK GCE (A Level) English Literature curriculum.

1 Plot introduction
2 Stephen's Chronology
3 Characters
4 Critical reactions
5 Footnotes
6 See also

[edit] Plot introduction

The story is structured as a bildungsroman, with the central character going on a journey of self-discovery by way of re-analysing his childhood through the eyes of an adult. Frayn is heavily ironic in his treatment of both memory and character, casting light on the instinctual paranoia and hypocritical voyeurism of Britain during the war.^[1]

[edit] Stephen's Chronology

Stephen was born in Germany as "Stefan Weitzler" in 1933. His mother was English and his father was a German Jew. In 1935 the family moved to England, presumably running away from Nazi persecution; it is here that they adopted their English name, Wheatley. During his childhood living on the Close, he befriended Keith Hayward to whom he looked up:

He was the officer corps in our two-man army. I was the Other Ranks - and grateful to be so.

Away from the terror of war, the two boys embark on an adventure when Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: his mother is - according to him - a "German spy".

[edit] Characters

[edit] Stephen Wheatley

The main character and narrator of the story. Born Stefan Weitzler - the Jewish son of German refugees who came to England in 1935, due fears of the war, where he became Stephen Wheatley. He grew up in a cul-de-sac and was best friends with Keith Hayward, another boy from the cul-de-sac. Though we learn very little of Stephen's later life, we know he married, then divorced sometime later. He then returned to Germany (where he found work translating manuals into English) and remarried a German, having adopting his birth name and had at least two children - a son and daughter (their names not revealed) and he also has grandchildren. The novel begins with him deciding to return to England, where he grew up.

[edit] Keith Hayward

Stephen's childhood best friend. He is an only child and as so is materially over-indulged by his wealthy parents, who buy him many toys, but also treat him negligently; his fathers doles out severe punishments for misbehaviour, but apart from that has no real interest in him. When Frayn introduces him into the story, he repeats the word 'special' which gives a good idea of Keith's status. Despite being a wealthy boy with a private education, he treats Stephen badly and takes him for granted, as Stephen recalls throughout the story. However, he needs Stephen, as "someone to be braver than" and show off in front of. He is a troubled boy who retreats into his imagination to escape his cruel father.

[edit] Mrs. Hayward

Despite being a main character and the focus of the story, she is either known as 'Keith's Mother' or 'Mrs Hayward' thus her first name is never revealed, though her initial is revealed to be an 'R' and she is referred to at one point as 'Bobs'. Stephen and Keith are convinced that she is a German spy, as she disappears alone for long periods of time during the day. At one point, the two boys read her diary and find an 'X' marked in each month which leads them to suspect that this is when she meets the Nazis. Stephen's first descriptions of her make her seem angelic and perfect, but as the truth starts to come to light, this changes. In Mrs. Hayward's desperation to keep her adultery a secret she seems to become dirtied in the process^{[citation needed]}. It is not until the end of the novel that she is seen as human.

[edit] Barbara Berrill

A girl, a year older than Stephen and Keith, who provides the text with moments of adolescence and growing up as Stephen and she kiss and smoke cigarettes together. Her main purpose in the novel is to provide the reader with true information - it is she who informs Stephen that Mrs. Hayward has a boyfriend who has been seen during the blackouts. She develops during the text from someone who is "beneath [Stephen's] notice" to someone who provides his first love.

[edit] Uncle Peter

This is Keith's Uncle, married to Mrs. Hayward's sister. Throughout the novel he is portrayed to be a true man, away fighting in the war. We learn at the very end that, in fact, hiding in 'The Barns', a place where he can escape the claims of cowardice he would receive if his unwillingness to continue fighting in the war were revealed. The Barns is really the basement of a building destroyed in an air-raid and he survives there on the food that Auntie Dee and later Mrs. Hayward bring to him. It is he who Mrs. Hayward is visiting, and he is secretly in love with her: "it was always her" he says in a confession he makes to Stephen. There are also strong hints that, during his hiding, the two have begun a love affair. At the end, Frayn reveals that he dies after being run over by a train, although he does not reveal what brought Peter on to the railway lines.

[edit] Auntie Dee

Mrs. Hayward's younger sister and Uncle Peter's wife. She is aware throughout the novel that her husband is hiding in 'The Barns' but she brings food to him in order for him to survive while Frayn suggests that she is afraid the police are onto her. She asks her sister, Mrs. Hayward, to do it for her, unaware that her husband is in fact in love with her sister. Frayn suggests at the end that Auntie Dee discovers her husband's infidelity and leaves the cul-de-sac.

[edit] Critical reactions

Initially, Spies was received well by the literary community, with many critics praising Frayn for his creative and original approach.^[2] Indeed once published, Spies went on to win the 2002 Whitbread Novel of the year for achievement in literary excellence.

However, contrasting this initial success, a reactionary movement arose after the novel's release, many critics considering that the book had a "contrived and implausible" plot.^[3]