"Prague Spring" by Simon Mawer

An audio book.

It's 1968. Two Oxford students, Mark (1st year science, a Northerner) and Eleanor (2nd year English, more middle class), discuss the long vac in a noisy pub. They only know each other because they're in the cast of a play. She suggests that they hitch-hike around Europe just as friends. On the way to the coast they stay at her parents' in separate rooms. She tells him she still has occasional sex with her ex-fiance Kevin.

In Prague, embassy employee Sam (who's in a cooling relationship with pretty Stephanie, who's returning to London) flirts with Medalina who sleeps with Lenka who, he discovers after, was an East German honeypot spy when she was 15. Prague has experiencied a few months of relative freedom. The embassy staff speculate over what to do if Russia tries to suppress the Dubchek revolution.

Mark and Elli start hitch-hiking. She can speak French - he can't. After smoking pot they have sex, which means more to him than her. She confesses later that she can't let herself go during sex, perhaps because her mother had affairs. She'd hoped it would have been different with Mark - she likes and trusts him - but she still doesn't enjoy sex. They get picked up by a US band, "Ides of March". They meet a cellist who knows about Oxford and is soon to perform in Prague. They decide on a whim to head for Prague. To their surprise they get through the barrier - "a barber's pole, a jousting lance" - at the border with a minimum of fuss.

Sam meets Lenka's mother who tells him stories about the past - she was recently offered a medal and compensation for her rebellious husband's death. Lenka's mother has a partner who belongs to the party. Thanks to him she's a student (but she slept with him?) Sam and Lenka stumble upon a Russian army exercise. They pop to Munich and back, taking advantage of his diplomatic immunity. They pick up Mark and Ellie. Lenka gives them a tour of Prague and sorts out accomodation. The Moody Blues are in town. They see "Ides of March" in action (did Ellie share pot and have sex with them? Mark suspects so. Ellie says that what she does with her body is not his problem) and the cellist's concert. After the concert, 2 russian musicians want to defect. Sam lets them stay overnight in his flat.

The Russians invade. Sam is told to come to the embassy and not bring Lenka. Stephanie desperately tries to contact him. Elli and Mark get caught up in street action - they see Swastikas painted onto the tanks. Mark phones Sam, tells him that Lenka's been shot. A convoy's arranged out of the country - Elli, Mark and the musicians are in the same minibus. Sam rushes to the hospital. It's touch and go. Safe in Germany, Mark feels that he and Elli have recently only been together because of the situation. She says she liked Lienka and wonders if she's a lesbian. They decide where to go with the toss of a coin.

[It works for me, maybe because I'm interested in Prague. It didn't seem over-researched (the researched bits are sneaked in when czechs tell english people about their past). Videos of the Moody Blues from that time are on YouTube! Compromises, chance and fate are abiding themes. I imagine that Sam will marry Stephanie and that Eleanor will look back on the journey as a turning point. There are little glimpses of the future - e.g. at one point we're told that Mark will recall a kiss with a married woman for the rest of his life and she would later die in a New York car accident.]

Other reviews

• Roberta Silman (this consistently interesting novel adds a resonate dimension to an historical event about which we thought we knew all there was to know)
• Lisa Hill

"Ancestry" by Simon Mawer

An audio book, with footnotes.

The author consulted census results, shipping registers etc to find out about his family history, making up all the rest. In the 1700s a boy near Lowestoft sees a dead body in the water, and takes a gold coin from it. This helps to fund his urge to travel. He sees Istanbul and London, where his uncle Issac (the first of his family to escape peasantry) lives. He catches syphilis then marries a single mother who is lodging with his uncle and aunt, who are childless themselves.

The author confesses he's guessing about motivations, etc. He asks why is the baby called Issac? He asks why does basing the stories on fact make them any better? He sometimes offers us alternative storylines. He tells us whether houses still survive.

The Great Camp episode (indeed, the soldier section) didn't interest me -sounded too much like research. Cholera and Gallipoli feature.

He makes the most of birth certificates - important sources of information for the author. Some key characters could neither read nor write. Mothers had to decide what to call themselves, what name to give the child, what father's name to give. The mothers who couldn't read didn't know whether the official had written the names correctly.

The 1871 census is the last one mentioned. In an epilogue, a photo is described which shows a character from the book and also the author's father.

Other reviews

• Jonathan Myerson (These fictionalised elements are never less than credible, if sometimes overdetailed. So it’s a shame that, rather than allowing his characters to grow and interact, as any novel demands, Mawer instead regularly elbows his way on to the page to remind us that, for instance, “this particular rumour happened to be true”. These reminders of his research only serve to disempower the characters and defuse any jeopardy in the storytelling. Things aren’t helped by prose that is a touch too workaday: tones are “dulcet” and hair, more than once, comes in a “shock”.)
• goodreads
• Douglas Kemp