positive review in Washington Post Style section 7/19/12, "amusingly complicated" " a wonderful time"

Disappointing. I forced myself to finish reading it (checking it out from the library two or three times) just because of the reviews. Not my style. ( )

A witty, clever farce. Frayn is very skillful in his use of comedy here, and he takes his time building up the characters so that—by the time one is midway through the novel—his continued introductions and complications are just uproariously fantastical and often laugh-out-loud hysterical.

Frayn's use of dialogue is very smart: I was often reminded of reading a script at times, something that works quite well for the more darkly humorous episodes in Skios as one can almost see this enacted as if on stage. The pacing and the quick-wittedness all factor into the success of this very modern and very British cage aux folles. It was only after finishing the novel that I discovered Frayn wrote the play Noises Off, and the similarity is definitely there.

Skios is a novel where no one knows who they are; no one knows where they are; and no one knows who or where anyone else is. Some characters fall into multiple categories of confusion, while others emphasize the novel's interest in cultural and linguistic dislocation (e.g., a very funny receptionist; two twin taxi drivers). Where Frayn also excels is in his covert criticism of modern technology: in a world where smart phones exist, even on the island of Skios these smart phones render their users far from smart and, increasingly, become the culprits of mistaken identity, missed opportunities, and failed connections.

A surprising title to have been long listed for the Booker, especially given the more "high brow" literary titles that usually populate the lists each year. This is certainly not to say that Frayn is not a literary writer; indeed, the comparisons to David Lodge's academic satires (e.g., Changing Places, Small World) are not unfounded, but Frayn has a humor all his own. Could a farce about our modern world win the prize this year? It very well might. ( )

This is an excellent book I picked up at a library sale. I had not previously read any books by this author.

At the Fred Toppler Foundation in Skios, Greece, Nikki Hook is looking forward to the arrival of the distinguished Dr Norman Wilfred: he is to deliver an important lecture.

Nikki goes to meet Dr Wilfred at the airport with a big sign stating “”DR NORMAN WILFRED”.

At the same time a man called Oliver Fox with blonde hair and soft brown eyes is arriving at the same airport to spend a week with a woman called Georgie he barely knows.

Oliver is very charming and, though not exactly psychopathic, seems to me to be something along these lines. Everyone knows Oliver Fox; he does crazy things, which has led to his life being somewhat of a mess.

Someone who knew him had described him as a “”moral lunatic”.

Oliver is not looking forward to spending a week with Georgie, so when an attractive youg woman holding a sign stating “Dr Norman Wilfred” smiles at ham, he smiles back and approaches her. He can see she wants him to be Dr Wilfred and doesn’t want to disappoint her.

He feels that he IS Dr Wilfred and “feels the familiar jolt of joyous excitement”.

In the meantime the real Dr Wilfred can’t find his suitcase but takes a taxi intended for Oliver Fox,

Oliver turns out to be very popular as Dr Norman Wilfred, Everyone loves him though surprised by his youth and charm.

We follow the progress of both Dr Wilfreds and since the fake Dr Wilfred is so sure that HE is Dr Wilfred he is mostly referred to in the book as such and we often have difficulty in distinguishing who is the real one and who is the fake one.

There are various complications also because both Dr Wilfreds hav lost their suitcases; the book is very funny.

One problem for Oliver, the fake Dr Wilfred, is that he will have to give a lecture about something he know nothing about, But he reckons that he will just have to make up what to say as he goes along, just as he generally does in his life.

I can highly recommend this well-written, amusing, practically farcical book and will be looking out for other books by Michael Frayn. ( )

Utterly hilarious farce. Audio version has one of the great book reading performances ever. ( )

This is the only novel I've read by Frayn which has somewhat disappointed me and I think I know why. It isn't a novel. It's a play, or more likely, it's a screen play.

One of the very finest things Frayn does (and that is high praise indeed) is frantic farce. He does Fawlty Towers better than John Cleese did it. The human disposition for disaster is something he explores hilariously in Noises Off and again in Clockwise. Not for the first or last time I rue the ignorant critical reception this movie got. It made A Fish Called Wanda look like the made-for-Americans-trash it was and yet Clockwise was panned. After the hit and miss - if nonetheless cult - way Fawlty Towers just managed to fill up 30 minutes at a time, Clockwise did this hilariously for a sustained movie. That is truly amazing.

And this is what Skios is. I kept reminding myself as I read it 'It's a movie, it's a movie, it's a hysterically funny farce of a movie'. Well. I hope it becomes such, I imagine it deserves to be and that it is the millieu in which it will work.

Am I being too critical? Or too generous? I could stand corrected on either count.



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