In Michael Frayn's novel Spies an old man returns to the scene of his seemingly ordinary suburban childhood. Stephen Wheatley is unsure of what he is seeking but, as he walks once-familiar streets he hasn't seen in 50 years, he unfolds a story of childish games colliding cruelly with adult realities. It is wartime and Stephen's friend Keith makes the momentous announcement that his mother is a German spy. The two boys begin to spy on the supposed spy, following her on her trips to the shops and to the post, and reading her diary. Keith's mother does have secrets to conceal but they are not the ones the boys suspect. Frayn skilfully manipulates his plot so that the reader's growing awareness of the truth remains just a few steps beyond Stephen's dawning realisation that he is trespassing on painful and dangerous territory. The only false notes occur in the final chapter when the central revelation (already cleverly signposted) is too swiftly followed by further disclosures about Stephen and his family that seem somehow unnecessary and make the denouement less satisfyingly conclusive. This is a much sparer and less expansive book than Headlong, Frayn's Booker Prize-shortlisted 1999 novel, more understated in its wit, but it is, in many ways, more compelling.--Nick Rennison

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.


Very good , 26 Mar 2008
I used this book when retaking my English Lit AS level, and I acheived an A...While that wasn't totally down to the book, it is concise, accurate and detailed and was very helpful when revising.

However, it is far less important than the book itself, but they would make great companions. A minor irration was that the margins seemed to be filled with useless snipetts of information regarding things related to the book. While a few of them may be interesting, i'd have preferred the space they used to be filled with actual relevant content.

not in depth enough, 21 Mar 2008
The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam.
This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.

An unbiased and honest review, 23 Dec 2007
This is a great revision guide for AS English Literature when studying Spies by Michael Frayn.
Everything you need to know is explained in the guide, and there are also other things which are there to increase your understanding of the novel. I particularly liked the chapter by chapter breakdown, which explains the significance of what goes on in each chapter, and has a glossary to explain words you don't understand. The notes in the column, which guide you to websites and books for further information are also very good, and very well researched.
However, in some of the sections, it would be better if more quotations from the novel had been used to back-up what was written, especially in the themes section. A few example exam questions would have also been nice.
Overall this is an essential revision guide to Spies, and I would highly recommend you buy it.

delivery time, 25 Sep 2007
If you ordered it in June/July that was on pre-order as it wasn't published until early September. I'm the author, and I only got my advance copy on 31 Aug.

Delivery boo boo!, 13 Sep 2007
While I rate this text highly, I was very disappointed in the length of time I had to wait for the text to be delivered. I believe I ordered this text during June/ July and only just received it on the 12th September!

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.


Very good , 26 Mar 2008
I used this book when retaking my English Lit AS level, and I acheived an A...While that wasn't totally down to the book, it is concise, accurate and detailed and was very helpful when revising.

However, it is far less important than the book itself, but they would make great companions. A minor irration was that the margins seemed to be filled with useless snipetts of information regarding things related to the book. While a few of them may be interesting, i'd have preferred the space they used to be filled with actual relevant content.

not in depth enough, 21 Mar 2008
The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam.
This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.

An unbiased and honest review, 23 Dec 2007
This is a great revision guide for AS English Literature when studying Spies by Michael Frayn.
Everything you need to know is explained in the guide, and there are also other things which are there to increase your understanding of the novel. I particularly liked the chapter by chapter breakdown, which explains the significance of what goes on in each chapter, and has a glossary to explain words you don't understand. The notes in the column, which guide you to websites and books for further information are also very good, and very well researched.
However, in some of the sections, it would be better if more quotations from the novel had been used to back-up what was written, especially in the themes section. A few example exam questions would have also been nice.
Overall this is an essential revision guide to Spies, and I would highly recommend you buy it.

delivery time, 25 Sep 2007
If you ordered it in June/July that was on pre-order as it wasn't published until early September. I'm the author, and I only got my advance copy on 31 Aug.

Delivery boo boo!, 13 Sep 2007
While I rate this text highly, I was very disappointed in the length of time I had to wait for the text to be delivered. I believe I ordered this text during June/ July and only just received it on the 12th September!

Great writing, entertaining read, 02 Mar 2008
I didn't get the outbursts of laughter of some of the other reviewers but I did thoroughly enjoy Michael Frayn's lively writing style and found the book an entertaining mix of satirizing the vanities and follies of human behaviour but done in a kindly way that made you sympathize with the characters. I can imagine that if you are a journalist there would be things about the descriptions of working for a newspaper that would give extra enjoyment.
I think that this book would probably appeal even more to men than women rather like PG Wodehouse.

Entertaining in parts but inconsistent, 17 Jan 2007
Lets get this straight. Very little of the action of this book takes place in Fleet Street; it is mainly concerned with the travails of a couple of sub-editors trying to find direction in life. The characters are well sketched but the plotlines (such as they are) appear flimsy and ephemeral. The central characters are not particularly likeable, Dyson is suffering a midlife crisis which manifests itself in self-obssessive behaviour, and has assistant, Bob, is a weakwilled nobody, dominated by his neighbour and fiancee. The book would be improved if more focus was placed on the activities of the newspaper as this would at least differentiate it from far superior comic novels such as Sharpe's "Porterhouse Blue" or Amis's "Lucky Jim". The closing chapters cover travel-nightmare territory done much better in Lodge's "Small World" whereas the character of Morris, who joins the cast far too late, appears to have been copied directly from Wodehouse's "Psmith Journalist". Pretty average.

A great comic novel, 19 Apr 2004
This book should come with a warning: don't read in public. Honestly, I have not read such a humourous book in a long time. It is laugh-out-loud funny.

It's set in London at an unspecified newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street. While it's a story about journalism and its struggle with changing work practises and the emerging "glitterati" of television broadcasting, it's essentially a comedy of manners.

At the heart of the story are two journalists - the older, more uptight and ambitious John Dyson, who is anxious to find an easy route out of his mundane job, and the younger, more laidback and directionless Bob Bell, who doesn't have the courage to dump his girlfriend. The two of them work in the crossword and nature notes department but spend most of their time in the local drinking establishments complaining about their jobs and their workloads.

Through their day to day struggles, Frayne is able to tackle some big themes - old school journalists coming to grips with an emerging tide of bright, young and worryingly efficient graduate trainees; newspaper journos trying to break into the much better paid field of broadcast journalism; the class system; how to get on the property ladder; and race relations - but he does it very deftly and with great humour.

Towards the end of the Morning was written in 1967, but it holds up well as a modern classic. And Frayn's use of dialogue is spot on. He captures the art of conversation very well, often with more than three or four people speaking at once, very tricky if you've ever tried to do it yourself. It is perhaps Frayne's ear for dialogue that has made him such a gifted and much-praised playwright (Copenhagen and Noises Off are two of his more well known ones, although he has written 11 others).

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It would appeal to anyone looking for a fast-paced funny read.

The classic comic Fleet Street Novel, 14 Jan 2002
Written in 1967 (at that time, the present day), the book is set in a Fleet Street which no longer exists. Wapping has long since superseded Grub Street, both in work practices and in technology. Frayn, in hindsight, gives us a fascinating insight into newspaper journalism as it was, not as it is now.
The setting is a monolithic and nameless Fleet Street Daily. Dyson, 40's, a married, mortgaged dreamer and father of two, is head of a backwater covering nature notes, crosswords and "yesteryear". His staff is Bob, an aimless 29 year old single graduate and old Eddy Moulton, nearer the end of his days than he realises and compiler of the "100 Years Ago This Day" column.
Dyson dreams of recognition, wider success and celebrity status but seems unable to escape the lethargy of the work, despite attempting occasional, febrile bursts of it. Bob's chief office activity is eating toffees from a bag in his desk and writing vacuous love letters to his young girlfriend Tess at her finishing school. Eddy spends his days poring over yellowed back numbers and lives wholly in the past.
Life has continued in this way for aeons. What little work done is confined to the late morning, before the staff repair to the pub for the obligatory journalistic liquid lunch and gossip with the other staff hacks. The editor, a distant, shadowy figure, has never been seen by anyone. He communicates, Howard Hughes - like, by note. At one point, he attempts to sack the pictures editor, the embittered Reg. Mounce, using an unsigned memo. Reg., believing this to be a joke perpetrated by his peers, ignores his dismissal, carries on with his job and is still employed weeks later.
The afternoon passes in the customary beery trance until the deadline approaches. In Dyson's
department of course, this has no effect whatsoever, given the timeless nature of the copy. Their only indication that the deadline has passed is the distant rumble of the presses below.
This routine is set to continue for ever, until three things happen. Eddy Moulton dies quietly at his desk, undiscovered for hours; Dyson is asked to appear on late night television with a panel of experts and Bob's girlfriend arrives with marriage written in capitals at the top of her agenda. The comic pace is fast and furious. Eddy's death creates a vacancy for Erskine, a talented, capable and laconic graduate who, within weeks, has taken over the department by stealth.
Dyson has too many pre-TV appearance gins in the hospitality suite and, on air, can say nothing but "how fascinating", again and again. Helpless Bob, loved by Tess, mothered by Mounce's wife and platonically and confusedly desired by Mrs. Dyson, progresses not one of these relationships and fails to take his one chance to escape. It is Erskine, a chilly precursor of the '80s yuppie, who finally wins the rewards.
Frayn's background in journalism as a Guardian and Observer columnist is clearly on show throughout. He uses more than just pale shades of his former colleagues, all finely drawn and
convincingly set in their now vanished dusty Fleet Street offices. How hard it is to imagine any one of them surviving today's frenetic newspaper world! The fast paced, witty narrative carries the reader compulsively from one comic episode to the next, right through to the hilarious climax. Read this accomplished, sophisticated novel. You will not be disappointed.

A brilliant comic novel, 24 Jan 2001
Whilst the journalists have left Fleet Street and the Lunchtime O'Booze is a thing of the past, this book feels very contemporary in its description of London: the middle class professional buying property in a destitute 'up and coming' area, the lure of television, and the tedium of work.

Brilliantly written- economical, trenchant, extremely funny. Justifiably compared to 'Scoop'

Highly highly recommended (in fact, better to my mind than 'Headlong')

Dutch art has become fashionable with nineties novelists. Witness Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever, set in 1630s Amsterdam where a painted portrait is the focus for a tale of doomed love. Or Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring, which centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. Michael Frayn has joined the Flemish fray in Headlong, where a Bruegel has a starring role. With these paintings the author can step into a story rather than a myth. Big religious representations and gaudy Classical scenes already have the weight of literature behind them. But an enigmatic portrait, a picture of a dimly lit interior or frolicking peasants is a tale waiting to be told. They're an invitation to interpretation, and Frayn's narrator accepts this role with alacrity.

Youngish art historian Martin Clay (a Hugh Grant character gone to fat) identifies a lost Bruegel in a tumble-down country home. His intellectual dilettantism becomes focused by the arresting sight of a painting glimmering through the "grimy pane of time", and he decides to secure the painting for the nation, and a fortune for himself, without letting the owner discover its true value. There follows much double-dealing, bamboozling and suppressed hysteria as Martin and the owner try to outwit each other. At the heart of the novel is Martin's search for the meaning of the painting that has become his fate, his "triumph and torment and downfall". He pitches from gallery to museum to library delivering an extended history lesson on iconography, iconology, landscape and the ever elusive story in the Bruegel. As his obsession takes hold, the pace of the novel picks up too, a breathless rush of action, comic anguish and scholarly speculation. At points there is some irritating slapstick--shady deals in underground car parks, art treasures being tipped into the back of a mucky Landrover, as Martin's machinations go haywire, and disaster looms.

Frayn is good on the quest for the meaning of art and the lure of money and intellectual reputation, even if the plot is made to work too hard. Martin so beautifully describes the Bruegels he's studying that the reader cannot help wanting to look at them too, to step out of the story and into the picture. Thus, Headlong might have benefited from a set of illustrations. Of course, the whole novel could be an elaborate, enjoyable art hoax, and the Breugels he's describing don't actually exist at all. And if that's the case, it's very successfully done. --Eithne Farry

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.


Very good , 26 Mar 2008
I used this book when retaking my English Lit AS level, and I acheived an A...While that wasn't totally down to the book, it is concise, accurate and detailed and was very helpful when revising.

However, it is far less important than the book itself, but they would make great companions. A minor irration was that the margins seemed to be filled with useless snipetts of information regarding things related to the book. While a few of them may be interesting, i'd have preferred the space they used to be filled with actual relevant content.

not in depth enough, 21 Mar 2008
The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam.
This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.

An unbiased and honest review, 23 Dec 2007
This is a great revision guide for AS English Literature when studying Spies by Michael Frayn.
Everything you need to know is explained in the guide, and there are also other things which are there to increase your understanding of the novel. I particularly liked the chapter by chapter breakdown, which explains the significance of what goes on in each chapter, and has a glossary to explain words you don't understand. The notes in the column, which guide you to websites and books for further information are also very good, and very well researched.
However, in some of the sections, it would be better if more quotations from the novel had been used to back-up what was written, especially in the themes section. A few example exam questions would have also been nice.
Overall this is an essential revision guide to Spies, and I would highly recommend you buy it.

delivery time, 25 Sep 2007
If you ordered it in June/July that was on pre-order as it wasn't published until early September. I'm the author, and I only got my advance copy on 31 Aug.

Delivery boo boo!, 13 Sep 2007
While I rate this text highly, I was very disappointed in the length of time I had to wait for the text to be delivered. I believe I ordered this text during June/ July and only just received it on the 12th September!

Great writing, entertaining read, 02 Mar 2008
I didn't get the outbursts of laughter of some of the other reviewers but I did thoroughly enjoy Michael Frayn's lively writing style and found the book an entertaining mix of satirizing the vanities and follies of human behaviour but done in a kindly way that made you sympathize with the characters. I can imagine that if you are a journalist there would be things about the descriptions of working for a newspaper that would give extra enjoyment.
I think that this book would probably appeal even more to men than women rather like PG Wodehouse.

Entertaining in parts but inconsistent, 17 Jan 2007
Lets get this straight. Very little of the action of this book takes place in Fleet Street; it is mainly concerned with the travails of a couple of sub-editors trying to find direction in life. The characters are well sketched but the plotlines (such as they are) appear flimsy and ephemeral. The central characters are not particularly likeable, Dyson is suffering a midlife crisis which manifests itself in self-obssessive behaviour, and has assistant, Bob, is a weakwilled nobody, dominated by his neighbour and fiancee. The book would be improved if more focus was placed on the activities of the newspaper as this would at least differentiate it from far superior comic novels such as Sharpe's "Porterhouse Blue" or Amis's "Lucky Jim". The closing chapters cover travel-nightmare territory done much better in Lodge's "Small World" whereas the character of Morris, who joins the cast far too late, appears to have been copied directly from Wodehouse's "Psmith Journalist". Pretty average.

A great comic novel, 19 Apr 2004
This book should come with a warning: don't read in public. Honestly, I have not read such a humourous book in a long time. It is laugh-out-loud funny.

It's set in London at an unspecified newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street. While it's a story about journalism and its struggle with changing work practises and the emerging "glitterati" of television broadcasting, it's essentially a comedy of manners.

At the heart of the story are two journalists - the older, more uptight and ambitious John Dyson, who is anxious to find an easy route out of his mundane job, and the younger, more laidback and directionless Bob Bell, who doesn't have the courage to dump his girlfriend. The two of them work in the crossword and nature notes department but spend most of their time in the local drinking establishments complaining about their jobs and their workloads.

Through their day to day struggles, Frayne is able to tackle some big themes - old school journalists coming to grips with an emerging tide of bright, young and worryingly efficient graduate trainees; newspaper journos trying to break into the much better paid field of broadcast journalism; the class system; how to get on the property ladder; and race relations - but he does it very deftly and with great humour.

Towards the end of the Morning was written in 1967, but it holds up well as a modern classic. And Frayn's use of dialogue is spot on. He captures the art of conversation very well, often with more than three or four people speaking at once, very tricky if you've ever tried to do it yourself. It is perhaps Frayne's ear for dialogue that has made him such a gifted and much-praised playwright (Copenhagen and Noises Off are two of his more well known ones, although he has written 11 others).

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It would appeal to anyone looking for a fast-paced funny read.

The classic comic Fleet Street Novel, 14 Jan 2002
Written in 1967 (at that time, the present day), the book is set in a Fleet Street which no longer exists. Wapping has long since superseded Grub Street, both in work practices and in technology. Frayn, in hindsight, gives us a fascinating insight into newspaper journalism as it was, not as it is now.
The setting is a monolithic and nameless Fleet Street Daily. Dyson, 40's, a married, mortgaged dreamer and father of two, is head of a backwater covering nature notes, crosswords and "yesteryear". His staff is Bob, an aimless 29 year old single graduate and old Eddy Moulton, nearer the end of his days than he realises and compiler of the "100 Years Ago This Day" column.
Dyson dreams of recognition, wider success and celebrity status but seems unable to escape the lethargy of the work, despite attempting occasional, febrile bursts of it. Bob's chief office activity is eating toffees from a bag in his desk and writing vacuous love letters to his young girlfriend Tess at her finishing school. Eddy spends his days poring over yellowed back numbers and lives wholly in the past.
Life has continued in this way for aeons. What little work done is confined to the late morning, before the staff repair to the pub for the obligatory journalistic liquid lunch and gossip with the other staff hacks. The editor, a distant, shadowy figure, has never been seen by anyone. He communicates, Howard Hughes - like, by note. At one point, he attempts to sack the pictures editor, the embittered Reg. Mounce, using an unsigned memo. Reg., believing this to be a joke perpetrated by his peers, ignores his dismissal, carries on with his job and is still employed weeks later.
The afternoon passes in the customary beery trance until the deadline approaches. In Dyson's
department of course, this has no effect whatsoever, given the timeless nature of the copy. Their only indication that the deadline has passed is the distant rumble of the presses below.
This routine is set to continue for ever, until three things happen. Eddy Moulton dies quietly at his desk, undiscovered for hours; Dyson is asked to appear on late night television with a panel of experts and Bob's girlfriend arrives with marriage written in capitals at the top of her agenda. The comic pace is fast and furious. Eddy's death creates a vacancy for Erskine, a talented, capable and laconic graduate who, within weeks, has taken over the department by stealth.
Dyson has too many pre-TV appearance gins in the hospitality suite and, on air, can say nothing but "how fascinating", again and again. Helpless Bob, loved by Tess, mothered by Mounce's wife and platonically and confusedly desired by Mrs. Dyson, progresses not one of these relationships and fails to take his one chance to escape. It is Erskine, a chilly precursor of the '80s yuppie, who finally wins the rewards.
Frayn's background in journalism as a Guardian and Observer columnist is clearly on show throughout. He uses more than just pale shades of his former colleagues, all finely drawn and
convincingly set in their now vanished dusty Fleet Street offices. How hard it is to imagine any one of them surviving today's frenetic newspaper world! The fast paced, witty narrative carries the reader compulsively from one comic episode to the next, right through to the hilarious climax. Read this accomplished, sophisticated novel. You will not be disappointed.

A brilliant comic novel, 24 Jan 2001
Whilst the journalists have left Fleet Street and the Lunchtime O'Booze is a thing of the past, this book feels very contemporary in its description of London: the middle class professional buying property in a destitute 'up and coming' area, the lure of television, and the tedium of work.

Brilliantly written- economical, trenchant, extremely funny. Justifiably compared to 'Scoop'

Highly highly recommended (in fact, better to my mind than 'Headlong')

Unlikeable characters fantastic plot!!, 07 Dec 2007
Incredibly well written tale of some very unlikeable people all trying to get their greedy mits on one painting. It is a fast paced page turner that you won't be able to put down.

BUT what makes it a real pleasure to read is that it is interspersed with mini lectures on the history of art and the role of the vatican throughout Europe during the middle ages. A true pleasure this one I highly recommend it.

Too clever by half, 03 Apr 2007
After the excellent "Spies" this was a disappointment. A reasonably entertaining (if rather implausible) plot is ruined by frequent and lengthy digression - mostly arcane and speculative musings on 16th century Flemish art. I'm sure it's all clever stuff and meticulously researched, but it's actually rather boring and frustrating when it's holding up the story. Of course it might be suggested that all the discursive cobblers is a necessary device to wind the reader up so that he/she becomes as frustrated with the main character (a complete w*nker) as his poor wife is. The problem is that that kind of literary legerdemain has a tendency to backfire unless it's carefully handled. It isn't here.

In fact the book would have benefitted from putting all the guff about Breugel and his contemporaries into an appendix at the back. As someone with a mild interest in Dutch/Flemish art, I'd have been quite happy to read that at my leisure so long as it wasn't interfering with the narrative flow. I suppose my message to Mr Frayn would be to remember the maxim "No-one likes a smartarse".

Funny, entertaining, interesting and clever - all in one!, 28 Jan 2007
I really enjoyed this engaging literary romp around the mind of a philosopher (or, perhaps, more correctly, I should say his mind and his other mind) and through the 16th century dutch art world. Pleasantly written, with plot that jogs along just as you need it to, you find yourself digesting large amounts of European history without realising you are doing so. This is entertainment learning at its very best.

I liked the way the story flitted between 16th century Holland and 20th century rural England with such ease. I liked the recognisable, engaging characters - especially as they all seemed to warm and fill out as the book went along. Frayn's wit is sharp and pointed - almost to the point of pain at times. I was laughing out loud as Martin circled St James's Square for the seventh time in his clapped out landrover pulling a trailer bound together with baler twine and stinking of sheep's urine, only to miss out on the parking space because he wasn't looking! If there's one thing I didn't think matched the style of the rest of the novel it was the rather flat, cowardly denouement. But I'm not going to spoil the novel for you by telling how it ends.

One other thing. About half way through I realised the book would be so much more enjoyable if I'd had a big, glossy art book with all of Bruegel's pictures in it to hand. I didn't. And the book was too engrossing to put down for a few days while I requested one from the library. So, take a hint, unless you are familiar with the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder already, get a Bruegel book before you start.

Clever and entertaining - a perfect mix., 31 Dec 2006
Forget the turgid mess that is the Da Vinci Code. Welcome to real literature: a good narrative; real characters; meaningful insights; a beginning, middle and end told with aplomb; and diversions into all sorts of apparently disparate but ultimately homogenous subjects. For as well as Brueghel the man, we learn of Brueghel the painter, Brueghel the esoteric, Brueghel the toady, Brueghel the freedom-fighter. There's also the fascinating history of the Dutch fight against Spanish imperialism, the iconography of Medieval books of hours, the philosophy of nominalism versus universalism, and the ins and outs of the London art market. All this wrapped up in a story of a man on a mission to save what he beleives is a lost Brueghel.

Just short of 400 pages, Frayn encapsulates in this novel an apparent light-hearted genre piece that has, in fact, quite profound philosophical touches underneath, in particular commentary about what exactly we see when we see things and how. But you can enjoy it on many levels. One of the best works of fiction I've read this year.

An Uneasy Mix, 01 Jan 2006
Having previously enjoyed Frayn's novel Spies, I thought I'd give him another whirl, and so picked up this earlier work of his. Alas, this is a book caught between two worlds: part of it wants to be a comic romp, and part of it wants to be an art history lesson. The combination is a rather clunky and sporadically enjoyable farce. Set in the English countryside (with occasional forays into London), the story is narrated by philosophy professor Martin, who has relocated to his country cottage for the summer with his art historian wife Julia and baby daughter Tilda. The plot kicks off when they meet their overbearing cliche of a country squire neighbor, who invites them to dinner at his deteriorating mansion.

In his academic pursuits, Martin is currently veering away from philosophy and into his wife's realm, and when the neighbor asks him to look at some old paintings, the plot thickens. You see, Martin is convinced from a brief glance that a large soot-covered panel is actually a missing work of Bruegel (the 16th-century Flemish painter), one from a series titled "The Months" (of which five are extant). Frayn milks this conceit to the max, as Martin rushes too and fro in great secrecy, both attempting to ascertain the work's authenticity and provenance, as well as trying to come up with a con to "have it off" the insufferable neighbor. On the painting side, this involves lots of homework on the iconography and iconology of the work in question, which Frayn handles very clumsily. There is a lot of potted art history cobbled together from various sources, including recountings of the shifting academic debates on "The Months" series. This is all doubtless fascinating to art historians, as Martin recounts all manner of speculation about encoded portrayals of Spanish persecution in the 16th century and the issues of patronage. However, this all goes on at far greater length and detail than most readers will care for. Whenever the art history bits appear, the pace of the proceedings is inevitably ruined, as the light farce gets bogged down in arcana. It also doesn't help that one really needs to have reproductions of the paintings under discussion to look at while reading.

The rest of the book is rather more entertaining, although like many such farces, Martin creates all kinds of unnecessarily extra complications for himself by trying to keep everything secret. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from watching Martin flounder, since he's not a particularly sympathetic character. He's an average upper-middle class academic who sees in the painting his chance to score a few million and get his name in the history books. But he is constantly bedeviled by the uncertain authenticity of the painting and his own lack of funds to set up the sting of his neighbor. Other complications include the neighbor's flirty wife, the neighbor's sharp brother, and plenty of misadventures. It's all sort of funny, but also sort of pathetic to see Martin bumbling around in a cloud of delusional greed. Frayn is certainly adept at skewering types of characters and lifestyle, and his prose is certainly enjoyable, but it's an uneasy mix he's created here.

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.


Very good , 26 Mar 2008
I used this book when retaking my English Lit AS level, and I acheived an A...While that wasn't totally down to the book, it is concise, accurate and detailed and was very helpful when revising.

However, it is far less important than the book itself, but they would make great companions. A minor irration was that the margins seemed to be filled with useless snipetts of information regarding things related to the book. While a few of them may be interesting, i'd have preferred the space they used to be filled with actual relevant content.

not in depth enough, 21 Mar 2008
The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam.
This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.

An unbiased and honest review, 23 Dec 2007
This is a great revision guide for AS English Literature when studying Spies by Michael Frayn.
Everything you need to know is explained in the guide, and there are also other things which are there to increase your understanding of the novel. I particularly liked the chapter by chapter breakdown, which explains the significance of what goes on in each chapter, and has a glossary to explain words you don't understand. The notes in the column, which guide you to websites and books for further information are also very good, and very well researched.
However, in some of the sections, it would be better if more quotations from the novel had been used to back-up what was written, especially in the themes section. A few example exam questions would have also been nice.
Overall this is an essential revision guide to Spies, and I would highly recommend you buy it.

delivery time, 25 Sep 2007
If you ordered it in June/July that was on pre-order as it wasn't published until early September. I'm the author, and I only got my advance copy on 31 Aug.

Delivery boo boo!, 13 Sep 2007
While I rate this text highly, I was very disappointed in the length of time I had to wait for the text to be delivered. I believe I ordered this text during June/ July and only just received it on the 12th September!

Great writing, entertaining read, 02 Mar 2008
I didn't get the outbursts of laughter of some of the other reviewers but I did thoroughly enjoy Michael Frayn's lively writing style and found the book an entertaining mix of satirizing the vanities and follies of human behaviour but done in a kindly way that made you sympathize with the characters. I can imagine that if you are a journalist there would be things about the descriptions of working for a newspaper that would give extra enjoyment.
I think that this book would probably appeal even more to men than women rather like PG Wodehouse.

Entertaining in parts but inconsistent, 17 Jan 2007
Lets get this straight. Very little of the action of this book takes place in Fleet Street; it is mainly concerned with the travails of a couple of sub-editors trying to find direction in life. The characters are well sketched but the plotlines (such as they are) appear flimsy and ephemeral. The central characters are not particularly likeable, Dyson is suffering a midlife crisis which manifests itself in self-obssessive behaviour, and has assistant, Bob, is a weakwilled nobody, dominated by his neighbour and fiancee. The book would be improved if more focus was placed on the activities of the newspaper as this would at least differentiate it from far superior comic novels such as Sharpe's "Porterhouse Blue" or Amis's "Lucky Jim". The closing chapters cover travel-nightmare territory done much better in Lodge's "Small World" whereas the character of Morris, who joins the cast far too late, appears to have been copied directly from Wodehouse's "Psmith Journalist". Pretty average.

A great comic novel, 19 Apr 2004
This book should come with a warning: don't read in public. Honestly, I have not read such a humourous book in a long time. It is laugh-out-loud funny.

It's set in London at an unspecified newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street. While it's a story about journalism and its struggle with changing work practises and the emerging "glitterati" of television broadcasting, it's essentially a comedy of manners.

At the heart of the story are two journalists - the older, more uptight and ambitious John Dyson, who is anxious to find an easy route out of his mundane job, and the younger, more laidback and directionless Bob Bell, who doesn't have the courage to dump his girlfriend. The two of them work in the crossword and nature notes department but spend most of their time in the local drinking establishments complaining about their jobs and their workloads.

Through their day to day struggles, Frayne is able to tackle some big themes - old school journalists coming to grips with an emerging tide of bright, young and worryingly efficient graduate trainees; newspaper journos trying to break into the much better paid field of broadcast journalism; the class system; how to get on the property ladder; and race relations - but he does it very deftly and with great humour.

Towards the end of the Morning was written in 1967, but it holds up well as a modern classic. And Frayn's use of dialogue is spot on. He captures the art of conversation very well, often with more than three or four people speaking at once, very tricky if you've ever tried to do it yourself. It is perhaps Frayne's ear for dialogue that has made him such a gifted and much-praised playwright (Copenhagen and Noises Off are two of his more well known ones, although he has written 11 others).

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It would appeal to anyone looking for a fast-paced funny read.

The classic comic Fleet Street Novel, 14 Jan 2002
Written in 1967 (at that time, the present day), the book is set in a Fleet Street which no longer exists. Wapping has long since superseded Grub Street, both in work practices and in technology. Frayn, in hindsight, gives us a fascinating insight into newspaper journalism as it was, not as it is now.
The setting is a monolithic and nameless Fleet Street Daily. Dyson, 40's, a married, mortgaged dreamer and father of two, is head of a backwater covering nature notes, crosswords and "yesteryear". His staff is Bob, an aimless 29 year old single graduate and old Eddy Moulton, nearer the end of his days than he realises and compiler of the "100 Years Ago This Day" column.
Dyson dreams of recognition, wider success and celebrity status but seems unable to escape the lethargy of the work, despite attempting occasional, febrile bursts of it. Bob's chief office activity is eating toffees from a bag in his desk and writing vacuous love letters to his young girlfriend Tess at her finishing school. Eddy spends his days poring over yellowed back numbers and lives wholly in the past.
Life has continued in this way for aeons. What little work done is confined to the late morning, before the staff repair to the pub for the obligatory journalistic liquid lunch and gossip with the other staff hacks. The editor, a distant, shadowy figure, has never been seen by anyone. He communicates, Howard Hughes - like, by note. At one point, he attempts to sack the pictures editor, the embittered Reg. Mounce, using an unsigned memo. Reg., believing this to be a joke perpetrated by his peers, ignores his dismissal, carries on with his job and is still employed weeks later.
The afternoon passes in the customary beery trance until the deadline approaches. In Dyson's
department of course, this has no effect whatsoever, given the timeless nature of the copy. Their only indication that the deadline has passed is the distant rumble of the presses below.
This routine is set to continue for ever, until three things happen. Eddy Moulton dies quietly at his desk, undiscovered for hours; Dyson is asked to appear on late night television with a panel of experts and Bob's girlfriend arrives with marriage written in capitals at the top of her agenda. The comic pace is fast and furious. Eddy's death creates a vacancy for Erskine, a talented, capable and laconic graduate who, within weeks, has taken over the department by stealth.
Dyson has too many pre-TV appearance gins in the hospitality suite and, on air, can say nothing but "how fascinating", again and again. Helpless Bob, loved by Tess, mothered by Mounce's wife and platonically and confusedly desired by Mrs. Dyson, progresses not one of these relationships and fails to take his one chance to escape. It is Erskine, a chilly precursor of the '80s yuppie, who finally wins the rewards.
Frayn's background in journalism as a Guardian and Observer columnist is clearly on show throughout. He uses more than just pale shades of his former colleagues, all finely drawn and
convincingly set in their now vanished dusty Fleet Street offices. How hard it is to imagine any one of them surviving today's frenetic newspaper world! The fast paced, witty narrative carries the reader compulsively from one comic episode to the next, right through to the hilarious climax. Read this accomplished, sophisticated novel. You will not be disappointed.

A brilliant comic novel, 24 Jan 2001
Whilst the journalists have left Fleet Street and the Lunchtime O'Booze is a thing of the past, this book feels very contemporary in its description of London: the middle class professional buying property in a destitute 'up and coming' area, the lure of television, and the tedium of work.

Brilliantly written- economical, trenchant, extremely funny. Justifiably compared to 'Scoop'

Highly highly recommended (in fact, better to my mind than 'Headlong')

Unlikeable characters fantastic plot!!, 07 Dec 2007
Incredibly well written tale of some very unlikeable people all trying to get their greedy mits on one painting. It is a fast paced page turner that you won't be able to put down.

BUT what makes it a real pleasure to read is that it is interspersed with mini lectures on the history of art and the role of the vatican throughout Europe during the middle ages. A true pleasure this one I highly recommend it.

Too clever by half, 03 Apr 2007
After the excellent "Spies" this was a disappointment. A reasonably entertaining (if rather implausible) plot is ruined by frequent and lengthy digression - mostly arcane and speculative musings on 16th century Flemish art. I'm sure it's all clever stuff and meticulously researched, but it's actually rather boring and frustrating when it's holding up the story. Of course it might be suggested that all the discursive cobblers is a necessary device to wind the reader up so that he/she becomes as frustrated with the main character (a complete w*nker) as his poor wife is. The problem is that that kind of literary legerdemain has a tendency to backfire unless it's carefully handled. It isn't here.

In fact the book would have benefitted from putting all the guff about Breugel and his contemporaries into an appendix at the back. As someone with a mild interest in Dutch/Flemish art, I'd have been quite happy to read that at my leisure so long as it wasn't interfering with the narrative flow. I suppose my message to Mr Frayn would be to remember the maxim "No-one likes a smartarse".

Funny, entertaining, interesting and clever - all in one!, 28 Jan 2007
I really enjoyed this engaging literary romp around the mind of a philosopher (or, perhaps, more correctly, I should say his mind and his other mind) and through the 16th century dutch art world. Pleasantly written, with plot that jogs along just as you need it to, you find yourself digesting large amounts of European history without realising you are doing so. This is entertainment learning at its very best.

I liked the way the story flitted between 16th century Holland and 20th century rural England with such ease. I liked the recognisable, engaging characters - especially as they all seemed to warm and fill out as the book went along. Frayn's wit is sharp and pointed - almost to the point of pain at times. I was laughing out loud as Martin circled St James's Square for the seventh time in his clapped out landrover pulling a trailer bound together with baler twine and stinking of sheep's urine, only to miss out on the parking space because he wasn't looking! If there's one thing I didn't think matched the style of the rest of the novel it was the rather flat, cowardly denouement. But I'm not going to spoil the novel for you by telling how it ends.

One other thing. About half way through I realised the book would be so much more enjoyable if I'd had a big, glossy art book with all of Bruegel's pictures in it to hand. I didn't. And the book was too engrossing to put down for a few days while I requested one from the library. So, take a hint, unless you are familiar with the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder already, get a Bruegel book before you start.

Clever and entertaining - a perfect mix., 31 Dec 2006
Forget the turgid mess that is the Da Vinci Code. Welcome to real literature: a good narrative; real characters; meaningful insights; a beginning, middle and end told with aplomb; and diversions into all sorts of apparently disparate but ultimately homogenous subjects. For as well as Brueghel the man, we learn of Brueghel the painter, Brueghel the esoteric, Brueghel the toady, Brueghel the freedom-fighter. There's also the fascinating history of the Dutch fight against Spanish imperialism, the iconography of Medieval books of hours, the philosophy of nominalism versus universalism, and the ins and outs of the London art market. All this wrapped up in a story of a man on a mission to save what he beleives is a lost Brueghel.

Just short of 400 pages, Frayn encapsulates in this novel an apparent light-hearted genre piece that has, in fact, quite profound philosophical touches underneath, in particular commentary about what exactly we see when we see things and how. But you can enjoy it on many levels. One of the best works of fiction I've read this year.

An Uneasy Mix, 01 Jan 2006
Having previously enjoyed Frayn's novel Spies, I thought I'd give him another whirl, and so picked up this earlier work of his. Alas, this is a book caught between two worlds: part of it wants to be a comic romp, and part of it wants to be an art history lesson. The combination is a rather clunky and sporadically enjoyable farce. Set in the English countryside (with occasional forays into London), the story is narrated by philosophy professor Martin, who has relocated to his country cottage for the summer with his art historian wife Julia and baby daughter Tilda. The plot kicks off when they meet their overbearing cliche of a country squire neighbor, who invites them to dinner at his deteriorating mansion.

In his academic pursuits, Martin is currently veering away from philosophy and into his wife's realm, and when the neighbor asks him to look at some old paintings, the plot thickens. You see, Martin is convinced from a brief glance that a large soot-covered panel is actually a missing work of Bruegel (the 16th-century Flemish painter), one from a series titled "The Months" (of which five are extant). Frayn milks this conceit to the max, as Martin rushes too and fro in great secrecy, both attempting to ascertain the work's authenticity and provenance, as well as trying to come up with a con to "have it off" the insufferable neighbor. On the painting side, this involves lots of homework on the iconography and iconology of the work in question, which Frayn handles very clumsily. There is a lot of potted art history cobbled together from various sources, including recountings of the shifting academic debates on "The Months" series. This is all doubtless fascinating to art historians, as Martin recounts all manner of speculation about encoded portrayals of Spanish persecution in the 16th century and the issues of patronage. However, this all goes on at far greater length and detail than most readers will care for. Whenever the art history bits appear, the pace of the proceedings is inevitably ruined, as the light farce gets bogged down in arcana. It also doesn't help that one really needs to have reproductions of the paintings under discussion to look at while reading.

The rest of the book is rather more entertaining, although like many such farces, Martin creates all kinds of unnecessarily extra complications for himself by trying to keep everything secret. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from watching Martin flounder, since he's not a particularly sympathetic character. He's an average upper-middle class academic who sees in the painting his chance to score a few million and get his name in the history books. But he is constantly bedeviled by the uncertain authenticity of the painting and his own lack of funds to set up the sting of his neighbor. Other complications include the neighbor's flirty wife, the neighbor's sharp brother, and plenty of misadventures. It's all sort of funny, but also sort of pathetic to see Martin bumbling around in a cloud of delusional greed. Frayn is certainly adept at skewering types of characters and lifestyle, and his prose is certainly enjoyable, but it's an uneasy mix he's created here.

Fantastic, 24 Jul 2008
I'm no expert on painting but this portfolio is superb value for money. You get 14 prints on a size that is about 90% of A3 card. They are designed for framing purposes. Included in this set is:

Lighthouse Hill
New York Office
Chop Suey
second Story Sunlight
Nighthawks
Sunlight on Brownstones
Cape Cod Evening
Ground Swell
Summertime
The Sheridan Theatre
South Carlina Morning
Conference at Night
Morning Sun
Automat

Nighthawks is the well known painting of this set. So for those of you interested the exact size of this (allowing for equal size borders) is 36.4cm X 21.4cm.

On the back of each, full details are given of the gallery, size and a short informative comment by a critic or the artist themselves.

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, picked apart, and only then understood.

If you want a little bedtime reading, this is perfect - it will send you to sleep. If you want something enjoyable or meaningful, keep well away. And if you're an A level student, stop complaining and just get on with it. Either way you'll have to sit the exam, and if you work with Frayn rather than against him, you'll find it so much easier.


Nostalgic wallow, 01 Jan 2008
I thought this was going to be a wartime novel along the lines of 'Enigma' or something like that: however I found it was basically about 6 weeks in the life of a boy in a rather dull road in a rather dull London suburb. I couldn't stand the girl Barbara and her purse - I don't know whether this was intended. By the way I'm 55 years old and didn't have to read the book for AS level.


Very good , 26 Mar 2008
I used this book when retaking my English Lit AS level, and I acheived an A...While that wasn't totally down to the book, it is concise, accurate and detailed and was very helpful when revising.

However, it is far less important than the book itself, but they would make great companions. A minor irration was that the margins seemed to be filled with useless snipetts of information regarding things related to the book. While a few of them may be interesting, i'd have preferred the space they used to be filled with actual relevant content.

not in depth enough, 21 Mar 2008
The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam.
This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.

An unbiased and honest review, 23 Dec 2007
This is a great revision guide for AS English Literature when studying Spies by Michael Frayn.
Everything you need to know is explained in the guide, and there are also other things which are there to increase your understanding of the novel. I particularly liked the chapter by chapter breakdown, which explains the significance of what goes on in each chapter, and has a glossary to explain words you don't understand. The notes in the column, which guide you to websites and books for further information are also very good, and very well researched.
However, in some of the sections, it would be better if more quotations from the novel had been used to back-up what was written, especially in the themes section. A few example exam questions would have also been nice.
Overall this is an essential revision guide to Spies, and I would highly recommend you buy it.

delivery time, 25 Sep 2007
If you ordered it in June/July that was on pre-order as it wasn't published until early September. I'm the author, and I only got my advance copy on 31 Aug.

Delivery boo boo!, 13 Sep 2007
While I rate this text highly, I was very disappointed in the length of time I had to wait for the text to be delivered. I believe I ordered this text during June/ July and only just received it on the 12th September!

Great writing, entertaining read, 02 Mar 2008
I didn't get the outbursts of laughter of some of the other reviewers but I did thoroughly enjoy Michael Frayn's lively writing style and found the book an entertaining mix of satirizing the vanities and follies of human behaviour but done in a kindly way that made you sympathize with the characters. I can imagine that if you are a journalist there would be things about the descriptions of working for a newspaper that would give extra enjoyment.
I think that this book would probably appeal even more to men than women rather like PG Wodehouse.

Entertaining in parts but inconsistent, 17 Jan 2007
Lets get this straight. Very little of the action of this book takes place in Fleet Street; it is mainly concerned with the travails of a couple of sub-editors trying to find direction in life. The characters are well sketched but the plotlines (such as they are) appear flimsy and ephemeral. The central characters are not particularly likeable, Dyson is suffering a midlife crisis which manifests itself in self-obssessive behaviour, and has assistant, Bob, is a weakwilled nobody, dominated by his neighbour and fiancee. The book would be improved if more focus was placed on the activities of the newspaper as this would at least differentiate it from far superior comic novels such as Sharpe's "Porterhouse Blue" or Amis's "Lucky Jim". The closing chapters cover travel-nightmare territory done much better in Lodge's "Small World" whereas the character of Morris, who joins the cast far too late, appears to have been copied directly from Wodehouse's "Psmith Journalist". Pretty average.

A great comic novel, 19 Apr 2004
This book should come with a warning: don't read in public. Honestly, I have not read such a humourous book in a long time. It is laugh-out-loud funny.

It's set in London at an unspecified newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street. While it's a story about journalism and its struggle with changing work practises and the emerging "glitterati" of television broadcasting, it's essentially a comedy of manners.

At the heart of the story are two journalists - the older, more uptight and ambitious John Dyson, who is anxious to find an easy route out of his mundane job, and the younger, more laidback and directionless Bob Bell, who doesn't have the courage to dump his girlfriend. The two of them work in the crossword and nature notes department but spend most of their time in the local drinking establishments complaining about their jobs and their workloads.

Through their day to day struggles, Frayne is able to tackle some big themes - old school journalists coming to grips with an emerging tide of bright, young and worryingly efficient graduate trainees; newspaper journos trying to break into the much better paid field of broadcast journalism; the class system; how to get on the property ladder; and race relations - but he does it very deftly and with great humour.

Towards the end of the Morning was written in 1967, but it holds up well as a modern classic. And Frayn's use of dialogue is spot on. He captures the art of conversation very well, often with more than three or four people speaking at once, very tricky if you've ever tried to do it yourself. It is perhaps Frayne's ear for dialogue that has made him such a gifted and much-praised playwright (Copenhagen and Noises Off are two of his more well known ones, although he has written 11 others).

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It would appeal to anyone looking for a fast-paced funny read.

The classic comic Fleet Street Novel, 14 Jan 2002
Written in 1967 (at that time, the present day), the book is set in a Fleet Street which no longer exists. Wapping has long since superseded Grub Street, both in work practices and in technology. Frayn, in hindsight, gives us a fascinating insight into newspaper journalism as it was, not as it is now.
The setting is a monolithic and nameless Fleet Street Daily. Dyson, 40's, a married, mortgaged dreamer and father of two, is head of a backwater covering nature notes, crosswords and "yesteryear". His staff is Bob, an aimless 29 year old single graduate and old Eddy Moulton, nearer the end of his days than he realises and compiler of the "100 Years Ago This Day" column.
Dyson dreams of recognition, wider success and celebrity status but seems unable to escape the lethargy of the work, despite attempting occasional, febrile bursts of it. Bob's chief office activity is eating toffees from a bag in his desk and writing vacuous love letters to his young girlfriend Tess at her finishing school. Eddy spends his days poring over yellowed back numbers and lives wholly in the past.
Life has continued in this way for aeons. What little work done is confined to the late morning, before the staff repair to the pub for the obligatory journalistic liquid lunch and gossip with the other staff hacks. The editor, a distant, shadowy figure, has never been seen by anyone. He communicates, Howard Hughes - like, by note. At one point, he attempts to sack the pictures editor, the embittered Reg. Mounce, using an unsigned memo. Reg., believing this to be a joke perpetrated by his peers, ignores his dismissal, carries on with his job and is still employed weeks later.
The afternoon passes in the customary beery trance until the deadline approaches. In Dyson's
department of course, this has no effect whatsoever, given the timeless nature of the copy. Their only indication that the deadline has passed is the distant rumble of the presses below.
This routine is set to continue for ever, until three things happen. Eddy Moulton dies quietly at his desk, undiscovered for hours; Dyson is asked to appear on late night television with a panel of experts and Bob's girlfriend arrives with marriage written in capitals at the top of her agenda. The comic pace is fast and furious. Eddy's death creates a vacancy for Erskine, a talented, capable and laconic graduate who, within weeks, has taken over the department by stealth.
Dyson has too many pre-TV appearance gins in the hospitality suite and, on air, can say nothing but "how fascinating", again and again. Helpless Bob, loved by Tess, mothered by Mounce's wife and platonically and confusedly desired by Mrs. Dyson, progresses not one of these relationships and fails to take his one chance to escape. It is Erskine, a chilly precursor of the '80s yuppie, who finally wins the rewards.
Frayn's background in journalism as a Guardian and Observer columnist is clearly on show throughout. He uses more than just pale shades of his former colleagues, all finely drawn and
convincingly set in their now vanished dusty Fleet Street offices. How hard it is to imagine any one of them surviving today's frenetic newspaper world! The fast paced, witty narrative carries the reader compulsively from one comic episode to the next, right through to the hilarious climax. Read this accomplished, sophisticated novel. You will not be disappointed.

A brilliant comic novel, 24 Jan 2001
Whilst the journalists have left Fleet Street and the Lunchtime O'Booze is a thing of the past, this book feels very contemporary in its description of London: the middle class professional buying property in a destitute 'up and coming' area, the lure of television, and the tedium of work.

Brilliantly written- economical, trenchant, extremely funny. Justifiably compared to 'Scoop'

Highly highly recommended (in fact, better to my mind than 'Headlong')

Unlikeable characters fantastic plot!!, 07 Dec 2007
Incredibly well written tale of some very unlikeable people all trying to get their greedy mits on one painting. It is a fast paced page turner that you won't be able to put down.

BUT what makes it a real pleasure to read is that it is interspersed with mini lectures on the history of art and the role of the vatican throughout Europe during the middle ages. A true pleasure this one I highly recommend it.

Too clever by half, 03 Apr 2007
After the excellent "Spies" this was a disappointment. A reasonably entertaining (if rather implausible) plot is ruined by frequent and lengthy digression - mostly arcane and speculative musings on 16th century Flemish art. I'm sure it's all clever stuff and meticulously researched, but it's actually rather boring and frustrating when it's holding up the story. Of course it might be suggested that all the discursive cobblers is a necessary device to wind the reader up so that he/she becomes as frustrated with the main character (a complete w*nker) as his poor wife is. The problem is that that kind of literary legerdemain has a tendency to backfire unless it's carefully handled. It isn't here.

In fact the book would have benefitted from putting all the guff about Breugel and his contemporaries into an appendix at the back. As someone with a mild interest in Dutch/Flemish art, I'd have been quite happy to read that at my leisure so long as it wasn't interfering with the narrative flow. I suppose my message to Mr Frayn would be to remember the maxim "No-one likes a smartarse".

Funny, entertaining, interesting and clever - all in one!, 28 Jan 2007
I really enjoyed this engaging literary romp around the mind of a philosopher (or, perhaps, more correctly, I should say his mind and his other mind) and through the 16th century dutch art world. Pleasantly written, with plot that jogs along just as you need it to, you find yourself digesting large amounts of European history without realising you are doing so. This is entertainment learning at its very best.

I liked the way the story flitted between 16th century Holland and 20th century rural England with such ease. I liked the recognisable, engaging characters - especially as they all seemed to warm and fill out as the book went along. Frayn's wit is sharp and pointed - almost to the point of pain at times. I was laughing out loud as Martin circled St James's Square for the seventh time in his clapped out landrover pulling a trailer bound together with baler twine and stinking of sheep's urine, only to miss out on the parking space because he wasn't looking! If there's one thing I didn't think matched the style of the rest of the novel it was the rather flat, cowardly denouement. But I'm not going to spoil the novel for you by telling how it ends.

One other thing. About half way through I realised the book would be so much more enjoyable if I'd had a big, glossy art book with all of Bruegel's pictures in it to hand. I didn't. And the book was too engrossing to put down for a few days while I requested one from the library. So, take a hint, unless you are familiar with the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder already, get a Bruegel book before you start.

Clever and entertaining - a perfect mix., 31 Dec 2006
Forget the turgid mess that is the Da Vinci Code. Welcome to real literature: a good narrative; real characters; meaningful insights; a beginning, middle and end told with aplomb; and diversions into all sorts of apparently disparate but ultimately homogenous subjects. For as well as Brueghel the man, we learn of Brueghel the painter, Brueghel the esoteric, Brueghel the toady, Brueghel the freedom-fighter. There's also the fascinating history of the Dutch fight against Spanish imperialism, the iconography of Medieval books of hours, the philosophy of nominalism versus universalism, and the ins and outs of the London art market. All this wrapped up in a story of a man on a mission to save what he beleives is a lost Brueghel.

Just short of 400 pages, Frayn encapsulates in this novel an apparent light-hearted genre piece that has, in fact, quite profound philosophical touches underneath, in particular commentary about what exactly we see when we see things and how. But you can enjoy it on many levels. One of the best works of fiction I've read this year.

An Uneasy Mix, 01 Jan 2006
Having previously enjoyed Frayn's novel Spies, I thought I'd give him another whirl, and so picked up this earlier work of his. Alas, this is a book caught between two worlds: part of it wants to be a comic romp, and part of it wants to be an art history lesson. The combination is a rather clunky and sporadically enjoyable farce. Set in the English countryside (with occasional forays into London), the story is narrated by philosophy professor Martin, who has relocated to his country cottage for the summer with his art historian wife Julia and baby daughter Tilda. The plot kicks off when they meet their overbearing cliche of a country squire neighbor, who invites them to dinner at his deteriorating mansion.

In his academic pursuits, Martin is currently veering away from philosophy and into his wife's realm, and when the neighbor asks him to look at some old paintings, the plot thickens. You see, Martin is convinced from a brief glance that a large soot-covered panel is actually a missing work of Bruegel (the 16th-century Flemish painter), one from a series titled "The Months" (of which five are extant). Frayn milks this conceit to the max, as Martin rushes too and fro in great secrecy, both attempting to ascertain the work's authenticity and provenance, as well as trying to come up with a con to "have it off" the insufferable neighbor. On the painting side, this involves lots of homework on the iconography and iconology of the work in question, which Frayn handles very clumsily. There is a lot of potted art history cobbled together from various sources, including recountings of the shifting academic debates on "The Months" series. This is all doubtless fascinating to art historians, as Martin recounts all manner of speculation about encoded portrayals of Spanish persecution in the 16th century and the issues of patronage. However, this all goes on at far greater length and detail than most readers will care for. Whenever the art history bits appear, the pace of the proceedings is inevitably ruined, as the light farce gets bogged down in arcana. It also doesn't help that one really needs to have reproductions of the paintings under discussion to look at while reading.

The rest of the book is rather more entertaining, although like many such farces, Martin creates all kinds of unnecessarily extra complications for himself by trying to keep everything secret. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from watching Martin flounder, since he's not a particularly sympathetic character. He's an average upper-middle class academic who sees in the painting his chance to score a few million and get his name in the history books. But he is constantly bedeviled by the uncertain authenticity of the painting and his own lack of funds to set up the sting of his neighbor. Other complications include the neighbor's flirty wife, the neighbor's sharp brother, and plenty of misadventures. It's all sort of funny, but also sort of pathetic to see Martin bumbling around in a cloud of delusional greed. Frayn is certainly adept at skewering types of characters and lifestyle, and his prose is certainly enjoyable, but it's an uneasy mix he's created here.

Fantastic, 24 Jul 2008
I'm no expert on painting but this portfolio is superb value for money. You get 14 prints on a size that is about 90% of A3 card. They are designed for framing purposes. Included in this set is:

Lighthouse Hill
New York Office
Chop Suey
second Story Sunlight
Nighthawks
Sunlight on Brownstones
Cape Cod Evening
Ground Swell
Summertime
The Sheridan Theatre
South Carlina Morning
Conference at Night
Morning Sun
Automat

Nighthawks is the well known painting of this set. So for those of you interested the exact size of this (allowing for equal size borders) is 36.4cm X 21.4cm.

On the back of each, full details are given of the gallery, size and a short informative comment by a critic or the artist themselves.

Absolutely Brilliant, 22 Dec 2007
This has got to be one of the funniest and most succesful plays ever written. I saw it with Peter Egan,Patricia Hodge, Jeff Rawle and many more famous names in the cast, in fact I am writing this review with a photo of the cast on the wall in front of me. Its also a staple of the amateur dramatic societies and it was so succesful with one of our leading groups that it's run was extended for an extra week. Highly recommended. Another play I can recommend which seems to be doing well with Amdram Societies is a comedy bordering on farce called Lust In The Dust from New Theatre Publications.

Brilliant farce, 02 Jul 2002
As a second language learner, I think this is play is full of witty language and word play. It reveals the wits of British English. I've read both editions of 1982 and 2000, both gave me the vivid pictures of the play. I could almost catch the most features of the play. The houmour, the timing, the farcical errors happened in the play are all arranged perfectly.

Very very funny!, 16 Feb 2002
Noises Off has to be one of the funniest things I have ever read. As the cast relations go as wrong as they can you see how that is shown in a second rate production of sex farce. Although at somes stages it becomes a bit to hard to read - after all it was was made to be seen rather than be read - it still worth it and you won't help several laughs (those who make your stomach hurt). Makes you think you so much rubbish is categorized as "comedy": go for this - it's the real thing!

Hilarious. I almost laughed my head off. At the theatre., 09 Jan 2002
Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" is the farce to end all farces, a hilariously funny play that had me fall off my theatre seat repeatedly because I just couldn't stop laughing. A group of moderately talented actors attempts to perform a bedroom farce called "Nothing On", but their own incompentence and personal disagreements get in the way to result in perfect, bizarre chaos.

This is one of the funniest plays I've ever seen. Much of the humour, however, depends on seeing the whole thing acted out on stage. It's not nearly half as funny if you read it as a book.

That said, if this play comes to a theatre near you, go and watch it by all means!! If afterwards you want something to remember it by, buy this book.

The play would get 5 stars easily, the book is barely a replacement for seeing the whole thing live, so it's just 4 stars from me.

A superbly funny farce., 04 Jul 2001
This play is sure to go down in history as a farce of great merit. All the elements of farce are there from the dumb blonde to the randy young guy but here we get it two-fold as we see both a farce in rehearsal ('Nothing On') and the play we are watching. It gives a great insight into how backstage relationships effect on stage performances and is a must for any actor or anyone with dramatic notions, or just anyone who wants a good laugh on many different levels. Truely excellent.

Just boring!, 30 Oct 2008
I've just finished reading this book and I'm amazed that it won the Whitbread Prize. From start to finish I was bored and didn't care about the characters or the plot.
I'm sure Frayn's writing style(moving between the adult and child voice, and first and third person narration) is skilled and to be admired, however, for the most part rather than being fluent and flowing it is distorted and confusing.
The book has been criticised for having an over elaborate plot, and is some ways it does. Nevertheless, it is a work of fiction and so I can accept that. What I can't accept is 200 pages of slow paced narrative. So much of Frayn's writing is centred on description of setting, and while I recognise that this is important when establishing atmosphere, there is simply too much and you find yourself reading 4 or 5 pages describing, for the hundreth time, the the smells and sights of the Close where Stephen lived.
I'm a teacher and read this book as I was going to read it with a Year 9 class. Having read it I feel it would be a cruel and unusual punishment to make them endure reading this book. It simply wouldn't appeal to any normal teengager.

I was actually considering suicide..., 04 Sep 2008
We had to read this book as part of AS English Literature course, and in all honesty, it was an awful book. I pushed on though and forced myself to read chapter after boring chapter expecting a half decent ending after reading pages and pages of drivel but no....a completely random ending that just sprang itself out of nowhere! There was too much description and not enough actual story!

Pretentious and boring, 26 Feb 2008
From the first chapter to the last, this book was painful to read. The plot was ridiculous and the over-used theme of childhood innocence is neither new or exciting.

As a student..., 22 Feb 2008
Yes, this book is long-winded, overly nostalgic and pointless, and yes, I hated studying it at A level, but it is that ridiculously over-crafted tone that makes this a perfect exam text. Every character can be seen from infinite angles and argued about for eternity, the plot is unclear and unstructured, but that's exactly Frayn's point. It's almost as if he's writing to be studied, pi