Skios

by Michael Frayn

On the sunlit Greek island of Skios, the Fred Toppler Foundation's annual lecture is to be given by Dr Norman Wilfred, the world-famous authority on the scientific organisation of science. He turns out to be surprisingly young and charming—not at all the intimidating figure they had been expecting. The Foundation's guests are soon eating out of his hand. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the attractive and efficient organiser. Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old school-friend Georgie waits for the notorious chancer she has rashly agreed to go on holiday with, and who has only too characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped in the villa with her, by an unfortunate chain of misadventure, is a balding old gent called Dr Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper and increasingly all normal sense of reality—everything he possesses apart from the flyblown text of a well-travelled lecture on the scientific organisation of science...

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Greece, Contemporary, Book Club, Audiobook, Comedy

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Michael Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin, the biographer and literary journalist.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 'mistaken identity' farce takes place on the beautiful Greek island of Skios.



Dr. Norman Wilfred, a well-known British scientist (in some very small circles), is on his way to deliver an esoteric lecture to the annual meeting of the hoity-toity Fred Toppler Foundation.



Wilfred's been invited by the event organizer, Nikki Hook - who believes she's found a gem of a lecturer (unlike her predecessors' poor boring choices).



The plane to Skios is also carrying fellow Brit Oliver Fox, a good-looking playboy who's planned an illicit tryst in a borrowed villa with a woman he hardly knows.



When their plane reaches the Skios airport Dr. Wilfred is briefly delayed and Oliver succumbs to a naughty impulse: when Nikki approaches him to ask if he's Dr. Wilfred he says yes. Thus Oliver is wafted off to the gorgeous Fred Toppler compound......



.....and, by dint of the language barrier, Dr. Wilfred's taxi driver takes him to the villa meant for Oliver's lovers' tryst.



Moreover, because they have similar luggage, Oliver takes Dr. Wilfred's bag and Dr. Wilfred is left frustrated and luggage-less.

Nikki and the guests at the Fred Toppler event are charmed by handsome Oliver, who's adept at telling lies and making himself plausible.



Meanwhile poor Dr. Wilfred is mistaken for a potential rapist by Oliver's date, who shows up at the villa before she's expected.



Things get even worse when Oliver's long-time (but currently estranged girlfriend) shows up and is mistaken for the cleaning lady.



True to the mistaken identity genre the complications escalate through the story, providing some fun scenes. To add to the mayhem there's rivalry among Toppler foundation employees and a gang with it's own agenda.





I found the main characters engaging (if a bit obtuse) and the book entertaining. However the story requires a huge suspension of disbelief. In this internet age, would Nikki (with access to Google) mistake young, handsome Oliver for middle-aged Dr. Wilfred? And could Oliver - who knows nothing about science - convince intelligent people he's an expert? In any case the story races along to a finale that's explosive but not quite satisfactory.

Overall this is a fun easy read, good for a vacation or plane ride.

You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/

[Judith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was going to be very gently disparaging about this book, always thinking that the author could accidentally happen on this site and accidentally read a review and he seems like a nice guy so I didn't want to accidentally hurt his feelings. Then I did something I never do which was to look at the other reviews on this site BEFORE I wrote my review and I saw that he has such rave reviews he can toss off mine like crumbs from the breakfast toast. So since there is no risk of the author slitting his wrists, i will say this book stink, stank, stunk.

The art behind a comedy of errors is in the set-up: your audience needs to believe at least for one moment that the set up could ( in some world ) actually occur. Here a brilliant scientific lecturer flies to Skios, an island in Greece for an extremely exclusive conference at which he is to deliver a brilliant lecture at an exclusive and luxurious compound heavily guarded and hidden. At this little tiny airport another passenger picks up his luggage accidentally and with no forethought answers by his name when approached by the very efficient (?) employee who has been sent to meet the brilliant scientist. So he goes to the exclusive compound and the brilliant scientist answers to the no-name's name "accidentally" when approached by the taxi driver who takes him to an isolated island cottage. Believe it so far? No neither did I. Sorry. Not even good for a Hallmark movie of the week.

[Hanneke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can't believe this book was on the 2012 Booker longlist. What a silly book this is or is it slapstick comedy? You can almost hear the canned laughter in the background. Anyway, I found it definitely very UNfunny

[notgettingenough · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

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

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

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

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is seriously funny. Exceedingly few books have ever made me laugh out loud like this one did, numerous times. If Peter Sellers was still alive, it would make a perfect movie starring him. It's basically all about cases (numerous) of mistaken identity, to hilarious effect. Highly recommended.

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best selling author's mistaken identity / swapped lives farce that, to me, tries too hard to be funny, and thus is not funny. 4 out of 12.

[Berengaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down

"Skios" is a comedy of errors (mistaken identity) that takes on the philosophical question of who a person really is, and who others take him to be. Very interesting stuff and the ending does a deep-dive into this topic -- but it would have worked MUCH better as a movie script than a novel.

The plot in philosophical summary:
Nothing is certain, not even our own identity. People are shallow and only interested in their own business, their own narrow POVs. The more so that they are (heads up their own behinds), the more they judge books (read: people) by their covers. This makes a large majority of humans easily dupable and gets them into all sorts of messes with the charming, the pretty and the stupid.

Frayn is a good writer in total control of his material, even if readers who have read "Spies," "A Landing on the Sun" or "Headlong" will most likely be disappointed with this departure from his normal (novel) style.

In short: Watch the action like it's a silly movie, but take the message very seriously.

[Lemar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“She went into the bedroom, turned down the cover, and laid out the white bathrobe and slippers, as richly fluffy has the hide of a subtropical polar bear.” Equally as rich and fluffy is this hilarious novel about a kind of Ted talk on a posh Greek island retreat.

Michael Frayn sets the scene with superbly drawn characters reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse. It’s often said that ‘hilarity ensues’, here, in Skios, it does! This is my first Frayn but already I accept him as a master of topping off funny farcical settings and characters with the exact right words.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Deeply stupid.

I just noticed that this was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Of course it was.

It could have been a funny and worthy novel. The overlearned academic in a Davos-type situation, except with half the learned audience replaced by numskulls, had potential. But Frayn took it off the deep end early, and from there it couldn't go anywhere good.

So despite being a short novel, it quickly became tedious and repetitive.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skios may a play posing as a novel, but it is in good company: practically all the characters in this very funny farce are pretending to be someone they are not. And those that don’t pretend to be someone else have it forced upon them. I listened to the audio production of this book, performed with great comedic timing by Robin Sachs, and feel sure that this book is best enjoyed as a performance rather than as a reading experience.

The Fred Toppler Foundation, established by a once-stripper wife of Fred Toppler on the the charming Greek island of Skios, hosts renowned social scientist Dr. Norman Wilfred to give a talk to the movers and shakers of the monied world about the scientific management of science—a topic sure to engross wealthy foundation donors like high-level political figures from Greece, robber barons from Russia, bishops and priests from the Hesperides Archipeligo, and the second-richest couple in Rhode Island. But when performance artist Oliver Fox decides on the spur-of-the-moment to impersonate Dr. Wilfred, things begin immediately to unravel.

Frayn cleverly involves us in the riot that follows by presaging the novel’s action with a word or a phrase, giving us time to laugh in advance and allowing us to give our own imaginations full rein before he pulls us back with yet another, deeper, more unlikely authorial intervention. This is a light-hearted, sunny farce, and I hope Frayn spent lovely warm days enjoying the embrace of an island foundation to write it. That is the perfect revenge.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It makes sense that Michael Frayn is best known for his plays, because it is impossible to read this without seeing it staged in my mind. Only after I finished it did I realize he is the same playwright who wrote Noises Off. It has the same feeling to it - farce, silliness, chaos, characters who are so wrapped up in being themselves that they don't pay attention or fix their own problems; necessary for the entire thing to work.

Instead of a stage, this is set on a tiny Greek isle. I laughed a lot and took intentional breaks because it went by too quickly, and I wanted to enjoy it.

As far as novels set in Greece go, it would be hard to displace The Magus, but this was still good.

[Elina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Πολύ έξυπνο στόρι αλλά παραπάνω υπερβολή από όσο θα πρεπε, εις βάρος πάντα της αληθοφάνειας.

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skios - Michael Frayn   
Wow! I can't think when I last read a farce, let alone enjoyed one. Probably it was Noises Off. It's difficult to maintain the suspension of disbelief in a text; in a play or film the pace of the action doesn't give one time to consider just how silly, how contrived, how unnatural the whole exercise is. And because Frayn is very skilled, he keeps one from dwelling on how absurd it is, while never forgetting for an instant just how absurd it is.
I don't think I actually laughed out loud, but I loved every silly minute of it.
Library copy

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set on the fictional Greek island of Skios, this is a comedy of errors based on multiple cases of mistaken identities. The basic set up involves Oliver Fox, a British comedian and performance artist, deciding on a whim to impersonate the brilliant social scientist Dr. Wilfred Norman, who arrives on the same flight and is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Toppler Foundation’s annual conference. Oliver is motivated by the adrenaline rush he gets from the risks associated with assuming someone else’s identity and trying to get away with it. From there it spirals into multiple meetings among friends and other characters who are, at first, presumed to be someone they are not. It is laugh-out-loud-funny in places. If you enjoy absurdist humor, give this one a try. I thought about giving it five stars, but the ending is so outrageous that I couldn’t quite do it. Still, it is a fun and enjoyable read. I highly recommend the audiobook, brilliantly performed by Robin Sachs.

[Michael Kipnis · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, I have to admit that I had some doubts with my rating of the book. From the one hand, in its genre it is a very good example of easy-reding, it might be mentioned that "Skios" does not pretend to be a serious book with strong system of images, which needs careful analysis. Moreover, when I discovered that the author, Michael Frayn, is 80 years old I was almost shocked, because the book looks very contemporary, it has very nice language, without difficult constructions. So, it is not masterpiece for rating 5, but a very strong 4. From the other hand, even for rating 4 the book is not very touchable, from my point of view. Oliver Fox has not enough charm, the women are a little bit silly, the actions of Wilfred are not understandable. The majority of heroes are "stamps" (unlucky, absent-minded scientist, young girl etc) I was not quite sure if this book was worthy of even 4 (in parallel with another books og genre "easy-reading").
Nevertheless, I want to emphasize the moments which I liked in "Skios". Firstly, the plot is quite greeping, even though it is very old (I mean the idea of "missing identities"), it is the advantage of the book. To my mind, this thought is the deepest of the book: the question, of who we are, and who we want to be is still unanswered and everyone has his own answer. Secondly, some episodes (I would not spoil) are really laughable. Finally, I practically always appreciate the idea of "invented geographical object", like the island "Skios", because it is a good metaphor.
In conclusion, I may recommend this book for the leisure time, when you do not feel enthusiastic to read a serious literary work. It is indeed well written, and also out of respect the experience of the author my rating is 4.

[Jim Leffert · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the author of that sublime theatrical farce, Noises Off, comes this loopy tale. It's about an array of misguided characters who get into a barrel full of pickles at a foundation’s annual conference at the foundation's archeologically rich and scenic estate on Skios, a Greek island. Front and center, we have the invited keynote speaker, Norman Wilfred, who ends up elsewhere on the island, and a charming bounder named Oliver Fox, who is taking his place. Fox, who has swiped Wilfred’s identity, gets a royal welcome at the foundation.

As the weekend progresses, the clock irrevocably ticks toward the moment when the feted Oliver, who has half convinced himself that he truly is Norman Wilfred, must give the keynote address. Alas, the address is still in Dr. Wilfred’s possession. The approach of this unstoppable moment of truth and the many moments along the way when the guests throw questions at their ersatz honored guest, provide tension to the story.

There are numerous subplots involving the rest of the cast of characters (the real Dr. Wilfred included), and a charming sendup of the mélange of academics, jet-setting donors, and scheming foundation staffers who are in attendance. Farce, especially one in which the author keeps adding more and more complications, depends on intricate plot machinery. Frayn is not just content to fashion his convoluted plot; he gets extra mileage out shining a spotlight on the machinations to poke fun at notions of free will and causality. Frayn also exploits the confusion between Oliver Fox and Norman Wilfred to fool around with the question of the nature and malleability of identity.

[Nicola Sheppey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book for a holiday read after spotting it in Waterstones. The reviews and the fact it was longlisted for the Booker prize grabbed me; I wanted a light, easy read but also something clever and unique. This did not look set to disappoint... but sadly, it did.

The opening was promising, but as the book progressed it felt like it was going in circles. The characters made stupid decisions and didn't seem to treat their situations seriously at all. Oliver was downright dislikable, I pitied Dr Wilfred, and the other interchangeable characters made some unbelievably stupid decisions that left me shaking my head (I mean, she READS HIS PASSPORT a good few times before clocking on to the fact he's lying about his identity - once and briefly I could forgive, but more than that was ridiculous, as was 'phoksoliva' and 'the cleaning lady').

I didn't laugh once, which was disappointing. I thought the writing was pretty sloppy, too, particularly with the repetition of the 2 moles fact (we get it already) so I was shocked when I realised this was coming from the author of Spies. The ending was far too dark and then passed over as if it had never happened. None of the characters seemed to learn anything along the way, and I found it very unlikely that after a long career as an established professor, Dr Wilfred would simply think 'maybe I don't want to give this lecture, maybe this isn't for me.' It was all too unbelievable.

I'm pretty surprised at the positive reviews but I haven't read much farce before, so this could be a bright spark for the genre. I think I'll be steering clear in future.

[Dillwynia Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

TECHNOLOGY KILLS FARCE!!!!!

When one thinks of all the stories of mistaken identity and the funny consequences that have been written about over the centuries, one suddenly wonders why it is absent from literature now. Or so I thought, but as I read this it hit me. Modern technology has killed this off. You can't be easily mistaken with the volume of data about everyone - all those pics, all that documentation etc.

And this is why this book has serious issues; in fact, it only works if you go into comedy where belief is suspended. That's OK - we happily read about vampires & werewolves in ordinary situations, so it isn't that hard here. Once, one does that, this book is funny, witty, bitchy and playful. The characterisations of the wealthy Americans, and the English, who are just every so slightly shifty is plain hilarious.

I can understand why this book both was Shortlisted, but didn't win the Man Booker Prize. It matches all the other very high quality shortlisted novels, but not the high brow literature that marks the winners of Man Booker.

I think this is a great relaxation read that probably will not make it to 50 years. This is OK - not every book in each age has been carried through to us.

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous. Hilarious. Absurd. Funny. All of these words can be used to adequately describe the tightly written, complex ensemble of off the wall characters that populate the world of Michael Frayn’s Skios, but only one word can accurately describe the story itself: farce. Judging this novel by the very definition of this word – a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot – Skios effortlessly exceeds all expectations, but is worthy of the Man Booker Prize? Ultimately that’s a difficult question to answer.

I could spend time telling you all about this one, but that’s already been done well enough as part of the BookerMarks project here and here again. The only thing I can add to what’s already been written is that buried underneath the comedy, Frayn’s investigation of identity and what we’ll all but force ourselves into believing no matter how much we know it to be untrue, is pitch perfect. Yes, the examples he offers up for his theories are fantastical to say the least, but it doesn’t make them any less interesting, only all that more entertaining.

READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/skios...

[Egor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sort of those nice books that you read without trying to follow the plot or getting the main idea - you read just to enjoy the process. From this point of view, Skios is perfect.
However, there are some weaknesses to complain of. First of all, the plot was really complicated, even a bit labyrinthine, especially for a non-native speaker. It took me really long to puzzle out who was who. What really puzzled me is that Annuka Vos, a character that was mentioned only in few odd remarks, finally appeared close to the end of the book.
Still, the humour is splendid, even though it is quite simple. As a consequence of a complicated plot, there is a large amount of absurd, but hilarious situations (for example, an episode with Wilfried, Georgie and a sunblock). That is what makes this book so nice. I also loved the way it is structured, so that the reader is able to follow characters’ feelings of the future events.
Anyway, Skios is wonderful. It might be silly and odd, it might not deal with a severe problem, but it’s just funny and that’s enough to enjoy this book. I loved Skios and I would certainly recommend it to anyone.

[yexxo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ach war das schön! Endlich mal wieder eine Komödie im besten Sinne des Wortes. Kein lauter Schenkelklopfer, eher eine 'Schmunzelgeschichte' da man das Grinsen nicht wieder wegbekommt, bevor man das Buch aus der Hand legt.
Dr. Norman Wilfred, ein berühmter Wissenschaftler, reist auf die kleine griechische Insel Skios, um dort bei der Fred-Toppler-Stiftung (die die zivilisierten Werte fördert, was immer die auch sein mögen) einen Vortrag zu halten - der Höhepunkt der jährlichen Hausparty. Gleichzeitig erreicht auch Oliver Fox die Insel, ein charmanter Hochstapler, der nichts anderes macht, als der zu sein, den sich andere wünschen. Dies führt zwangsläufig zu diversen Ärgernissen, wenn sich offenbart, dass er doch nur - Oliver Fox ist. Auf Skios ist er nun Dr. Norman Wilfred und wird freudig von Nikki, der rechten Hand der Vorsitzenden der Fred-Toppler-Stiftung, in Empfang genommen, ebenso wie von allen anderen Gästen. Währenddessen landet der echte Dr. Norman Wilfred in der Pampa, wenngleich in äußerst luxeriöser Umgebung.
Wie sich nun ein Missverständnis ans andere reiht, Koffer vertauscht werden und wieder zurück vertauscht, Männer in fremden Schlafzimmern landen und Frauen Nächte im Bad verbringen, drei Frauen hinter einem Mann her sind und hinter einem anderen keine einzige, ist einfach ein köstlicher Spaß. Zudem wirft der Autor einen äußerst genauen wie auch ironischen Blick auf die vermutlich(?) typischen Anwesenden einer solchen Veranstaltung - High Society, der es ums Sehen und Gesehenwerden geht, während gleichzeitig legale, halblegale und illegale Geschäfte getätigt werden. Der Einzige, der tatsächlich versteht, worum es bei dem Vortrag gehen soll, wird schlicht mundtot gemacht und eher als Spielverderber betrachtet.
Eine wirklich schöne Lektüre, die einem einige äußerst vergnügliche Stunden bereitet.

[DubaiReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cringeworthy.
Having thoroughly enjoyed Spies by Michael Frayn, I have not found the other books that I've read by him to be anywhere near as good. Skios was no exception. It was full of irritatingly stupid people with no idea where they are or what they are supposed to be doing. It was better suited to a play in the genre of farce, which I would then avoid.

The main character is Oliver Fox, who decides to take on the identity of Dr Norman Wilfred, simply because he takes a fancy to the young lady holding a placard bearing that name at Skios airport. It turns out that Dr Norman Wilfred is due to give an important speech at the Toppler Foundation and VIPs have come from all over the world to hear it. Oliver Fox is a bit of a stand-up commedian and manages to fool many of the VIPs by waffling a lot of nonsense.
Meanwhile, the real Dr Norman Wilfred finds himself at a villa with the young lady who Oliver Fox was supposed to liaise with for an illicit weekend. Needless to say she is not impressed to find this elderly gentleman in her bed.
After a lot of screaming and flat or lost mobile phones, some sort of a solution evolves. By this time I was so bored and frustrated that I was not in the slightest bit interested.

I listened to this as an unabridged audiobook, if I had been reading it I would have abandoned it and given it just one star. This has been my worst read so far this year and I have no idea what it was doing in the Booker Long List.

Also read by Michael Frayn:
Spies (5 stars)
Headlong (3 stars)
Sweet Dreams (2 stars)

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think reading this book isn't the waste of time. It's hilarious, easy and it just helps you to relax after a busy day.
I like it when there are a lot of plot lines in the book and in the end they all come to one point. All characters meet with each other, the truth comes out and everything seems so clear, because all secrets are out... And then there's another plot twist, and you wonder, how it could happen and what if it didn't happen.
The plot is gripping, because you can't even imagine what the characters will do in these absurd and awkward situations. And you can definitely say that this story isn't real: there are too many coincidences and there's no way that nobody have guessed the true identity. You can even say that the characters do foolish things, but they just do what they are supposed to do and they see what they want to see. And the true charm of the book is in this foolishness and absurdity.
This book isn't supposed to make you really think and reconsider something in your life. It can brighten your day and cheer you up. Or it can just help you to get through a dull trip. So I will recommend it to anyone who wants to relax and who isn't afraid of the unpredictable plot twists.

[Biogeek · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointment from the author of the hilarious Noises Off, the absurd Headlong and the moving Spies. This novel must have been envisioned as French farce, but lacked the witty dialog or believable scenarios that a contemporary audience looks for. While it has enough mistaken identities to fill a swimming pool, and every chapter seems to revolve around a well-mistimed entrance or exit, the novel also unfortunately is populated by British yuppies, a stereotypical academic and caricatures of various nationalities. I have to admit I skimmed the last 50 pages, which may explain my feeling that the resolution made no sense at all. Most damning of all, I barely chuckled at any point.

[MTK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Αδικώ το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο, γιατί το διάβασα σε λάθος τόπο και χρόνο. Ιδανικά είναι κατάλληλο για να το διαβάσεις το καλοκαίρι στην παραλία: το τελειώνεις μέσα σε μια μέρα, άντε σε δύο, και μετά ίσως το αφήνεις στο λόμπι του ξενοδοχείου για κανέναν άλλο τουρίστα, γιατί δεν αξίζει να το κουβαλάς πίσω στο σπίτι, δεν πρόκειται να το ξαναπιάσεις. Δεν είναι κακό, απλά είναι μια ανάλαφρη καλοκαιρινή κωμωδία σε μορφή βιβλίου, σε διασκεδάζει μεν, αλλά κατά τα λοιπά περασε και δεν ακούμπησε. Επίσης, περιέχει μερικά κουραστικά έως προσβλητικά στερεότυπα για τους Έλληνες.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

November 2020: Joy (I said to myself), has 2020 been too much? Are the illnesses, fires, floods, politics, shootings and financial difficulties getting you down? Do you feel alienated? Are you full of rage and despair. Do you wish all your fellow citizens had studied PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY with Mr. R.? Is that what's bothering you, sister? Well, buck up, cheer up, and lighten up! Try reading a humorous book, a book by Mark Twain, Anthony Trollop, Tina Fey or Michael Frayn.

SKIOS is a farce, a story of mistaken identity and stolen identity. At the airport on the Greek island of Skios, luggage is mixed up and a quick-thinking hustler claims the bag, accommodation and name of a rather pompous lecturer. Hi-jinks ensue, drawing in other pompous, clueless, wealthy people, who have come to the island for a lecture on the arcane subject of "The scientific organization of science."
The grifter with the professor's name plans to give the lecture without even knowing the subject of the lecture. The professor, stranded at a villa he believes to be the site of the lecture, makes inept efforts to contact the sponsoring foundation, never getting beyond the receptionist whose English is poor. It's all very amusing until the last few chapters when it "jumps the shark," becomes ridiculous and, even hard to follow.
As far as cheering me up: it didn't work.

[Haley Sabaka · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was UNHINGED and a perfect read for a plane ride. Light, funny, and completely chaotic. I would have given it 3 stars, but the ending was unsatisfactory with all the build up.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this novel, I thought a lot about prose (as opposed to dramatic) farce, why it is difficult to write and why it is an excellent discipline for aspiring writers.

Farce is a very formal genre, with rules equivalent to meter and rhyme scheme. But it is genre written downhill. Setting up the situations gives them a momentum that an author has to keep up with in order to control. A farce out of control is not a farce. That is why most farcical American literature is something other than farce. And that is why it could be so valuable for an aspiring writer to try a farce, to work on control and the discipline of self-expression.

Frayn shows better than most how self-expression can be incorporated in a farce. Besides being a playwright and novelist, Frayn is something of a philosopher. His book The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe is a large volume of philosophy for a semi-popular audience that I highly recommend. And Skios, while very funny (although rarely LOL, at least to me), deals with existential themes, and especially with identity (and some of the things that form our identity, such as self-deception and our lack of self-confidence). It’s a very intelligent, thoughtful novel, but on the run.

One of the principal things that makes farce so difficult to write is that it lacks a protagonist. There are several major characters, and minor characters that are needed to keep it all going. So much of contemporary literature has to be tossed aside, including first-person narratives and all that goes with them, autobiography (life is not a farce, only farcical), and post-modernism (Frayn plays with this, but only plays).

Frayn is our great contemporary farcist. His writing is impeccable, and always very intelligent. His self-confidence is extraordinary. He will pull anything out of a hat at any time. His playfulness marks the novel at every level: word, sentence, paragraph, transitions, plotting. He has no problem being silly, and no problem suddenly being serious (and challenging the reader to determine which he is at any moment).

This is not an important novel in the usual sense of the term (and yet, I was happy to learn from Proustitute's review, it was longlisted for the Booker Prize). But one can learn more about writing from this novel than from all but a few, because Frayn is such a master of such a difficult genre. And, if one is open to enjoying farce in prose form (which moves much more slowly than that on stage), few novels can give more pleasure than this one.

[Proustitute (on hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

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

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

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

[Mal Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Funny Story by a Veteran British Playwrignt and Author

You may have heard of Michael Frayn without remembering his name. The successful British playwright and novelist is best known for the stage plays Noises Off, a frequently produced farce of mistaken identities, and Copenhagen, which portrays a meeting in 1941 between two of the giants of 20th Century physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, at a time when Heisenberg was thought to be working on an atomic bomb for the Nazi regime.

In Skios, Frayn develops two intersecting stories based on the premise that one protagonist — a philandering nutcase who lives by impulse alone — inhabits the identity of the other, an internationally renowned author and lecturer on the subject of the scientific management of science. The expert is scheduled to deliver a lecture on a Greek island, Skios, to an exclusive audience assembled by a foundation dedicated to the preservation of the highest aspirations of European culture. Need I say that monumental complications ensue both for the expert and for the imposter, not to mention the foundation, its staff, and its guests? Might I add that, by the end of this little book, the body count numbers more than a dozen — and that no reader is likely to miss any of the deceased?

Skios is much closer in character to Noises Off than to Frayn’s more thoughtful work but is much less successful. Frayn’s humor comes through loud and clear — the story is frequently hilarious — but the utter absurdity of the plot unravels at the end, where Frayn lays out not one but two possible endings for the book. (One of them, perhaps the author’s original conclusion, is presented as conjectural. The other is presented as “real.”)

I loved Noises Off. I laughed until I was hoarse. And as a child I read Frayn’s first novel, The Tin Men, and loved that, too. Though I enjoyed Skios enough to finish it, I was disappointed.

(From www.malwarwickonbooks.)