Among Others: Friendships and Encounters

by Michael Frayn

A unique memoir of a lifetime’s relationships – from one of Britain's most beloved literary companions.

It's the other people around you, says Michael Frayn, who make you what you are. So he would like to say a brief word, looking back on life from his ninetieth year, about a few of the people who have formed his own particular world.

Some were friends; some not; some more than friends. Some have had a profound effect; some only a passing one. Some you may know yourself; some you certainly won't. Some he now wonders if he ever really knew himself. The last of his subjects in this selection, and the longest and closest acquaintance of all, is his own body, a companion on life's road at least as idiosyncratic and puzzling as everyone and everything around it.

Among Others is a patchwork memoir of a lifetime's encounters. Truthful and loving, sometimes elegiac, sometimes comic, it is a celebration of the endlessly intriguing otherness of others.

Genres: Memoir, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2023

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

[Lucinda Strol · Rating 1 out of 5]

ok .. this one is kinda on me for buying a book bc the cover was pretty BUT also the concept sounded rlly interesting but sadly it was just a biography for this old english elitist man- tbf i have heard his novels are good. i’m sorry michael but this book was VERY hard to finish, many topics discussed were too niche and also why was it so arrogant? we get it, he went to oxford and had the most successful career ever and met other intellectual rich ppl. there was no takeaway, no real conclusions on how these ppl changed his life or even a consistent format. the last chapter was actually kinda good but it mostly felt like a long brag. only finished bc i couldn’t justify buying another £10 book.

[Debby Binns · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one wasn’t for me sadly!

[Clare Kirwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly enjoyable series of vignettes about people who have influenced the octogenarian writer and playwright, many from university days - including an almost beatified Bamber Gascogne, university ‘characters’, neighbours and other writers. I haven’t read any of his other autobiographical works and found that, as he acknowledges when recounting a long remembered love affair, the big gap in this one is himself.

[Tamsin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of William Boyd's Any Human Heart, in a compact, non-fiction form; a non-chronological journey of a life marked not by years, but people; the individuals that surge and ebb through it, and sometimes drop off from your life as suddenly as one trips over something and falls unexpectedly to the floor, or forgets a name known all one's life in old age. There is a partially remembered love affair, the only surviving relics of which being fifty-six letters received, and having to construct the supposed responses that the self you were over half a century ago would have typed; childhood friends you hid in bushes with and adolescent acquaintances who were unexpectedly kind, whose deaths now litter your life like empty crisp packets on the seafront in the wind, and you are the only one left alive who still remembers the fun of the fair, and must write it all down so all its ephemeral splendour does not disappear. The author reflects on his body's decline, and you think about how dismissive you can be about all the horrid ailment possibilities that await the human form, and your hands move across your skin, and your lungs are working with just a slight wheeze, and outside the window there are little pink flowers atop thin green stems being buffeted by the heavy rain.

[Trâm · Rating 2 out of 5]

It should be retitled: “Among Others: Some Friendships, but Mainly Encounters with White Men that Taught me Something While I keep Reiterating I Did Not Truly Know Them, Nor Taught Them Much”.

I felt like I was thrust in the middle of an Englishman's illegible references, and was too non-white, too non-Oxbridge, and too non-theatre to understand most of them. I couldn't relate much, and there was also no true message to it, but I am glad to have finished it.

[Evy Kras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik koos dit boek door de voorkant en titel, en had dus iets heel anders verwacht. Het ging niet over vriendschappen en de impact hiervan. Het gaat over de mensen die impact hebben gehad op Michael’s leven. Ik vond het boeiender dan ik dacht, hij schrijft erg goed en je blijft lezen om deze mensen allemaal te ontmoeten

[David Galvani · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Frayn-fan, this isn’t his finest hour. Much detail on people known to some others. Good passages on Gascoigne and early romance. Long coda on getting old sounded like an old man, which of course he is now, but added little insight.

[Ian Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly OK, but not wonderful.

[Christiana Bissett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hates women

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I asked for this book for Christmas as I have enjoyed Frayn's novels and other memoirs.

This book is about people Frayn has been influenced by or have worked with and been friends with him for many years. I found much of this fascainting. Especially the chapters about Bamber Gascoigne and Sarah Haffner. Frayn even writes a chapter about his aging body which is quite philosophical. I definitely discovered some interesting people I hadn't heard of before but there were some chapters I didn't find so interesting and had to power through.

An interesting book which reflects Frayn's interesting and varied career along with the different characters he has met over his lifetime.