Word: frayn
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...Landing on the Sun, Michael Frayn's new novel, starts and ends with a pair of hands. Brian Jessel, the narrator, describes the actions and qualities of the hands, and his description is impersonal and efficient. We learn subsequently that the hands belong to Jessel, but it seems that he never understands this fact, nor its reflection on himself: the banality of his life is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that he is alive...
Jassel's predicament makes A Landing on the Sun both humorous and sad, and thus the novel will neither surprise nor disappoint readers familiar with Frayn's most recent work, The Trick of It. Like most of his plays, novels, and screenplays, A Lnading on the Sun is a comic work of light, unassuming wit, tempered with the author's usual quiet sense of the prosaic tragedy of life. Frayn's greatest strength rests in his talent at reconciling humor and sadness, and he achieves this rapprochement in the book with gentle facility...
...Michael Frayn...
...Michael Frayn is best known for his plays, especially for Noises Off (1983), a classic farce that burned up the box office on both sides of the Atlantic. The Trick of It, his sixth novel, is a swift little breeze of a book that buffets the pretensions of critics who condescend to popular art. Richard is a fussy young teacher at an obscure English university who becomes obsessed with an older, well-known woman novelist -- a figure like Muriel Spark or Anita Brookner. But unlike most of the weedy egotists who make convenient satirical heroes, Richard manages to possess...
...DESPITE Frayn's basically witty dialogue and the realistic two-story Brent summer home designed by director John Claflin, most of Act I drags. Act III, due to no fault of the actors, is also a let-down. Act II, however, fraught with fast-paced action and funny mime sequences, is definitely the most entertaining part of the show...