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A Landing on the Sun
From the bestselling author of Headlong and Spies, "an unconditional triumph" (The Washington Post Book World)
For fifteen years, ever since the taciturn civil servant Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, there have been rumors.
So Brian Jessel, a young member of the Cabinet Office, is diverted from his routine work and asked to prepare an internal report. Slowly, from the archives in the Cabinet Office Registry, Jessel begins to reconstruct Summerchild's last months. It begins to emerge that, at a time when America had just put men on the moon, the British were involved in an even bolder project, and that Summerchild was investigating a phenomenon as common as sunlight, but as powerful and dangerous as any of the forces that modern science has known.
The secret world into which Brian Jessel stumbles turns out to be even more extraordinary than his department had feared.
For fifteen years, ever since the taciturn civil servant Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, there have been rumors.
So Brian Jessel, a young member of the Cabinet Office, is diverted from his routine work and asked to prepare an internal report. Slowly, from the archives in the Cabinet Office Registry, Jessel begins to reconstruct Summerchild's last months. It begins to emerge that, at a time when America had just put men on the moon, the British were involved in an even bolder project, and that Summerchild was investigating a phenomenon as common as sunlight, but as powerful and dangerous as any of the forces that modern science has known.
The secret world into which Brian Jessel stumbles turns out to be even more extraordinary than his department had feared.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Michael Frayn
119 books244 followersMichael 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
July 1, 2018
When I read this book I could see nothing in it but the idea that you have been given this gift of life and you have to do the right thing by it. That to give up on finding love and happiness is to scorn this gift.
And yet...maybe the very opposite is true. Maybe what I should have seen is the idea that you should stay where you are, that the miserable life you know is better than the unknown dangers of the happiness and love you could choose to seek.
And yet...maybe it is simply thus: the best whodunnit ever.
There is a sex scene. Even though I've read the book twice, I forgot this until rereading it a third time today:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
And yet...maybe the very opposite is true. Maybe what I should have seen is the idea that you should stay where you are, that the miserable life you know is better than the unknown dangers of the happiness and love you could choose to seek.
And yet...maybe it is simply thus: the best whodunnit ever.
There is a sex scene. Even though I've read the book twice, I forgot this until rereading it a third time today:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
February 24, 2015
I’ve read this as a richly layered philosophical novel that invites us to reflect deeply on the nature of quality of life, of happiness. When the protagonists start to approach this conundrum they are faced with a conceptual choice. Either they frame quality of life as a parameter that can be measured and mapped in terms of the positive and negative influences that impinge on it. Happiness then becomes „the idea of some kind of grading system for our experience, of some variable level of satisfactoriness to which life might attain, and which (…) might be enhanced by various practical means.” This managerial perspective is balanced by a more elusive phenomenological stance. The internal, lived experience is then the unavoidable matrix from which quality of life steadily emerges. Happiness is not something ‚extra’, that can be isolated and assessed, but it is the very „characteristic of being alive, of livingness, whatever it is that makes life life.” It is the very mode of our perception. These two incommensurable conceptions are the Scylla and Charybdis through which a newly established governmental Strategy Unit, which is at the center of this story, has to navigate. And they fail, spectacularly and touchingly. The principals, a female philosopher and a male civil servant, half-wittingly direct their action research probe away from the rather safe and practical territory envisioned by their political masters. Instead they seek to enact the lightness, the brightness and the weightlessness that they discover to be the chief experiential feature of happiness: „Lightness, that was the thing. The light-footedness with which life comes and goes. The lightheartedness with which one might watch it happen.” The stakes are high and they know it: „it shone and danced in the darkness, and without it there would be nothing; but one hand raised against it and it could lightly cease.” This happiness attractor is chaotic and it is no surprise that the research process spins out of control and that this ‚landing on the sun’ ends with some sort of wreckage.
The novel not only mesmerizes through the cleverness and suggestiveness of its ideas. Michael Frayn infused the whole story with a beguiling rhythm and texture. There is an honesty, a purity, a stillness that keeps the reader enthralled. The fragility is skillfully intensified by a well-dosed pinch of the burlesque. As the narrative progresses a palpable sense of remoteness sets in. One feels that the probe is leaving the solar system. The mountaineers are moving into the zone of death. The finale, tragic as it may seem, is in its own way also a deeply satisfying transfiguration.
Paradoxically all of this deeply affecting precariousness is situated in the teeming heart of the city. I can’t recall ever having read a more touching account of the experience of living, working, loving and dying in the contemporary metropolis. For once our artificial habitat has the spiritual depth and freshness of a primeval forest, or a remote alpine valley.
I already look forward to rereading this soul-stirring novel and to discovering other books of this very gifted novelist.
The novel not only mesmerizes through the cleverness and suggestiveness of its ideas. Michael Frayn infused the whole story with a beguiling rhythm and texture. There is an honesty, a purity, a stillness that keeps the reader enthralled. The fragility is skillfully intensified by a well-dosed pinch of the burlesque. As the narrative progresses a palpable sense of remoteness sets in. One feels that the probe is leaving the solar system. The mountaineers are moving into the zone of death. The finale, tragic as it may seem, is in its own way also a deeply satisfying transfiguration.
Paradoxically all of this deeply affecting precariousness is situated in the teeming heart of the city. I can’t recall ever having read a more touching account of the experience of living, working, loving and dying in the contemporary metropolis. For once our artificial habitat has the spiritual depth and freshness of a primeval forest, or a remote alpine valley.
I already look forward to rereading this soul-stirring novel and to discovering other books of this very gifted novelist.
September 13, 2024
In A Landing on the Sun (1991) by Michael Frayn, a middle aged civil servant is asked to look into the death, in 1974, of another minor government official who had fallen from a window in the Admiralty.
Sifting through the remaining typed transcripts and audiotapes the investigator finds himself unravelling in much the same way as his late colleague. In many ways it's a cautionary tale, the moral of which might be that happiness can be dangerous and therefore a mundance, predictable life is preferable. Or perhaps not. Either way it's a serious, provocative, and atmospheric novel with plenty to ponder after the final page.
4/5
From the bestselling author of "Headlong "and "Spies," "an unconditional triumph" ("The Washington Post Book World)"For fifteen years, ever since the taciturn civil servant Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, there have been rumors.So Brian Jessel, a young member of the Cabinet Office, is diverted from his routine work and asked to prepare an internal report. Slowly, from the archives in the Cabinet Office Registry, Jessel begins to reconstruct Summerchild's last months. It begins to emerge that, at a time when America had just put men on the moon, the British were involved in an even bolder project, and that Summerchild was investigating a phenomenon as common as sunlight, but as powerful and dangerous as any of the forces that modern science has known.The secret world into which Brian Jessel stumbles turns out to be even more extraordinary than his department had feared.
Sifting through the remaining typed transcripts and audiotapes the investigator finds himself unravelling in much the same way as his late colleague. In many ways it's a cautionary tale, the moral of which might be that happiness can be dangerous and therefore a mundance, predictable life is preferable. Or perhaps not. Either way it's a serious, provocative, and atmospheric novel with plenty to ponder after the final page.
4/5
From the bestselling author of "Headlong "and "Spies," "an unconditional triumph" ("The Washington Post Book World)"For fifteen years, ever since the taciturn civil servant Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, there have been rumors.So Brian Jessel, a young member of the Cabinet Office, is diverted from his routine work and asked to prepare an internal report. Slowly, from the archives in the Cabinet Office Registry, Jessel begins to reconstruct Summerchild's last months. It begins to emerge that, at a time when America had just put men on the moon, the British were involved in an even bolder project, and that Summerchild was investigating a phenomenon as common as sunlight, but as powerful and dangerous as any of the forces that modern science has known.The secret world into which Brian Jessel stumbles turns out to be even more extraordinary than his department had feared.
November 30, 2016
I resolved to read ‘A Landing on the Sun’ on the basis of Frayn’s masterfully hilarious satire on academia, The Tin Men. Although equally astutely observed, this book is entirely lacking in hilarity. It is very limited in scope yet incredibly detailed, like a miniature painted for a locket. The narrator is a civil servant named Jessel, who is asked to prepare a report on Stephen Summerchild, formerly also a civil servant, fifteen years deceased, and possessing some tangential connection to Jessel. At first I wondered if a conspiracy would emerge around Summerchild’s mysterious death, but it is not at all that sort of novel. It is a claustrophobic work that puts the reader in the head of Jessel, who puts himself in the head of Summerchild, both of whom lead highly confined lives.
Frayn captures the atmosphere and procedure of bureaucracy beautifully. He presents in a subtle and powerful fashion how mental illness and great depths of emotion lurk amongst the memoranda and assessments. As The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy attests, bureaucracy is a form of interaction between people that avoids emotional labour. A series of processes are set in place such that no emotional considerations need be involved, whilst deviation from these is seen as inappropriate and taboo (unless someone involved is wealthy enough to buy themselves an exception, but that’s another story). Here, that theory is elegantly illustrated by a story of how two bureaucrats cannot truly embody a system that disallows them any emotions.
The narrative is cleverer than that, though. In addition to the uncomfortably personal nature of observing the two civil servants’ experiences, there is the work that Summerchild was engaged in: an enquiry into the Quality of Life. I’ve worked in the public sector on matters of quality of life and found the way in which this was approached incredibly effective. What is quality of life? Can it be reduced to kitchen appliances and the minutes of labour they save? Can quality of life be defined without reference to happiness? And then, what is happiness? Can it ever be defined? Can it be effectively operationalised for policy purposes, as it has become trendy to do in recent years? ‘A Landing on the Sun’ demonstrates that the answers to such questions can never be objective and independent, as civil servants are meant to be. Anyone’s answers will reveal a great deal about who they are and how they feel, more than they may wish to be known.
I can find no fault with the writing, pacing, and plotting of this novel, but will capriciously withhold the fifth star as it made me feel sad. Not in the way of books that allow you to revel in vicarious extremes of emotion without dealing with the practical implications, such as the sublime ecstasies of tragedy in Les Misérables. Rather, ‘A Landing on the Sun’ provokes a calm sadness at the difficulty of finding and sustaining happiness in a mundane world. It is thus quite the opposite of escapist.
Frayn captures the atmosphere and procedure of bureaucracy beautifully. He presents in a subtle and powerful fashion how mental illness and great depths of emotion lurk amongst the memoranda and assessments. As The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy attests, bureaucracy is a form of interaction between people that avoids emotional labour. A series of processes are set in place such that no emotional considerations need be involved, whilst deviation from these is seen as inappropriate and taboo (unless someone involved is wealthy enough to buy themselves an exception, but that’s another story). Here, that theory is elegantly illustrated by a story of how two bureaucrats cannot truly embody a system that disallows them any emotions.
The narrative is cleverer than that, though. In addition to the uncomfortably personal nature of observing the two civil servants’ experiences, there is the work that Summerchild was engaged in: an enquiry into the Quality of Life. I’ve worked in the public sector on matters of quality of life and found the way in which this was approached incredibly effective. What is quality of life? Can it be reduced to kitchen appliances and the minutes of labour they save? Can quality of life be defined without reference to happiness? And then, what is happiness? Can it ever be defined? Can it be effectively operationalised for policy purposes, as it has become trendy to do in recent years? ‘A Landing on the Sun’ demonstrates that the answers to such questions can never be objective and independent, as civil servants are meant to be. Anyone’s answers will reveal a great deal about who they are and how they feel, more than they may wish to be known.
I can find no fault with the writing, pacing, and plotting of this novel, but will capriciously withhold the fifth star as it made me feel sad. Not in the way of books that allow you to revel in vicarious extremes of emotion without dealing with the practical implications, such as the sublime ecstasies of tragedy in Les Misérables. Rather, ‘A Landing on the Sun’ provokes a calm sadness at the difficulty of finding and sustaining happiness in a mundane world. It is thus quite the opposite of escapist.
May 16, 2009
It's remarkably hard to describe A Landing on the Sun without giving something away, since for quite a while you don't even know what genre it belongs to. Some of my early hypotheses were a bureaucratic comedy of manners; a Kafkaesque study of alienation; a science-fiction novel; a police procedural; a parody of Wittgensteinian linguistic philosophy; and a metaphysical thriller. I really don't want to spoil things for you by saying which of these guesses, if any, turned out to be correct!
The book is inventive, moving, well-written and often quite funny. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in a couple of days. I'm not sure why it's almost unknown. Maybe because it's so difficult to write a sensible review?
The book is inventive, moving, well-written and often quite funny. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in a couple of days. I'm not sure why it's almost unknown. Maybe because it's so difficult to write a sensible review?
September 10, 2024
This was so well-constructed, and this time Frayn even had a heart.
I thought at first that this was just satire, but the human drama just crept in, bit by bit, so very subtly, into the dry civil service-speak and the bureaucratic mind of Jessel, who slowly enters more and more into the mind of the earlier bureaucrat Summerchild, the subject of the investigation, until the two characters' minds and the two timelines seem to merge. It's just so cleverly done!
I thought at first that this was just satire, but the human drama just crept in, bit by bit, so very subtly, into the dry civil service-speak and the bureaucratic mind of Jessel, who slowly enters more and more into the mind of the earlier bureaucrat Summerchild, the subject of the investigation, until the two characters' minds and the two timelines seem to merge. It's just so cleverly done!
April 12, 2012
I suffer from Famous Author Aversion Syndrome. I tend to avoid books by people who win prizes, get interviewed a lot, and are generally considered to be major literary talents. This is my way of avoiding disappointment. However, sometimes I dip my toe in the waters of critical acclaim and read something by an author that all the 'serious minded' folk of the Sunday heavies agree is well worth reading. In this case, I didn't regret it. A Landing on the Sun is a well-crafted novel that combines elements of the detective story, the Whitehall 'political' novel, and a love story (yes, I know, but not that kind). The central premise is simple enough. A civil servant is given the job of investigating the death of Summerchild, a fellow bureaucrat who took his own life some years earlier. By delving into files the investigator realises that Summerchild was - well, a human being. Unfortunately, he was also given a hazardous task by his political masters - one so dangerous that it made his tragic end almost inevitable. What was the task? I have no intention of giving away the most important part of the plot. Read the book - you probably won't regret it.
January 23, 2019
So measured. Frayn has a strange mastery of pace, thoughts and scenes unfold at a pace which are reminiscent of the era of the tale. The UK in 1970s, incredibly cool. A lady version of Bryan Magee with a mischievous spark, unsettles the mind of civil servant. Imagine John Hurt as he appeared in Skolimowski's "The Shout" coming undone but not in a secluded Devon studio but at the admiralty. Well not quite, but having just finished this work I am feeling as Brian Jessel and Summerchild a certain weightlessness which I would not call "Happiness".
"..happiness is like economics or heat in seawater. You can make the laws of economics work for short periods of time in small models cut off from the rest of the world, just as you can have a hot bath in the sun-warmed pools of seawater left behind on the beach. But as soon as the neat economic model is reconnected with the unstructured chaos of human affairs, as soon as the tide returns, all gratifying predictivity breaks down, the hot bath disappears at once into the huge reserves of cold in the ocean deeps."
"..happiness is like economics or heat in seawater. You can make the laws of economics work for short periods of time in small models cut off from the rest of the world, just as you can have a hot bath in the sun-warmed pools of seawater left behind on the beach. But as soon as the neat economic model is reconnected with the unstructured chaos of human affairs, as soon as the tide returns, all gratifying predictivity breaks down, the hot bath disappears at once into the huge reserves of cold in the ocean deeps."
January 17, 2018
This book came highly recommended. It's about a civil servant investigating another civil servant who may or may not have suicided 15 years earlier---and it was his task to go through all the civil service files and interview people to find out what really happened. It was as boring as Brewarrina. I stopped caring after 80 pages.
November 29, 2015
Achingly good. The maudlin, regimented, oddities of the British Civil Service are wonderfully wound together into a plot that is as engaging as it is unexpected. A really lovely, sad, book.
September 28, 2024
This 1948 novel is the second novel by Michael Frayn I have read. Several Goodreads friends had read this and enjoyed it, so I had an expectation of at least moderate enjoyment. I did not get it. That surprised me as I had enjoyed Frayn’s Towards the End of the Morning.
The story set up to be a critique, possibly satirical, of the British civil service system. The protagonist is Brian Jessel who is a bureaucrat in the British Civil Service. Jessel is assigned to go through the government archives to prepare a report on the circumstances surrounding the death, fifteen years earlier, of another civil servant, Stephen Summerchild. Summerchild had been assigned to a special unit working on a top-secret project, something that may have had something to do with his death.
The story then becomes what I would call a bureaucratic procedural about Jessel’s discoveries during his week of examining transcripts and listening to tapes of Summerfield work on the special project. The tapes consist of Summerfield’s conversations with a female special unit member Dr. Elizabeth Serafin, a philosophy professor. The tapes reveal both their growing relationship and their thoughts on the special project. Jessel’s reaction to the taped information is complicated by his previous romantic interest in Summerchild’s daughter Millie, who was his colleague in a classical orchestra.
The text consists of Summerchild’s taped musings and conversations along with Jessel’s commentaries in reaction to what he is listening. The tapes stirs up all kinds of memories for Jessel and, at times, Jessel put himself back into the time period of the taped storyline. Very gradually what Summerfield and crew were working on is revealed. The identity of the special project is both surprising and disappointing.
Some call this an intelligent engaging even philosophical thriller. I may not be intelligent enough to get this book as I never was engaged with what Summerfield was talking about or Jessel’s thoughts and reactions to what he was listening. I found the storytelling to be so tedious that my mind wandered, resulting in my failure to grasp much of what was going on in the book. I often was unsure if the narrative was about the investigative Jessel in the present day, Summerchild on tape or in Jessel’s memories.
However, the book’s clarity improved for me during the last quarter. Due to this improvement, it’s relatively clear opening story set-up, and quality writing, I will give this book 2 stars rather than one star. Additionally, my lack of clear understanding of the story text was largely due to my failure to read this with the concentration level this reading experience needed. I entered this expecting a lighter reading experience than this turned out to be.
The story set up to be a critique, possibly satirical, of the British civil service system. The protagonist is Brian Jessel who is a bureaucrat in the British Civil Service. Jessel is assigned to go through the government archives to prepare a report on the circumstances surrounding the death, fifteen years earlier, of another civil servant, Stephen Summerchild. Summerchild had been assigned to a special unit working on a top-secret project, something that may have had something to do with his death.
The story then becomes what I would call a bureaucratic procedural about Jessel’s discoveries during his week of examining transcripts and listening to tapes of Summerfield work on the special project. The tapes consist of Summerfield’s conversations with a female special unit member Dr. Elizabeth Serafin, a philosophy professor. The tapes reveal both their growing relationship and their thoughts on the special project. Jessel’s reaction to the taped information is complicated by his previous romantic interest in Summerchild’s daughter Millie, who was his colleague in a classical orchestra.
The text consists of Summerchild’s taped musings and conversations along with Jessel’s commentaries in reaction to what he is listening. The tapes stirs up all kinds of memories for Jessel and, at times, Jessel put himself back into the time period of the taped storyline. Very gradually what Summerfield and crew were working on is revealed. The identity of the special project is both surprising and disappointing.
Some call this an intelligent engaging even philosophical thriller. I may not be intelligent enough to get this book as I never was engaged with what Summerfield was talking about or Jessel’s thoughts and reactions to what he was listening. I found the storytelling to be so tedious that my mind wandered, resulting in my failure to grasp much of what was going on in the book. I often was unsure if the narrative was about the investigative Jessel in the present day, Summerchild on tape or in Jessel’s memories.
However, the book’s clarity improved for me during the last quarter. Due to this improvement, it’s relatively clear opening story set-up, and quality writing, I will give this book 2 stars rather than one star. Additionally, my lack of clear understanding of the story text was largely due to my failure to read this with the concentration level this reading experience needed. I entered this expecting a lighter reading experience than this turned out to be.
September 9, 2024
This is the third Michael Frayn novel I have read this year and he is undoubtedly becoming a firm favourite of mine. I am just upset that I did not find his work earlier.
Like the other novels of Frayn's that I have read, this is set in the workplace; in this case the Civil Service. Brian Jessel is asked to investigate the suspected suicide, fifteen years earlier, of another Civil Servant, Stephen Summerchild. Jessel knew Summerchild vaguely, as he was once in an orchestra with his daughter, Millie, whom he once had a mild flirtation with. Now a proposed documentary has necessitated he discover what happened all those years ago.
Jessel is a man for whom this investigation throws up all kinds of memories and regrets. His life is now less than happy which is ironic, because he discovers that Summerchild was asked to join a strategic unit to look at the 'quality of life.' The details of this task were unclear, but philosopher Elizabeth Seraphin is invited to lead this unit and she begins to ask her colleague to discuss happiness.
This is a difficult novel to review. If you like your novels fast paced, this is not for you. It is only slowly that these characters discover each other and their feelings. This is a gradual process, which somehow becomes surreal as Summerchild and Seraphin begin to retreat into themselves. Jessel, whose own life is floundering, obsessively listens to the tapes they made in 1974 and tries to make sense of both what happened to them while wondering how he has ended up where he is.
I want to read everything that Frayn has written. He is a truly remarkable author.
Like the other novels of Frayn's that I have read, this is set in the workplace; in this case the Civil Service. Brian Jessel is asked to investigate the suspected suicide, fifteen years earlier, of another Civil Servant, Stephen Summerchild. Jessel knew Summerchild vaguely, as he was once in an orchestra with his daughter, Millie, whom he once had a mild flirtation with. Now a proposed documentary has necessitated he discover what happened all those years ago.
Jessel is a man for whom this investigation throws up all kinds of memories and regrets. His life is now less than happy which is ironic, because he discovers that Summerchild was asked to join a strategic unit to look at the 'quality of life.' The details of this task were unclear, but philosopher Elizabeth Seraphin is invited to lead this unit and she begins to ask her colleague to discuss happiness.
This is a difficult novel to review. If you like your novels fast paced, this is not for you. It is only slowly that these characters discover each other and their feelings. This is a gradual process, which somehow becomes surreal as Summerchild and Seraphin begin to retreat into themselves. Jessel, whose own life is floundering, obsessively listens to the tapes they made in 1974 and tries to make sense of both what happened to them while wondering how he has ended up where he is.
I want to read everything that Frayn has written. He is a truly remarkable author.
March 7, 2020
A young Civil Servant, Brian Jessel, is tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the apparently accidental death of Stephen Summerchild, 15 years before, amid rumours that he was involved in a secret defence project . The start to Brian's investigation is not promising and is set against an unfortunate domestic background with a son and a seriously ill wife. It seems strange that Brian has been designated to investigate this death as he actually knows Summerchild's daughter, Millie, from playing together in an orchestra and was clearly attracted to her. When he does start to discover what Summerchild was actually working on, it comes as a bit of a surprise - both to Brian and to the reader - and he gets deeply involved in the files and tapes he has found, so much so that he almost starts to take on Summerchild's character and life....
This is the fourth book of Michael Frayn's that I have read - he is an author that I feel should be right up my street and the blurb always tempts me - but, sadly, I have never rated any of his books higher than 3 stars, even this one! - 6.5/10.
This is the fourth book of Michael Frayn's that I have read - he is an author that I feel should be right up my street and the blurb always tempts me - but, sadly, I have never rated any of his books higher than 3 stars, even this one! - 6.5/10.
October 7, 2019
I'm really not sure where to begin. It starts like a dry civil servant investigation procedural, I thought it might be in the vein of a Le Carré or a Graeme Greene. There are elements of both of these of course, but it evolves into something much more farcical and surreal in places. But, again not farcical in the way you might expect, or surreal in a surreal way. I can't categorise this novel at all, is it a study of happiness, is it satire? It's funny, sad, touching, philosophical, absurd, mundane, close, distant. I suspect it will be memorable long after reading.
August 15, 2021
This struck me as the perfect short novel. It drew me into an unexpected world and the outlines of a philosophy course - though without convincing me of the utility of the discipline. Cunningly conceived and something of a page turner, though one that demanded all my concentration. Much is not spelled out clearly and quickly, but emerges - like real life - as a mystery alongside the one which the chief protagonist finds himself investigating. Life, love, mortality - a close encounter with human existence.
December 9, 2023
Good writing but plot plodded a bit. If you like the sound of a uptight civil servant investigating a British government unit study from the 1970s , bizarrely into the quality of life and what is happiness, which leads to an affair between a Oxford university philosophy don and a civil servant who ended up found dead believed to have jumped or been pushed from a MoD building, this strange book is for you. So there is some political intrigue but skewered with Frayns humor. Found it hard to get really hooked by this though.
August 5, 2021
Really disliked this book when I first started and in all honesty just continued so that I could say I had read it, but as I continued I found I enjoyed the story much more than I had anticipated and did leave me questioning my own Quality of Life
I believe I haven't lived enough yet for this book to be as impactful as it clearly could be
3/5
I believe I haven't lived enough yet for this book to be as impactful as it clearly could be
3/5
February 4, 2018
Brilliant writing in the technical sense of the word, but ultimately disappointing because of the ending. Doesn't feel properly concluded. Almost as if Frayn didn't have the heart to do to his hero what seemed to be inevitable.
May 12, 2019
Absolutely astonishing! How can a book about bureaucracy, be so tantalising and unputdownable, and read like a thriller. It has taken me ages to get to reading Michael Frayn. But after reading this one and Spies. I will be reading more.
February 10, 2018
Good, rather than brilliant. I preferred both 'Spies' and 'Headlong' by the same author, but glad I read this in any case.
June 10, 2018
One of my favourite novels - just as good on third reading. The philosophy tutorials would certainly not be to many people's tastes but the layers of investigation are exquisite.
February 14, 2020
Curate's egg. Good in places, and sometimes amusing but in general it seemed terribly dated and quite unbelievable .
July 2, 2022
It felt longer than just 248 pages. Mixture of boring & intriguing.
April 6, 2021
Captivating! When I began it, Ididn't really know where the story was going to take me, but I'm glad I hung on for the ride!
September 13, 2016
I bought this book thinking that the subject was going to be some type of spy thriller. Instead there were a lot of other absurd twists in the story. SPOILER ALERT:: The story starts with a civil servant investigating the death of a colleague over rumors that the colleague had been working on a top secret government project and had stumbled on to something that led to his death. During the investigation, it is discovered that the colleague and a philosophy professor were collaborating on the meaning of happiness. The two then end up in a love affair. It appears that the author left the ending open as to weather the death was a suicide because the colleague thought the affair had ended or if it was a fatal misstep because the colleague was elated by the change in his life and had become reckless. Despite the disappointment that the story had nothing to do with espionage, the book had a the feel of eavesdropping on two people and wondering what consequences would arise from their secrets.
March 27, 2014
I gather that a TV movie was made of this book, and I imagine that was worth watching, but for me the joy of this book was in the brilliant quality of the writing and the way Frayn establishes not only his narrator's viewpoint, but indirectly the viewpoint of the others that the narrator discusses.
A civil servant is given the task of tidying up some loose ends regarding the work of another civil servant who apparently committed suicide over a decade earlier under slightly mysterious circumstances. He realizes that the man is somebody he knew slightly, the father of a girl with whom he had a tentative relationship while at school.
We watch him uncover the work of the unit that his late colleague was involved in, and react in horror to the unofficial nature of it and the relationship that clearly developed between his colleague and the academic drafted in to run the new unit under a previous government.
I don't want to write more than this for fear of spoilers, but treat yourself to this book because it's an excellent read.
A civil servant is given the task of tidying up some loose ends regarding the work of another civil servant who apparently committed suicide over a decade earlier under slightly mysterious circumstances. He realizes that the man is somebody he knew slightly, the father of a girl with whom he had a tentative relationship while at school.
We watch him uncover the work of the unit that his late colleague was involved in, and react in horror to the unofficial nature of it and the relationship that clearly developed between his colleague and the academic drafted in to run the new unit under a previous government.
I don't want to write more than this for fear of spoilers, but treat yourself to this book because it's an excellent read.
May 7, 2010
It's difficult to review "A Landing on the Sun" without giving something away, but I'll try. Having never heard of Michael Frayn before, I picked up this book in an used book store because I liked the cover (really).
An obscure civil servant, Stephen Summerchild, died 15 years ago by falling out from a window in the Admirality. Rumors circulate about his death - what was he working on and with whom ? Was it suicide, or was he murdered ?
I was expecting a political thriller, but I got something utterly different. A study of alienation and of biurocracy, reminiscent of the works by Kafka mixed with comedy and bitter poignancy. It took me a long time to read because Frayn certainly takes his time with creating the mood, but when you're in you're gone. Complicated, smart, funny and haunting, "A Landing on the Sun" is not a book that I'll forget soon.
An obscure civil servant, Stephen Summerchild, died 15 years ago by falling out from a window in the Admirality. Rumors circulate about his death - what was he working on and with whom ? Was it suicide, or was he murdered ?
I was expecting a political thriller, but I got something utterly different. A study of alienation and of biurocracy, reminiscent of the works by Kafka mixed with comedy and bitter poignancy. It took me a long time to read because Frayn certainly takes his time with creating the mood, but when you're in you're gone. Complicated, smart, funny and haunting, "A Landing on the Sun" is not a book that I'll forget soon.
November 24, 2012
This is an odd tale of the inner working of the 1960’s Wilson government. We are drawn in to a number of different areas of thought with this special unit set up to discover the happiness of the nation. What is the meaning of a how do you measure happiness is a great philosophical question that the civil service may have to work with. The outcome is far from typical civil service behaviour. The impact on the life of the career civil servant is hardly happiness and not one he would have seen coming. Some questions seem simple on the surface but can become very complex. Are you happy is such a question. This story unfold with an investigation some fifteen years after Summerchild death by a current civil servant draws you in to a tale of tragedy and story that you want to get to the end of to find out the truth.
February 4, 2017
This book wasn't what I was expecting, perhaps because I didn't read the back cover thoroughly enough. It's the story of an in-house assessment by the civil service in Whitehall into an unexplained death within their ranks some years before. It sounds dry and perhaps the subject matter is, but in the hands of this gifted writer it becomes a fascinating tale, obsessively addictive, as we retrace the steps of that deceased man through the eyes of the civil servant who now does his job. Past and present are seamlessly woven together and it is done with such insight and with such deft touches of ironic humour that the story is moving and thought-provoking but never becomes oppressive. I thought it brilliantly constructed and written.
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