Towards the End of the Morning (1967) by Michael Frayn (April 2024)

[Nigeyb]

Welcome to our buddy read of...



Towards the End of the Morning (1967)

by

Michael Frayn


All our welcome to join in - feel free to post at any time



Set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life - until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives.

[Susan]

I have started this now. I think I will be reading everything Michael Frayn has written. He may be THE author I say I have discovered in 2024....

[Nigeyb]

That’s encouraging Susan


You’ve gone very early. Please keep us posted

[Susan]

I just felt like reading it - I have been exploring his backlist and I'm only four chapters in!

[Roman Clodia]

Susan wrote: "I have started this now. I think I will be reading everything Michael Frayn has written. He may be THE author I say I have discovered in 2024...."

Wow! Quite the accolade.

[Susan]

Well, nothing much has happened, but I have fallen straight into it and really like the style and the way Michael Frayn writes. Plus, I love novels set in that era.

[Nigeyb]

I already had high hopes but your comments have turbo charged my expectations - thanks Susan

[Jill]

Pleased you are enjoying it Susan. I really enjoyed his Spies

[Susan]

Good to hear, Jill. I will definitely be reading it :)

[Susan]

I have finished this now and will review later. Really loved it but won't say much as I know nobody else has got to it yet.

[Nigeyb]

Five juicy big stars eh Susan?


I'm stoked as the young (probably no longer) say

[Susan]

Loved it.

[Nigeyb]

I just read your review Susan


You make it sound brilliant

Did I mention that I heard about it when Richard Ossman said (on the fab The Rest is Entertainment podcast with Marina Hyde) that he regards it as one of the funniest books ever written?

[Susan]

It was compared to Lucky Jim, which I hated, so I was a bit wary, but it's far funnier in my opinion. I was really impressed.

[Blaine]

I'm looking forward to it. Sitting close to the top of the pile.

[Susan]

Interestingly, I have just finished the latest Hawthorne and Horowitz novel and Anthony Horowitz mentions Michael Frayn in the epilogue. Small world indeed....

[Nigeyb]

Funny how that so often happens

[Blaine]

Just started it and I'm laughing

[Susan]

Good to hear, Ben. I thought it was very amusing. Apparently, Frayn modelled Dyson on someone he worked on, but they never realised and he only came clean when he wrote his obituary!

[Jill]

I feel bad about this, but have read the first 50+ pages and not finding it amusing at all. So this is one of the few books I will give up on. Maybe if I was in a different frame of mind I would carry on

[Nigeyb]

Ah well Jill, you can't win them all. Well done for giving it a go

[Susan]

I felt much the same way about Lucky Jim, Jill. I was perplexed about what people found amusing - humour is like that.

[Blaine]

Yes, and I just don't get Wodehouse.

[Susan]

No, me neither, Ben.

[Nigeyb]

We all have different tastes, and thank goodness for that


I recall a hilarious section in Lucky Jim towards the start but I think it was all downhill from there as it petered out

I can’t imagine what life is like without the consolation of PG Wodehouse’s brilliance 🎆❤️‍🔥

[Susan]

I know, I feel somehow I started on the wrong foot with Wodehouse. I will try him again I think, but perhaps on my own and not with the group.

[Blaine]

Meanwhile while some of you are living in the drama of the strike-sundered 70's, I'm laughing at the not so swinging, and still shabby sixties.

I love this description of Bob, as Jannie sees him. "...like an old cushion in the chair ... a plump, shabby comfortable old cushion. With his fisherman-knit Marks and Sparks sweaters, and his broad suéde shoes, and his mild, sleepy eyes, he fitted into the background of 43 Spadina Road so well that you hardly noticed him."

[Nigeyb]

Great writing Ben - can't wait to start reading this one

[Roman Clodia]

Nigeyb wrote: "We all have different tastes, and thank goodness for that"

Exactly - and one of the best things (out of many!) in this group is that we have these little sub-groupings coalescing around different books or authors: the Fremlin fans, the Wodehouse club, the Patrick Hamilton posse, the Anthony Powell clique - and they can all be different with no pressure to 'conform'.

[Nigeyb]

Lest we forget the....


Beautiful Bowen Bunch

[Susan]

Plus the Mick Herron Cult...

[Jill]

Thanks all. Don't feel so bad now. It was just that I really liked Spies and felt a bit let down by this

[Blaine]

And the Overwrought Oates Ogres

[Roman Clodia]

Nigeyb wrote: "Lest we forget the...."

Hahaha, how could I have overlooked all these! 😂

[Nigeyb]

The early activity on this discussion has convinced me to read this book next. I am now agog with excitement at the prospect of getting stuck in. I will report back soon.

[Susan]

I eagerly anticipate your thoughts, Nigeyb.

[Nigeyb]

This is reminding me how ubiquitous going to the pub at lunchtime was in the 50s, 60s, & 70s. Incredible to think of that now.

My first job in 1978-79 and we were knocking back the pints every lunchtime and most people were also puffing away on cigarettes.

[Susan]

You forget how everyone smoked. I have never smoked, but recall people puffing away on the tube and on planes. Personally, I was delighted when that was changed...

[Nigeyb]

I'm a few chapters in now and warming to the characters and really enjoying the workplace scenes. Very promising

[Susan]

You can really feel you are there, can't you? So smoky and sooty, just as I recall London in the early Seventies (I know this was set in 1967, but I would have been one at the time, so can't claim to remember it then!).

[Nigeyb]

Absolutely Susan


Power and evocative. I love books that have this kind of effect, especially when the era is the 60s or 70s and it's set in London

[Blaine]

The complete separation in the lives of the sexes is much more sharply drawn here than in Quartet in Autumn, although the two books are very similar in the general picture of office life. The pointless work, the mad processes and lack of productivity, the semi-comfortable mediocrity.

I loved the bit where Dyson slowly realises that he's destined for SW23.

[Nigeyb]

Very good points Ben


This is about a very male workplace. I've not encountered any women at the paper yet

The female characters are both wives at home - although both are well drawn based on fleeting first encounters

There are many parallels between Quartet and this one though. Curiously, although this one is set in the late 1950s, it could easily be set in the early 70s like Quartet. There probably wasn't a huge amount of difference between the two eras in terms of office workplaces.

By the by Ben... "the semi-comfortable mediocrity" 👏🏼 - a great turn of phrase

And like you, I also loved the bit where Dyson slowly realises that he's destined for SW23 😱

[Nigeyb]

I too had to look up seigneur


I’ll make a point of using it tomorrow


Bob’s letter to Tessa had me chuckling…

Where are you, you mother-fixated turdsmith…?

[Nigeyb]

60 pages in now, and really enjoying this


It’s getting progressively more amusing as the characters come into sharper focus

[Nigeyb]

John Dyson’s TV debut had me chuckling away

[Blaine]

Finished. I just love when you have no expectations and the book keeps delighting you with its characters, setting and turns of phrase.

I'm not going to say more about the way it ended yet, but unlike some of the reviews I read, I liked the different directions it took.

More when we're all done..

[Blaine]

One question. What signs told you it was the late 50's rather than the 60's?

[Susan]

There were a couple of women in the pub, who seemed to work at the paper in a capacity I have forgotten?

[Nigeyb]

Ben wrote: "One question. What signs told you it was the late 50's rather than the 60's?"


I thought I had read that in the introduction but now realise I must be wrong

It's at least mid 60s and possibly a bit later