Book recommendation: read the first third of Skios

Michael Frayn, the British playwright, has given us Skios, poking fun at the world’s big thinkers. A young exotic dancer named Bahama LeStarr marries an 81-year-old rich guy, Fred Topler, who has a heart attack six weeks later. The widow starts a foundation that pulls together the world’s most successful people to the Greek island of Skios to hear an annual lecture by a big thinker. It seems to have been inspired by the John Templeton Foundation with its emphasis on unifying science and spirituality:

“The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. We support research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. We encourage civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights.”

The big thinker who shows up at the summer retreat covered by the novel turns out to be a playboy/idler impostor who knows nothing about science or mathematics and is making it all up as he goes along. Meanwhile the genuine academic genius (specialty: “The scientific management of science” a.k.a. “scientometrics” (a term also used by Scientologists)) is delayed and entangled due to his obsession with settling a score via email while waiting for his luggage at an airport baggage carousel.

The idea for the book could hardly be better and the first third-to-half is excellent, though it reads more like a script than a novel at times. However, the author can’t seem to figure out what to do with the characters once he has them suitably mixed up (i.e., he is not Shakespeare!). So my recommendation is to read the first third carefully, enjoying it as a short story, and then put it down and/or skim the remainder.