There was every reason to look forward to Michael Frayn's first novel with the mouth already formed for laughter and wry smiles…. Mr. Frayn at his best is to my mind as penetrating as but perhaps gentler than Art Buchwald at revealing the sweet idiocies of our society.

And in his first novel, The Tin Men …, Mr. Frayn has hit upon a marvelous, if obvious, idea for a witty and devastating fable. His setting is a new school for automation research, his characters humorless men who see no reason why all things should not be automated, from football to the novel, from newspapers to prayer. Machines can substitute for every human activity, with the possible exception of the strictly animal functions. Mr. Frayn makes the case in detail, at times in completely deadpan and utterly hilarious fashion.

Yet there were far too many moments in this book when...