SOURCE: Harper, Paula. “Uncertainty Principle.” Art in America 88, no. 7 (July 2000): 35.

In the following review, Harper asserts that the strength of Headlong lies in its effective mixture of philosophy and farce.

Michael Frayn's current Broadway play, Copenhagen, dramatizes a heady, imagined conversation between two atomic physicists. Now in his recent comical mystery novel, Headlong, Frayn romps across the fields of philosophy and art history. The whole reckless rush of the story is seen from the viewpoint of Martin Clay, a professor of philosophy who is prone to jumping to conclusions, impulsively acting on them, and then reversing himself in a panic when he realizes he's misinterpreted the world outside his own thought processes.

Reading Frayn's novel is something like spending a few hours inside the head of an academic Basil Fawlty. Martin has the same gift for misunderstanding everyone and sowing chaos and confusion. But instead of running an...