RIP Muriel Spark

i love it all pretty much, but that 70's run of weirdness is just so strange and cool and one of a kind that i gotta mention it. not usually where i tell people to start when they want to start with her, but i thought i'd give that part of her career a shout-out:

The Driver's Seat (1970)
Not to Disturb (1971)
The Hothouse by the East River (1973)
The Abbess of Crewe (1974)
The Takeover (1976)
Territorial Rights (1979)

how would you rate Kensington, scott?

i liked it a lot. been years since i read it. i should really do a re-read of her books. that would be fun. i've been meaning to do this with janet frame too cuz i read her books when i was in my 20s mostly and now i am, um, not in my 20s.

the one spark book i remember having trouble with for some reason was the mandelbaum gate. i just remember not being able to get into it for some reason. it's more "epic" than most of her books. and more outwardly political. it read kind of like a "prize-winning" book to me. if that makes sense. but i should give that another go to. i was a lot more fidgety in my 20s.

alfred, not the same thing entirely, but i implore you and anyone else who hasn't read her to give elizabeth taylor (no, not that one) a chance. god, i love her. james morrison will back me up here. just thought of her for some reason. kinda like barbara pym mixed with spark. kinda. whereas spark is kinda like graham greene + patricia highsmith. kinda. (i just made that up. might not actually hold water.)

highsmith biog very much worth reading

she was a loon! and, again, the later highsmith stuff is practically hallucinogenic. so fascinating. i've got lots of highsmith at home i still haven't read and i savor it all.

i need more graham greene in my life too. i started reading brighton rock at work the other day and before i knew it i was halfway done. addictive!

i haven't read the biog though. just looked at it and read other articles/essays.

the girls of slender means is excellent. bitter, mysterious, and hilarious.

Her books are so easy to gobble that when you get to page seventy after, like, twenty minutes you have to reread to get what you missed.

Read a very positive review in Harper's of the Martin Stannard bio that is just coming out on this side of the pond.

But the NYT reviewer called it a "lumpy mattress of a biography".

New Yorker none too fond of if either.

well, if you haven't read muriel's own autobio, it's a great read. Curriculum Vitae.

At the risk of generalizing, god, the Brits are so much better at autobiography.

I agree!

OK, I dropped by the library on the way home to pick up Curriculum Vitae and will wait for them to get a copy of the Stannard bio.

I'm ready to resume.

The Takeover.

Admittedly I hear you delivering that a la Jay-Z.

That was fun. The ending was sloppy though.

I'm starting The Only Problem when I get home.

Read Territorial Rights. Plot is a mess but she's a treasure.

which one is that? I was doing odds and sods of late work circa last christmas

Thought The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was perfect. Too close for comfort: as a teacher, I was definitely guilty of constructing a cult of personality. We'll cover as much science and social studies as we need to--enough that I can write a report card--but I'll show you all this other stuff, Jackson Pollock and Willie Mays and strange film clips where someone sees the universe in a cup of coffee, and even though I can't say so outright, this stuff is much more important, just like (again, implied but not spoken) you'll have many other teachers as you go on, but no will ever again show you things so interesting. Watched the film directly afterwards: got some things right, and Maggie Smith's very good, but they really flubbed the ending, and--typical--made sure to spell out everything and underline twice.

That was the first of her books that I read and I remember liking but not loving it, but she has since gone on to become one of my favorite authors, so probably due for a re-read!

Same.

One of the nice touches in the novel was the unspoken but clear affinities between Jean's creepy admiration for Mussolini and the way she ran her own classroom. In the film, they decide to have Sandy say "It's like Miss Brodie has her own Fascista!"