The Complete Short Stories - Muriel Spark

I haven't completely read the complete short stories; there are quite a lot of them and I don't want to end up feeling like I've had to much of a good thing, or perhaps more to the point find somewhere past the middle that I've stopped noticing the nuances in each story. Instead, and as it's been  Muriel Spark week, I've been dipping in and out as time allows and think I've ended up with a pretty good over all impression of Spark as a short story writer whilst still leaving myself with plenty to look forward to for future reading.

A recurring theme of this week has been a general sentiment of 'this isn't Spark's best book, but...', it was my own reaction to 'Territorial Rights' - well 'The Complete Short Stories' contains Spark in all her moods and forms. A witty, playful, sometimes cruel writer the short story suits her and for anyone newish to Spark this is the where I'd suggest you go after the inevitable 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'; it's a very good place to get to know her. So far the only one I haven't liked was 'The Thing About Police Stations' which was set in an almost Orwellian dystopia and I found somewhat baffling.

At entirely the other end of the spectrum was the really charming 'A Hundred And Eleven Years Without A Chauffeur', in which an elderly woman finds some of her family photographs have gone missing including one of an aunt by her sewing machine who had always wanted a Rolls Royce. They turn up again having been pinched by an ersatz Baron in search of some ancestors but meanwhile he's doctored the images and the long gone aunt ends up immortalised with the Rolls she always dreamt of.

Perhaps most interesting so far has been 'The Gentile Jewess' it felt autobiographical to read being about a girl with Jewish and Anglican antecedents turning to Roman Catholicism - Wikipedia backs that up. It also has something interesting to say, in a quiet sort of way, about the nature of belief and faith and like 'A Hundred And Eleven Years Without A Chauffeur' was exceptionally satisfying as a story. (That's it, I won't give a break down of the dozen stories I read but rest assured they were all, with the possible exception of the police one, excellent)

I can honestly say that this is Spark at her best (if you only buy one Spark book make sure... etc.) it's also a book that's going to be rescued from the neglected spot at the back of the bookshelf that it's been hiding on to be sent to a new home somewhere more prominent and generally handy for bed time reading.

Muriel Spark Week

Lazy blogging tonight (though if I should need a defence for that it's 9.30pm and I've only just limped home and am somewhat tired) but I thought I'd post up links to the Muriel Spark's I've read over the last couple of years just on the off chance anyone's interested... Either way here they are:

Loitering With Intent from December 2009

The Comforters from January 2010

Memento Mori from June 2010

Symposium from January 2011 - I should have read a Spark this New year -that was the beginning of a fine tradition that could have seen me through the next two decades if I'd kept it up.

These are all the Virago reissues and all come heartily recommended. It's also definitely time to re read 'A Far Cry From Kensington' which I came across pre blog and is the book responsible for my Sparkian infatuation.   

 

Territorial Rights - Muriel Spark

Better late than never - here's my contribution to Muriel Spark reading week. It still surprises me to find how much she wrote; at least 22 novels (looking at Simon's list there are still a few I hadn't heard of before) and then there are all the short stories and not so short stories. 'Territorial Rights' was a second hand find - I don't think it's destined to be a reprint any time soon, it isn't really Spark at her very best despite anything the cover blurb says to the contrary, and this is the first thing that interests me about it. 

As someone who reads a lot of 'Classics' previously neglected or otherwise I'm always curious about the process that goes into rescuing a book from obscurity, I've loved all the Spark titles that Virago have reissued, and was of course bowled over by 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' (inevitably the first Spark I read) and so would be inclined to automatically buy anything I saw with her name on it because until now I've been inclined to think she couldn't put a foot wrong. In the general way of things we only get access to the best of an older authors work which in turn serves to bolster there reputation. In Sparks case the reputation is deserved, 'Territorial Rights' isn't by any means a bad book it's just not as good as some of the others.

Everything is a bit of a mystery - Robert has arrived in Venice ostensibly as a student and most likely in pursuit of a somewhat older Bulgarian defector Lena, she's in Venice to find her father's grave. Hot on his heels follows Curran an American millionaire art collector with whom Robert has been living with for the past two years. As chance would have it Robert's father (Arnold) and mistress check into the same hotel he's staying in, a situation Robert finds intolerable seemingly because he just doesn't like his father very much. Meanwhile back in Birmingham Robert's mother, Anthea, has had enough and has called in the private detectives. Their woman on the ground in Venice is Violet, an old friend of Curran's, the detectives make their money through blackmail. Add to this mix Grace (a friend of Anthea's and ex lover of Arnold's) and Leo (a vaguely Jewish young man) who follow Arnold to Venice on Anthea's behalf, and then there are Katerina and Eufemia the two sisters running the hotel. 

Lena's search for her fathers grave is the catalyst that reveals the links between these people but Lena herself is not a sympathetic character. This is the second thing that hooked me into the book - Spark takes the characters I felt I should have empathised with and makes them appalling, instead she gifts her should be villains with the sympathetic traits. The anti -Semitic Lena who throws herself into a filthy canal to cleanse herself after sleeping with Leo is the prime example of this. She's made ridiculous, often cruelly so, but one cannot help but feel she deserves her punishments (mostly) and I'm curious about what Spark meant us to make of her and why specifically she makes her anti - semitic, it's such a loaded and specific way of making someone dislikeable.

Beyond that it was a quick and generally enjoyable read, a book I'm pleased to have finished, but probably one that's going to make it's way back to a charity shop. It lacks something that the other Spark's I've read have most definitely had; I'm almost certain it's a specific narrative voice - all the Spark's I've loved have been told from the point of view, and in the voice of, individuals. The characters in question might be morally ambiguous but they've generally been excellent company, I missed that insight here.  

Houskeeping

Next week is Murial Spark reading week over at Stuck in a Book and Harriet Devine's Blog and I'm quite excited about it, I've sorted out all my unread Spark's and am wondering which way to go with them. My Everyman's Library collection has a couple of unread novellas in it 'The Only Problem' sounds tempting. 'Territorial Rights' is set in Venice - enough said really, and then there's the short story collection. I do like short stories and if I were to be organised could perhaps write about a whole lot of them through the week (I will never be that organised). 

At the same time I've sorted out a dozen books that I want to read over the next few months. Some are review copies, some were presents, some I bought almost a year ago, and some I picked up at the weekend (birthday trip with the blonde to Astley book farm - it was hard to know when to stop) they're all books that elicited a deeply enthusiastic response from me when they first came my way and I'm determined they're going to get some attention before other newer shinier books totally distract me, now all I have to do is find them a handy home...

Symposium – Muriel Spark (a Virago modern classic...)

My New Year trip to the borders has become something of a tradition, indeed a host of traditions including this one; from the moment I buy my train ticket each year and know I’m actually going I start planning which books I’ll take. I try for a good spread of books to cover any likely mood and to have at least one more (but no more than two more) than I can read...

This year I managed to read Scott’s ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’, and Muriel Spark’s ‘Symposium’ (in-between my confusion over what to do with ‘The Small House at Allington’ – it was a packed holiday). The Muriel Spark was one I’ve been looking forward to for a while and which I thought might make for a welcome change of pace between all the 19th century doorstops I’ve been hauling around with me.

So far I’ve not read a Spark I didn’t like but ‘Symposium’ is defiantly the oddest offering yet from a writer who doesn’t shy away from odd. It’s billed on the back blurb as being the story of a dinner party where connections are made between the characters and tensions build. There is also talk of boiling emotions and ugly motives all of which is quite true but only gave me the sketchiest indication of what was actually in the book (it’s either a really good blurb or a really not good one I can’t quite decide).

For me, and this is straight off the back of ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’ with its attendant chorus of hags and prophecy, there was a good bit of the occult about ‘Symposium’. The unifying theme is a dinner party and it’s a great device for introducing characters, telling a bit of story and then quickly moving on. The story I picked up on was that of young bride Margaret Damien (nee Murchie) an almost unnaturally self possessed young woman who’s just too good to be true. It’s not true and dark things keep happening around her in what I think of as a particularly Scottish way. What I read this time was a murder mystery but the really brilliant thing about this book is that next time I read it when doubtless I’ll have a different set of pre-occupations is that it will almost certainly be another strand that catches my attention and I’ll find myself reading a book about love, or obsession, or family, or friendship...

Surely not many writers could pull off a trick like this in less than a 150 pages – Spark makes it look effortless.

Every week is Virago week with me (number of virago modern classics bought in the last 7 days – 8, so it’s been a good week, and you can probably guess it’s been pay day as well) but a semi official ‘Virago reading week’ (thanks to Rachel and Carolyn) has been interesting. It’s fascinating to see how many of us there are who share a love for this particular imprint, and how general the feeling of ‘discovery’ is (nobody ‘discovers’ penguin). Publishing and especially the publishing of ‘lost’ classics has changed almost beyond recognition in the last decade and a half, but when I first found Virago there was nothing else quite like it – nobody else giving back a voice to the generations of women who earned a living through writing but were lost to the canon.

No longer an independent publishing house and the iconic green jackets a thing of the past (but oh so collectable) I still think Virago are one of the most exciting imprints around. The list might be smaller than in its heyday but arguably the overall quality is a shade higher – long may the good work continue.

Memento Mori

Virago as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before are a publisher I hold dear to my heart, a green spine in a second hand shop will call out to me from twenty feet away (the blonde is my witness) and that tempting apple is the first thing I look for in a bookshop. I don’t buy or beg every one that comes my way – though maybe I should because more than any other publisher it’s Virago who have inspired my reading life...

Muriel Spark is an example of this – I’d heard of her before Virago, I’d read her before Virago but only ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, the thing is before Virago that was the only Spark to be picked up in my local bookshop and I remained oblivious to the rest of her canon for far too long. Since Virago’s reissues I’ve done a lot more exploring – this is what I love so much about them; it’s not just the books they do publish, it’s the writers I find that way, and the whole wide world of excitement that opens up for me.

But what I meant to talk about was ‘Memento Mori’ a strange and wonderful book that could only have been written by Spark – I can’t imagine anyone else writing it anyway. An anonymous caller is phoning a group of elderly people with the message ‘Remember you must die’, as the hunt for the callers identity gets underway things become more mysterious, at the same time the past lives of the protagonists are slowly unveiled revealing a web of indiscretion and blackmail. Gripping stuff, but that’s not all, it’s also a very acute, and mostly sympathetic observation of encroaching mortality.

To live well, as a reminder to behave well, to not have many regrets it seems to me to be a good thing to remember that you must die, but I think Spark means much more than that. If you have faith you need to spend time preparing for what comes next (I don’t have faith in an afterlife so I’m guessing a little bit that this is what she’s telling me). The only really likable characters are those who do remember they must die, and they’re not particularly spending their time making peace with the living, yet they are the more truly compassionate – the better people. Not because they’ve lived markedly better lives but because they seem to be at peace with the lives they have lead.

Much as I like to contemplate the meaning of mortality and what comes next over my lunch a bit of humour doesn’t go amiss with it, and there is a wonderful streak of typically black Spark humour running through this book. It’s also a very moving, and quietly thought provoking account of old age, something that’s generally rare, although Spark does quite a line in old ladies (and is, I’m beginning to think, slightly obsessed with incontinence – it’s something that’s turned up in a few of her books). I think this is a magnificent as well as slightly macabre book, I struggle to pin point exactly what makes it so special (that’s surely a part of what makes Spark so good – perfect balance) but I read it two weeks ago and have been thinking about it on and off ever since. A book that gets under your skin like that is always a winner.