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.

Virago, not just for Christmas.

Due to events of a festive nature my contribution to Virago reading week is a little late in coming, but Virago is defiantly a publisher I want to celebrate (though a week seems like an awfully short time for such a big passion). My relationship with Virago stretches back across half my actual life and all of my adult reading life. I keep them in my bedroom now, partly because that was the only place that I had left to fit a bookcase, but not least because these books have so many memories attached and I like to see them so by way of homage to Virago here are a few of the reasons I sleep with these books...

One of my first forays behind the green covers came through Molly Keane. I found ‘Young Entry’ in Waterstones in Aberdeen and during my university career bought and read all her books. Broadly speaking Keane’s pre-occupations with family and lifestyle were very sympathetic to my state of mind but what sealed the deal was finding that my grandfather knew her. I knew when I started reading the books that he had been familiar with that world, but just before I graduated and when he was already becoming quite frail he and dad took refuge with me for a night waiting for a flight back to Ireland. I was reading a Molly and we had a chat about her. It was the first time I think we ever had a conversation as adults, before then he had told us amazing stories or taught us things, he was always courteous and charming – but my sister and I were always children, and he was very much a grown up. It was also the last conversation I had with him like that, we only met one more time and by then he wasn’t sure who we were, but I still have Molly who’s given me a link to my own history I’ll always prize.

My one big fail with Virago is Ivy Compton-Burnett’s ‘A Heritage and its History’ I’ve tried to read this so many times and given up 20 pages in. I just don’t get her, but I very clearly remember carefully selecting the book in Blackwell’s Oxford from a stand of Virago’s just after leaving university. I was convinced the world was mine for asking (apparently not) ‘A Heritage and its History’ stands as testimony to unmet aspirations (not least to actually read the damn thing) and challenges me when I’m feeling complacent. Truthfully it’s rare for me to keep a book I know I won’t read but this one is so pretty I can’t let go of it, and maybe one day...

Rosamond Lehman was a discovery from when I was working in a clearance bookshop (sadly these don’t seem to really exist anymore), this enthusiasm must have coincided with Little Brown taking Virago on and a lot of the back list being trimmed because all the cheap bookshops were full of virago titles and I bought loads, Lehman stands out because I actually read them straight away. Her complicated love affairs were a revelation to me after a steady diet of Georgette Heyer, what I read in those books without doubt left me better equipped to deal with the first relationship break up that I took seriously which came not so long after.

I have an undoubted crush on Vita Sackville-West, but struggle a bit with her books (though unlike the Ivy Compton-Burnett fiasco I don’t try very hard to read them) it’s a copy of her letters to Virginia Woolf which fuels the fire and bring both women to life for me. (There was also a really good play based on these – I can’t actually remember what it was called, but it’s due a revival.) So far no other publisher has come near to mirroring (or forming) my personal fiction fixations, possibly another reason the books are in the bedroom is because taken together they say more about who I think I am than I’m prepared to share with any casual visitor – because obviously when the man comes to read the meter he’s only really interested in judging the inner most depths of my soul through the books I read and not with getting on with his job. Nope it’s only those who are initiated into the Virago cult who get to have a look at my books.

Which brings me to Andrea Dworkin ‘Life and Death’ is one of those books ‘that changed my life’ or at least helped me sort out where I stand on all manner of fundamental issues relating to feminism. It’s also one of the books over which my friendship with the blonde was forged, I bought books from her, she gave me a job and hasn’t been able to shake me since. Her Virago obsession is equal to mine and we have a book hunt planned for Sunday...

F. M. Mayor is another Virago find which has sort of changed my life in so much as she lead me into blogging. Such is my enthusiasm for Mayor that when I found a copy of ‘The Squire’s Daughter’ second hand I was almost high with excitement. I briefly flirted with the idea of calling my blog The Squire’s Daughter – the plan was that it would be in a sort of Provincial Lady style and then I realised that it would be extremely hard to do well, embarrassing to do badly, and that either way I’d struggle to talk about books. Rather neatly (I think) this brings me round to Book Snob, someone asked me if I was Book Snob after reading her review of ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ which I was also talking about a lot at the time. I had to admit I wasn’t she, went and had a look and thought why am I not doing this myself? It was a stop dithering and get on with it moment.

I could go on but think this is probably enough for now beyond saying Thomas at My Porch has a competition and there are more on the host sights Book Snob and A few of my favourite books – go and win great books.