The finishing school (edition 2005)

A mention in James Wood's [b:How Fiction Works|1355465|How Fiction Works|James Wood|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312030908s/1355465.jpg|1345179] prompted me to pick up a couple Sparks from the library. Of course the mention was of [b:The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie|517188|The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie |Muriel Spark|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307465236s/517188.jpg|6132856], but that wasn't on the shelves. Instead I got The Finishing School, which turned out to be her last novel. She was in her mid 80s when she wrote it.

Does that mean it's a fuddy-duddy prim tale of old-fashioned people fighting to teach the kids (the kids these days!) how to be prim and old-fashioned? Hardly. Rowland and Nina run "College Sunrise," a scattershot affair of only 9 students currently located on the shores of Lake Geneva. The major plot involves Rowland's desultory attempts to write a novel and their derailment by his jealousy in the face of 17-year-old student Chris' seeming success in the same pursuit. Students sleep with gardeners, teachers sleep with locals, authors sleep with publishers: everything happens in this book except any indication of actual education being imparted or received. Well, education in the school of life, perhaps.

In length and (lack of) heft it's really a novella, and the prose is so simple and sparse that it feels even lighter still. But in that same simplicity it approaches the abstraction of [a:Henry Green|16649|Henry Green|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1294741307p2/16649.jpg]. Good fun, and I'm sure I'll be reading more of Muriel Spark in the future. ( )

The Finishing School, while not earth-shaking literature, was a good bit of fun: I laughed out loud at several points. A young couple, Nina and Rowland, with dubious finances run College Sunrise, a third-rate finishing school that moves to a new location every year. Rowland, who teaches creative writing, becomes obsessed with one of his young students, Chris Wiley, who is writing a novel based on the plot to kill Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots. The more he realizes how good Chris's novel is, the bigger Rowland's own writer's block becomes. While there are other escapades involving other students and Rowland's wife, Nina, his relationship with Chris is thee short novel's core.

So--certainly not a "Must Read," but not a bad few hours of entertainment. ( )

Little more than a short story really. And while short stories have a habit of driving me bananas, possibly because they tend to come in books containing one good yarn and ten substandard ones, I enjoyed this standalone one. It's about the symbiotic relationship between aspiring novelist Rowland, currently running a anachronistic kind of modern day co-educational finishing school, and his student Chris, an actually-getting-on-with-it novelist, with a cast of other odd characters getting in the way from time to time. I gave up expecting sense out of Muriel Spark's stories years ago, sometimes you get sense but on the whole they are the kind of thing you just surf along with and get entertained by, and never expect a sensible ending! ( )

The Finishing School of the title is College Sunrise, a small, unconventional, and borderline disreputable school run by aspiring novelist Rowland Mahler and his wife Nina. Their star pupil is Chris Wiley, a self-confident 17-year-old who is writing a historical novel about Mary Queen of Scots. Rowland, who is suffering from writer's block, reads bits of Chris's novel and finds it alarmingly good. Sexual and professional jealousy spur Rowland to the brink of a nervous breakdown.

This novella is short and certainly not sweet; it is mostly tartly funny. It's a slight piece of work; the characters other than Rowland and Chris are thinly sketched, but the good writing and the narrator's biting authorial asides make for very good entertainment. I've never read Muriel Spark, and I'll certainly read her again. ( )

Honestly, I'm not sure that Muriel Spark is for me. I kind of remember liking The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie but I read it many years ago so I can't honestly say. I still have it around and have considered a re-read but just haven't gotten around to it. When I read Memento Mori two years ago, I thought there were moments of wit and intelligence but wasn't in love with it. And then this one rubbed me the wrong way from start to finish. I didn't care for any of the characters, the plot was a bit scattered and some of the "issues" seemed contrived and/or half-hearted.

http://webereading.com/2010/07/you-begin-he-said-by-setting-your-scene.html ( )