Muriel Spark Reading Week (23-29 April)

Hope you don't mind me drumming up support here, but Harriet Devine (a lurking member here!) and I are running Muriel Spark Reading Week on our blogs, from 23rd-29th April. Quite a few of hers are VMCs, although not in the lovely green spines (so far as I'm aware) so it would be wonderful if some people from this group would be able to join in!

For those of you who don't have blogs, we'll also be hosting discussions on our blogs that we'd love blog-readers to join in.

More info (and a wonderful button, made by another blogger, Thomas) is here: http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2012/02/muriel-spark-reading-week_13.html

Here endeth the advertisement!

Advertise all you like, Simon! I shared your blog post on the VMC Readers FB page.

I am going to save The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to read during this week - as shockingly I have never manage to get around to reading any Muriel Spark.

>2 lauralkeet: Thanks Laura!
>3 Heaven-Ali: I look forward to you becoming a lifelong Muriel devotee ;)

Simon, I am a Spark newbie. I think I read Brodie in my youth but that's it. So if I wanted to read one of Muriel's VMCs, which would you recommend?
Symposium
Loitering with Intent
The Comforters
A Far Cry From Kensington
Memento Mori

This event provides me with an excuse to acquire (as if I need one)

I have only read two of those, Laura, but Loitering With Intent is my favourite Spark, so I would definitely recommend that. I have also read Memento Mori, which is brilliant too, but perhaps a little less cohesive. Loitering With Intent is absolutely incredible - the book where Spark went from being a liked writer to one of my favourites.

Laura - it has to be A Far Cry From Kensington. I loved Jean Brodie but my absolute favorite Spark is The Mandelbaum Gate. There have been others of Sparks that I have hated but I've been in this group long enough to know that if I name them they will turn out to be everyone else's favorites :)

Actually, I don't have any Sparks in Virago, but I've got quite a number in nice dust-jacketed hardcover editions (including a very extensive one of her short stories), and also the Folio Society of Brodie. Personally, I've always like The Girls of Slender Means, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet.

I read Slender Means, Memento Mori, and Jean Brodie years ago, and I've acquired the hardcovers in the past few years during "retail therapy" sessions at a couple used/rare bookstores in the Philadelphia area. This readathon's going to prompt me to get them off one of my Mount TBRs (though I have been reading the short story anthology off-and-on for some months now).

ETA: Oh, and I've also got Martin Stannard's Muriel Spark: The Biography. I'll have to get to that too.

>7 romain: - I have The Mandelbaum Gate, but I have to confess it didn't much appeal, from the blurb - but one day I will get to it!

>8 CurrerBell: Hurrah, great news! And I have the Stannard book too, perhaps I'll read that... but it is pretty hefty, I might stick to Spark's own (short) books this time around.

I too enjoyed Loitering with intent and Memento Mori. Another I really liked, which hasn't been mentioned yet, was The Bachelors.

Simon - I have a thing about the Middle East and The Mandelbaum Gate is set in Jerusalem and Jordan, so it was right up my alley. Anthony Burgess lists it, along with Girls of Slender Means as her two best, but given that I hate most of his other recommendations that may not mean much.

Count me in. My Sparks are in various stages of tatter with the exception of The Girls of Slender Means sent to me by our generous Patricia. I'll look forward to reading at least one of them - I believe I'll stick my hand up to the shelf and see what jumps out.

I'll probably read Symposium, which I received through Paperback Swap. I started it when I not in a particularly fine mood. Unfortunately The Bachelors is not available through Baron von Kindle because that would be my preference. I was not particularly fond of The Girls of Slender Means. The Comforters sounds interesting. I haven't read it.

Probably either A far cry from Kensington or Loitering with intent, but I reserve the right to change my mind. ;)

It has started!

What's everyone reading?

I read Loitering with Intent -- kind of jumped the gun by starting on Saturday, and finished it this evening! Anyone else reading this book?

I plan to begin A Far Cry From Kensington at bedtime tonight. I also have on hand Symposium and Loitering With Intent but I think this one is speaking to me a bit more.

Laura, I plan to start *Loitering* tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on how I progress with Foreign Bodies. I'll check in to see how you liked it! It does look like a quick one, even for me!

I'm just about to start a reread of Memento Mori (which I haven't read since a grad course back in the early 70s). Actually, I've got A Muriel Spark Trio so I might just do *Comforters* and *Peckham Rye* as well. In the past year or so I've been reading from an anthology of Sparks's short stories, with "The Black Madonna" being the most impressive of the shorts.

Lovely!

I'm reading her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae - and recently read The Ballad of Peckham Rye and The Only Problem, to get a bit ahead of the game.

17 - what did you think, Laura? It's my favourite so far!

I've just started Memento Mori in honour of the reading week - very wicked so far!

I had intended to read Loitering With Intent but given how hectic this week is going to be, I'm going to dip in and out of The Collected Stories of Muriel Spark.

I've never read anything by Muriel Spark before so I'm going to start with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

23> I've only dipped in and out of her stories myself, but do make sure you read "The Black Madonna" if it's in that particular anthology.

>25 CurrerBell:
Thanks for the recommendation! I've bookmarked it so I don't forget.

I'm doing Territorial Rights and I also have Aiding and Abetting to read as well.

Not having before read any Muriel Spark I am starting with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie had a slow reading day today due to WBN but will Get more read tomorrow. Liking it so far.

>27 Kasthu: - I know nothing about Territorial Rights, so would be especially interested to hear about that one!

So far Curriculum Vitae is great fun - especially the bit about her schoolteacher who was partly the inspiration for Jean Brodie.

I'll be joining you starting tonight. I first read Muriel Spark in 2010 and started with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I ended up not liking so much.
Since then, I've read several of her books, including Memento Mori, Loitering with Intent, A Far Cry from Kensington and The Girls of Slender Means, all of which I greatly enjoyed.

I have quite a few options for this week. May revisit Miss Jean Brodie now that I've gained such an appreciation for her work. I also have The Complete Short Stories, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Bachelors and Aiding and Abetting to choose from. Tough decisions ahead!

I just finished my re-read (after about forty years) of Memento Mori. While I had favorable memories of it from graduate school, I definitely have a much greater appreciation for it today. 5***** and perhaps not a book to be wasted on the young. ;->

Since I have A Muriel Spark Trio, I think I may next go on to either The Comforters or Peckham Rye, considering I've never read either of them. I do want, though, to do a re-read of Jean Brodie (which I've got in Folio Society) and Slender Means (which I think I may have around the house somewhere).

I'm hoping to start The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie today and go onto The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories if I have time.

My copies look (something) like this:

Finished Memento Mori last night and have put a comment on Simon's blog. I'm still thinking a lot about the book which is a good sign!

Just finished Aiding and Abetting. Amazing how Spark's theories about the Lord Lucan case predate evidence supporting it. I'll have a review of it as well as Territorial Rights, which I enjoyed, up at my blog sometime this week. I've already posted some initial thoughts about the latter.

From what I've read about Spark, she was gutsy. Maybe a little disagreeable to some, but gutsy.

http://agirlwalksintoabookstore.blogspot.com/

Curriculum Vitae is really good - still very Sparkian, especially when she gets a bit dark towards the end. But my favourite section is still about the teacher who helped inspire the character Jean Brodie. I'm hoping to review it at some point this week...

A Far Cry from Kensington is the one I really want to read now.

I'm waiting for Loitering with Intent to arrive so I can read it before the end of the week!

I like the look and sound of A Far Cry from Kensington too - let us know what it's like if you read it!

I just finished Loitering with Intent, and I'm in love! Thank you for sparking my interest, Stephen! I'm afraid that I might have double-posted on your blog, but I trust that you'll accept only one of them if that happened. What I loved besides the wild and zany cast of characters and Fleur herself was the commentary on novel-writing. Very novel!

So glad you liked it, Peggy/Lizzie/Jane (not sure which one to go with!) The commentaries on novel-writing were wonderful, weren't they? And you couldn't quite tell whether or not Spark meant them too - so many layers in Loitering With Intent, such a clever, funny book.

My next one will actually be The Abbess of Crewe, I think, because nobody else has mentioned it yet across the blogs this week.

I loved Loitering. I should have started a Spark last night. Maybe I'll just read a couple of stories at the weekend - I downloaded a Canongate version of her Complete Stories to my Kindle.

39>> The Complete Stories? What did you download, the Audible Audio Edition? I can't find an eBook version at the Kindle Store. I've got the Complete Stories in treeware, but it would be convenient to have an eText. If you do know of a Kindle eText, could you post the link? TIA!

I have a Cannongate ebook version of the Complete Stories but it was only in epub where I bought it.

ISBN: 9780857862990 (in case that helps your search)

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Complete-Short-Stories/book-fdD5HBddH0WPLPg8l...

STUCK; what have you done????????? I am almost done with A Far Cry from Kensington and I am in love with this 'new-to-me' author. Loving this book. I hope she wrote a lot of books so that I have many to look forward to. Thank you for bringing this challenge to us.
hugs,

I decided to join this "challenge" and finished reading The driver's seat yesterday. In this short novel a ludicrous woman, perceived by most people as "garish" is frantically looking for her murderer. To be murdered is not so much her fate, she is creating that situation to happen, shaping her own destiny.

If not a comment on predestination, as the lousy introduction to the Penguin Classics editions, by John Lancaster, suggests, then perhaps, more likely it is the world turned upside down, where the female victim takes the initiative to the murder in the role of the agent, and the male perpetrator appears to be the victim of the situation. The novel also strongly urges the reader to think about Lise's role and behaviour and that incredibly male chauvinistic comment that "she asked for it." Not just the murder, but all her trouble, and the various men who want to have sex with her.

All of the action takes place within barely 24 hours. While tragic and shocking, the book is also hilarious. However unreal, Lise appears real enough to me, albeit perhaps a bit exaggerated.

I used to be a great fan on Muriel Spark, but hadn't read anything of her since I last read Curriculum Vitae in 1995.

The driver's seat was a great way to get back to this author. I should try to delve up that unread copy of Symposium, which according to LT I should have somewhere.

I will post a longer review of The driver's seat later on my Club Read 2012 thread.

>43 edwinbcn: - thanks for that! I like the idea of it being about predestination - that sort of comes up in The Abbess of Crewe and Not to Disturb as well...

>42 rainpebble: - hurrah! You're in luck - she wrote 22 novels!

>44 Stuck-in-a-Book:

Well, the author of the introduction claims that it is all about destiny / predestination, linking the work with the author's catholicism, and pointing out similarities in other novels, notably also The Abbess of Crewe, which you also mentioned.

However, I did not find the introduction so convincing. While destiny / predestination is a motive, the novel seems to take a very playful stance on that issue. I will have to think a little bit more about that.

Uh, mine was not a Virago edition...

I'm in the UK, but I looked at it on amazon.com and it seems to be available for Kindle. but it's $12.99, quite a lot if you have it already. Actually, I probably do have most of them in book form but it's an ex library hardback (well, that would mean I didn't spend much on the print version)

46> Thanks! It looks like maybe it just isn't available for Kindle in the U.S. If it were complete, though, it would be worth having for portability and mark-up, even though I do have what's probably a pretty complete collection already in treeware (and I prefer not to write in good hardcovers).

Just posted a 5***** review to Memento Mori.

Interesting reviews of The Driver's Seat and Memento Mori.

I wasn't familiar with the first title, but will have to add it to my extensive wishlist.

Memento Mori was one of my favourites last year. It was the second Spark novel I read and had me hooked for good. While I can certainly not be considered "old", I do agree that this is a novel that would be lost on the young. It was wickedly funny and very strange and I look forward to revisiting it.

I revisited Miss Jean Brodie, on audio book this time and did not like it the second time any more than the first. I'm not sure what it is about this particular novel because I can see objectively how it might be funny to some, but it fails to enthuse me.

Meanwhile, I've been taking in The Complete Short Stories bit by bit, also on audio. I should look up her biography more closely, because I was wondering how come the first 4 or 5 stories were set in the African colonies and I see she lived in Rhodesia... does anyone know about this?

Ilana - love your room on your profile page. Beautiful! Also I am off to take the 'Which book are you?' quiz.

I have read a lot of Spark but have not liked all of it. In fact I hated The Abbess of Crewe. But I loved Jean Brodie, Far Cry and my all time fave of hers is The Mandelbaum Gate, which no one else seems to have liked at all.

The Mandelbaum Gate is the only Spark novel which nobody reviewed this week!

>50 romain:: I thought the Which Book Are You quiz sounded kinda interesting so went off and took it. I'm a little alarmed to discover I'm Ulysses by James Joyce......... :O

I'm Watership Down but I got the impression there are only a couple of things you can be, given the sparsity of the questions and the fact that Ilana is also one.

I think you might be right - I sent the quiz to my daughter and she came out as Ulysses too! (and we are quite different)

I've taken that thing multiple times, and I usually turn out to be One Hundred Years of Solitude , a book that I really dislike. I tried again though yesterday, and became The Giver. If you were satisfied the first time, you won't know that the questions change depending on your answers. (For instance, sometimes I ramble and sometimes I'm concise; I've tried it both ways and get to different ?'s depending.)

Oh my! I hadn't come back for a visit obviously, so sorry I missed these last messages. I decided I really liked being Watership Down, which is why I've kept it on my profile since last year!

I just took that quiz for the first time and they tell me that I am the dastardly Moby Dick. The one book I have attempted more than a dozen times and never been able to complete. IDK.............what is up with this quiz? Ah well, we know it is all in fun anyway but to be Moby Dick could possibly send me round the bend. ;-)

to be Moby Dick could possibly send me round the bend.

LOL :-)

to be Moby Dick could possibly send me round the bend

Could be worse, you could be an Angela Carter. ;-)

Oh that was low! :))

That WAS low. Sweet Chariot don't swing so low!~! Stop laughing Barbara!~!