Muriel Spark wrote:

'I have always claimed that I write as a poet, that my novels come under the category of poetics rather than fiction.'  (from the essay 'The Art of Verse', 1999)

National Theatre of Scotland

Exciting news - the National Theatre of Scotland are to bring 'The Driver's Seat' to the Lyceum in Edinburgh and the Tramway in Glasgow this summer.  Directed by Laurie Sansom, the daring and innovative style of the NTS will suit perfectly this darkest of Spark's novels.  The Muriel Spark Society welcome this initiative and look forward immensely to seeing this on stage.

http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com

Twitter

Muriel Spark Society - now on Twitter.
Click here

Guardian interview with Penelope Jardine

by Susanna Rustin in last Saturday's (5 July) Guardian here

"The last of two great women writers - Muriel Spark and Sybille Bedford"

An Evening Standard review by David Sexton of the recently published collection of Muriel Spark's essays The Golden Fleece ..."It's an absolute treasure trove".   He also reviews Sybille Bedford's Pleasures and Landscapes.   Both authors died in 2006 and the reviewer cites Evelyn Waugh's admiration for them..

The Ballad of Peckham Rye...

...at this year's East Dulwich Literary Festival.   Professor Martin Stannard will be giving a lecture on this early novel by Muriel Spark on Monday 30th June at 7.30 pm.   Professor Stannard will also have an early BBC Radio recording of the book.   Tickets are £2.50 and are available from Rye Books in East Dulwich (Tel: 020 3581 1850) or can be reserved by contacting David Workman at D.Workman@harrisdulwichgirls.org.uk

Follow this link for further details about the lecture and to find out more about the Festival itselfwhich will host a variety of events including a reading and discussion by Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales on 1st July.

A book review in the London Evening Standard...

 ...that mentions Muriel Spark's 'sweet singing voice'.   The review is of Lynn Barber's autobiography A Curious Career.   Fascinating reading anyway, covering a wide range of her celebrity interviews, but it might be worth trying to find the original interview with Muriel Spark online somewhere?

"You have to live with the mystery"...

says Muriel Spark, quoted in this post by Parul Seghal on yesterday's New Yorker website.

Penelope Jardine on Woman's Hour

Here is a link to a podcast of yesterday's (27th March) BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour (available for download for a further 29 days) where Penelope Jardine discusses The Golden Fleece essays.

Ian Rankin portrait...

...gifted to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery;  the link to the BBC news story is here in which Rankin  remembers that when he was a student at Edinburgh University, doing his thesis on Muriel Spark, her portrait came to the gallery.

New Publications

At the end of this month (28 March) Carcanet Press will be publishing The Golden Fleece: Essays by Muriel Spark, edited by Penelope Jardine.     Please use the above web link to take you to the page which has all the details.

And at the end of April , the University of Notre Dame Press are publishing Hidden Possibilities:  Essays in Honor of Muriel Spark by Robert Ellis Hosmer.   The contributors include Regina Barreca, Gerard Carruthers, Barbara Epler, John Glavin, Dan Gunn, Robert E. Hosmer Jr., Joseph Hynes, Gabriel Josipovici, Frank Kermode, John Lanchester, David Malcolm, John Mortimer, Alan Taylor, and John Updike and Muriel Spark's friend Doris Lessing.

Doris Lessing's obituary in The Guardian published in November last year is here and there will be a  memorial service for her on 7 April at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

The Alphabet Library: B is for The Bachelors

In The Telegraph - an intriguing idea and a very good, incisive article about Muriel Spark's 1960 novel The Bachelors.

And speaking of tests...

...for those not present at the Society's lunch this year here is the 30th Anniversary Quiz on The Only Problem.   Answers to follow!

1. What does Effie steal at the supermarket on the autostrada?
2. What is the name of Effie's lover?
3. Which part of London do Edward and Ruth stay in?
4. What is Effie's baby called?
5. What is the name of Harvey's British lawyer?
6. What is the name of the French family who own the chateau?
7. Which painter painted Job visited by his wife?
8. What do the letters FLE stand for?
9. How did Harvey's family make their money?
10. What are the names of Harvey's aunt and uncle in Toronto?
11. To which figure from classical mythology does Harvey compare Job?
12. In which arondissement in Paris is the policeman killed?
13. What is the name of Harvey's interrogator after the killing?
14. What is the name of the French policeman with English like that heard on Radio Moscow?
15. What is Effie's battle name?
16. What was Effie writing a thesis on?
17. What gift does Harvey's aunt bring him?
18. Which animal has vertical eyelids?
19. One of Job's daughters has the name Keren Happuch.   What does her name mean?
20. How many years does Harvey joke he will live at the end of the novel?

Test your foreign language skills!

Some foreign editions of three of Muriel Spark's novels are available from Eric Dickson - please email him at e.dickson@nls.uk if interested:-

The Girls of Slender Means in Spanish, Portuguese and Russian
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in Portuguese and Russian
A Far Cry from Kensington in Romanian

and last but not least the complete short stories in Russian.

William Boyd's best books...

....from this week's end of year The Week  include Muriel Spark's A Far Cry from Kensington.   "Spark's tone of voice is unique:  terse, dry, clear eyed, darkly humorous.   I prefer her authobiographically based fiction, and this one rivals The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to be her masterwork."

William Boyd's website can be found at www.williamboyd.co.uk

...and the main contenders for the best Scottish novel of the last 50 years are...

... Muriel Spark, Irvine Welsh, Iain Banks and Alasdair Gray according to yesterday's Sunday Herald.   (Book Week Scotland 2013 starts today - more details available at the Scottish Book Trust.)

What is the best Scottish novel of the last 50 years?

Go to the Scottish Book Trust website to cast your vote.   Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark is on the list of favourites.

Bonfire Night, Edinburgh

On a cold and dark evening, members of the Muriel Spark Society and  members of the public gathered at the National Library of Scotland to hear eminent author Alexander McCall Smith speak about Edinburgh and literature.   One could sense the affection for this writer as soon as he appeared.  Chairman Alan Taylor introduced him by pointing out the eerie coincidence of major Edinburgh writers having surnames beginning with S: Scott, Stevenson, Spark, Smith …

McCall Smith began by praising the acuity of Spark’s observations on the city of her birth, particularly with regard to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Spark’s views are timeless, but McCall Smith would later remark on how the past disappears, how the Edinburgh of Miss Brodie had in many ways disappeared. The attenuation of the local by globalisation is something to be mourned.  He spoke despairingly of how some modern buildings can detract from local identity with their sameness. However, some ugly builds can begin to seem more palatable – David Hume Tower anyone?!

In a wide detour to Africa, MS remarked how Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh and moved to Africa. He, on the other hand, was the opposite: Africa born and now permanently domiciled in Edinburgh.  Speaking more generally on the literature of place, he praised the sharp, fresh eye Spark brought to colonial society in Rhodesia. He praised similarly the writings of Nadine Gordimer and Spark’s friend Doris Lessing.

AMS remarked ruefully on a literary success can be a mixed blessing for a place. Savannah, Georgia is often deluged by tourists after the success of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”.   He also explored the “reality” of depictions of place in literature. Was his Edinburgh fiction not too idealised? – a question he was often asked. Yet he wish to present Edinburgh in a good light, this was quite deliberate. He did mention that he had darkened one of his stories in the light of such  comments.  He also spoke about population make-up; many of Edinburgh’s residents were middle class people, involved in office work. Were his fictions so far away from that?  He treated the audience to an amusing  reading from a Scottish woman in Italy on the malaise of Scottish men; was football really so honestly admired?

The evening was a broad, amusing, and often affectionate exploration of literature and place. Afterwards, Society members and AMS repaired to another place: The Field Restaurant for a convivial meal, where other culinary, vinous and literary explorations occurred.

Eric Dickson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Literary flat-shares

An interesting post from Moira Redmond on the Guardian books blog "From Muriel Spark to Hilary Mantel there's a distinct tradition of novels built around young women living together".   The 2009 Festival Fringe production of The Girls of Slender Means, based on Judith Adams adaptation, was by Stellar Quines.

All the single ladies...

...an article in today's Guardian Review by Rachel Cooke looking at "great literary spinsters" - the most pre-eminent for our purposes being, of course, Miss Jean Brodie.   "Brodie is powerful and compelling.   She seems to have a sex life, too.   She is also sinister and, ultimately, betrayed".
The spinsters range from Bridget Jones  back in time to Jane Austen's Miss Bates and looks at the perils, or advantages, of being "on the shelf".