Now reading...

[Leeway]

THE COMFORTERS - Muriel Spark - 1957.

Picked up an inexpensive copy of Spark's first novel while up in NYC for Vision Festival. A fairly long novel, tries to do a lot, including some meta-fictional novel-within-a-novel type stuff, doesn't quite all hang together, but is still amusing to read. It does contain the essentials of Spark's fiction: Catholicism, mental breakdown/instability, criminality, and the supernatural/supernormal.

Just finished it. Not bad as a novel, and the Spark biography shows how it came out of her situation and preoccupations at the time.

What has been your favorite Spark novel so far? I figure she is someone I will get around to, but I have quite a few others ahead of her in the queue (Dorris Lessing being one).

I've read six and my favorite is Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, so no surprises there.

BillF, kudos to you on taking on "The Comforters." Question: who are the "comforters" and who is being comforted? Does the biography address that?

The choice of that title remains a mystery to me too. I guess Stannard doesn't have an explanation either, as I don't recall my question being answered by the biography.

I checked that Alan Bold critical study of Spark, and he says:

"Deriving its title from the discomfortable comforters in the Book of Job, the novel puts Caroline in a distressing predicament."

The predicament basically is that Caroline has to suffer through her torments alone; there is little true succor to be found with others.

[ejp626]

BillF, kudos to you on taking on "The Comforters." Question: who are the "comforters" and who is being comforted? Does the biography address that?

The choice of that title remains a mystery to me too. I guess Stannard doesn't have an explanation either, as I don't recall my question being answered by the biography.

I checked that Alan Bold critical study of Spark, and he says:

"Deriving its title from the discomfortable comforters in the Book of Job, the novel puts Caroline in a distressing predicament."

The predicament basically is that Caroline has to suffer through her torments alone; there is little true succor to be found with others.

Job is such a curious and deeply unsatisfying book. I couldn't recall it all that clearly, so I went back and took a look. Basically, one of the "comforters" tells Job the same general things that he said to others in the past, so a bit of cold comfort indeed (no one wants to be internally consistent when they are suffering). But as far as I can tell, the second one really gives him God's argument (to come) which Job more or less rejects. Then when God gives him the same line, but backed by great force and mystery, Job accepts it. Ta da. His problems are over. And he gets a whole new batch of kids to replace the ones that God let Satan slay. Done and dusted.

I know we are supposed to avoid such issues here, but this one slender book, with all its paradoxes and unreasonable outcomes, turned me completely away from organized religion. There was no way for me to square the circle, as it were.

[Jazzmoose]

Been continuing my Philip K. Dick revisit, with A Scanner Darkly (probably my favorite of his books), The Crack in Space (a little too 'out there' for me; I mean come on, a Black president?), Ubik (missed this the first time around; this may be the ultimate Dick novel) and now The Zap Gun.

It's nice to finally be able to find his books easily and not have to pay through the nose for a beat up paperback...

[Leeway]

THE AWKWARD AGE (1899) - Henry James

I had an aversion to Henry James until I got to graduate school, where I suddenly and surprising found myself enamored of his work. I proceeded to read through all his novels and most of his stories, and have revisited all of them from time to time. For me, James is inexhaustible. I decided to re-read The Awkward Age, the story of the social coming of age of Nanda Brookenham, in light of such recent reading as Lessing's Martha Quest and Drabble's Jerusalem the Golden.

[jlhoots]

Craig Johnson: Any Other Name (A Walt Longmire mystery)

[xybert]

I've been re-reading my old Tom Strong comics. ABC (America's Best Comics) had a great run in the late 90's/early 00's. I remember reading an interview with Alan Moore at the time, and i remember him saying that he wanted to bring comics back to being the 'imagination factories' that they once were. Anyway, a lot of fun, plays with genre/medium conventions etc without being all 'wink wink' about it. It's like, really well written, imaginative, medium brow straight ahead stuff. Random note: i liked that they put all the ads in the last few pages of the comics, rather than interpsersed throughout, does make a difference with 90's stuff where the ads were pretty obnoxious and X-TREME (a lot of the comics were too, but it's jarring when it's a Tim Sale or other tasteful artist's book). I've been craving comic books lately, i really regret trading the majority of my old collection.

[A Lark Ascending]

After reading the excellent but very intricate 'The Sleepwalkers' about how the war came about, a more traditional account. The first 100 cover much the same ground as Clark but thereafter it's the military history of 1914. Don't know this nearly as well as 1916/17/18.

Polished this off in a week. Not as nuanced as Clark on the origins (holds to the idea that Germany was largely to blame) but superb on the campaigns from Aug to December. I knew little of the Alsace-Lorraine clashes of Aug or the Serbian or Galician fronts. Balances narrative history with first hand reportage and overview evaluation.

Best of all, he places the role of the BEF and Britain generally in its proper perspective, critical of decision making and the subsequent myth making that portrayed retreats (Mons, Le Cateau) as victories; and constantly emphasises the dominance of the French in the autumn campaigns. Not how those months are usually depicted here.

Hope he goes on to cover the rest of the war in subsequent volumes - he has that ability to write engaging history for the general reader.

[Leeway]

THE HOTHOUSE BY THE EAST RIVER (1973)- Muriel Spark

Set in wartime England (and particularly an intelligence compound in the countryside) and 1970s Manhattan (particularly an apartment on East 44th St. overlooking the East River), this fantasia is filled with Spark's usual obsessions: the supernatural, madness, fat ladies, thin ladies dieting, great wealth (thrown about carelessly), unsatisfactory son, hapless husband, etc. Elsa, the main character, has a rather unusual characteristic: her shadow falls the wrong way. The reason is revealed in an O-Henry-like twist later in the novel.

Spark's usual efflorescence of wit is here, but very little joy of life. It may be that the subject matter precluded it, but still one detects a sour note, something tired and dismal, resonating throughout. Clearly, the WWII theme is important to Spark, but here it is not handled as well as it is in the early novels.

There was a little sliver of biographical interest to me in this novel, in that while Elsa and her associates are perched high over Manhattan's East River looking towards Queens, early 1970s, I was living across the East River in Queens looking at Manhattan.

[A Lark Ascending]

'Folk in Cornwall' - Rupert White

Nice little locally produced account of the 60s/70s scene in Cornwall. Beatniks who couldn't quite manage to escape 'the man' by rolling the roads of the USA or Europe came to Cornwall. Helped nourish the likes of Wizz Jones, Ralph McTell, Michael Chapman, Clive Palmer (early ISB), Donovan (the one who made the money).

By chance I'm currently camped one mile from the site of one of the key folk clubs - The Count House at Botallack. Idyllic setting for a club. I loved the mention of how gigs in the summer would halt to watch the sunset over the Atlantic and then resume.

I was living in Newquay as a kid when the scene was well established (1968-72) but it was beyond my experience. Though oddly I knew it was there as my chemistry teacher (John Sleep) was involved - he appears in the book constantly, playing bass and organising gigs, especially at The Folk Cottage near Newquay.

There are clearly still echoes. Wizz was playing in Penzance last week and Michael Chapman at Botallack earlier in the month.

So near, so far.

Edited July 30, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Matthew]

Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie: Nice, enjoyable book. Been on a Christie binge lately.

[Head Man]

Looks like a number of his books have been reprinted including this one, my favoutite. He writes beautifully.

[A Lark Ascending]

Grant - Jean Edward Smith. Comes across as a very decent man in this interpretation.

[jazzbo]

[Matthew]

Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt. Nice, short biographies of the great "pulp" writers. Good book to have lying around and just pick a random author to read about.

[BillF]

Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt. Nice, short biographies of the great "pulp" writers. Good book to have lying around and just pick a random author to read about.

This biography of Chandler was a great read:

Edited August 3, 2014 by BillF

[Matthew]

Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt. Nice, short biographies of the great "pulp" writers. Good book to have lying around and just pick a random author to read about.

This biography of Chandler was a great read:

I bought this one recently, and it's a good one also:

But I looked on Amazon this morning and was able to order the Hiney book for one cent, so thanks for the recommendation -- Chandler has become one of my all-time favorites.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Matthew

[medjuck]

This book is about the relationship of Orson Welles and Billie Holiday. It sort of tapers off near the end but the author really knows his stuff. (There are a few anachronisms: eg he has Paul Gonsalves with Ellington in the early '40s. ) Here's the review that led me to it. http://thebluemoment.com/2014/06/06/orson-welles-and-lady-day/#comments

Edited August 4, 2014 by medjuck

[BillF]

Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt. Nice, short biographies of the great "pulp" writers. Good book to have lying around and just pick a random author to read about.

This biography of Chandler was a great read:

I bought this one recently, and it's a good one also:

But I looked on Amazon this morning and was able to order the Hiney book for one cent, so thanks for the recommendation.

Enjoy!

[ejp626]

I wrapped up The Tin Drum (more on this later), and Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I have to admit I didn't care for the second one much either, mostly because I didn't like the way Spark structured the book, draining it of any real dramatic interest (we know within the first few pages of the death of a character and that there will be a betrayal). So then you think it will be more of a procedural as it is revealed who betrayed whom. And then that is revealed midway through in a very underwhelming fashion. Finally, the why is sort of left dangling but just isn't that interesting. When we finally get to the how -- there is another objection that arises.

(Minor spoiler alert). It is not impossible but it seems unlikely that Jean Brodie with her great attachment to Art and the Pre-Raphaelites (particularly Rossetti) and slightly unconventional morality would be so attracted to Mussolini and then Hitler. It's not impossible, but it doesn't hang together very well for me, and it sort of was one more thing that I didn't care for in the novel. I though Spark was making a number of points about how adults can be capricious and that unconventional, unfusty teachers are not necessarily that much better than traditional ones (they just have a different set of prejudices). I didn't think she was also (intentionally) making a point that it is difficult to be consistent with one's politics and one's way of life, but perhaps she was. If so, I think it was one step too far in being almost postmodern in not having any grounding under the main character(s).

If that was the best of the bunch, I will have to think long and hard about reading any other Spark, since I have dozens of other books to try to tackle first that would seem to speak to me more.

Anyway, I am now alternating between Calvino's Six Memos for the New Millennium and John A. William's The Man Who Cried I Am, which I've had, it seems, for forever.

[Leeway]

"Brodie" is not really a plot-driven book, and so Spark throws out the ending (which is not really the ending) because that is not what she is getting at. Really the novel is one of humor, interpersonal relations, how, one feels about those relation, how one sees others over the passage of time, over betrayal and its pain. Although its not a feminist novel, it does offer a view into what it is to grow up as a woman, and to find a woman's perspective on the world. Although "Brodie" comes closer to a more apparent emotional context that much of Spark's other writings, I don't think it's "kind hearts and coronets;" Spark likes her satirical edge a bit too much for that. It's a felt book, but also a thoughtfully-considered book.

If none of the humor or wit came though, then, yes, I'd have to say that Spark probably is not for you. As for Hitler and Mussolini, sad to say that in the early days of their rule, many in Britain adored them. It took awhile to see what was really going on.

[BillF]

"Brodie" is not really a plot-driven book, and so Spark throws out the ending (which is not really the ending) because that is not what she is getting at. Really the novel is one of humor, interpersonal relations, how, one feels about those relation, how one sees others over the passage of time, over betrayal and its pain. Although its not a feminist novel, it does offer a view into what it is to grow up as a woman, and to find a woman's perspective on the world. Although "Brodie" comes closer to a more apparent emotional context that much of Spark's other writings, I don't think it's "kind hearts and coronets;" Spark likes her satirical edge a bit too much for that. It's a felt book, but also a thoughtfully-considered book.

If none of the humor or wit came though, then, yes, I'd have to say that Spark probably is not for you. As for Hitler and Mussolini, sad to say that in the early days of their rule, many in Britain adored them. It took awhile to see what was really going on.

As Ken Livingstone, the left-wing former Mayor of London, loves to point out, the Daily Mail (which never liked him) was hugely enthusiastic about Hitler in the 1930s.

[johnblitweiler]

Interesting that Spark's male characters are almost invariably crooks or nebbishes, and the most characterless of her males are the ones her protagonists fall in love with. Apparently one of her lovers became the pisseur de copie of a novel, but did she ever put her psychotic husband in a book? The Mandelbaum Gate is the closest (of the 13 or 14 Sparks that I've read) she's come to Ford Madox Ford, with its time shifts, characters with amnesia, and sentences like, "She was afraid he was going to say more about blood and bloodshed; this was so often his fear since his lapse of memory -- 'I feel there's going to be bloodshed. I wonder if Miss Vaughan...'" I mean later-day Ford, post-Parades End novels. Of course even in The Mandelbaum Gate her sense of humor is more active, and crueler than his whimsies. It looks like I like Spark for some of the reasons that bug ejp.

Just read the first novel in Daniel Woodrell's The Bayou Trilogy. Disappointing. I wonder if Woodrell is a James Lee Burke in reverse. Burke, when young, wrote some strong novels including one about eastern KY guys a lot like some KY guys I knew 55 or so years ago. But then Burke invented his detective character Robichaux, purely a fantasy, and despite the LA local color his detective novels are annoyingly unbelievable. This Woodrell novel, Under The Bright Lights, has a detective hero and the ongoing conflicts are awfully forced -- little dynamic change. He wrote it years before he wrote Winter's Bone. Did Woodrell get better over time?

[ejp626]

"Brodie" is not really a plot-driven book, and so Spark throws out the ending (which is not really the ending) because that is not what she is getting at. Really the novel is one of humor, interpersonal relations, how, one feels about those relation, how one sees others over the passage of time, over betrayal and its pain. Although its not a feminist novel, it does offer a view into what it is to grow up as a woman, and to find a woman's perspective on the world. Although "Brodie" comes closer to a more apparent emotional context that much of Spark's other writings, I don't think it's "kind hearts and coronets;" Spark likes her satirical edge a bit too much for that. It's a felt book, but also a thoughtfully-considered book.

If none of the humor or wit came though, then, yes, I'd have to say that Spark probably is not for you. As for Hitler and Mussolini, sad to say that in the early days of their rule, many in Britain adored them. It took awhile to see what was really going on.

As Ken Livingstone, the left-wing former Mayor of London, loves to point out, the Daily Mail (which never liked him) was hugely enthusiastic about Hitler in the 1930s.

I'm certainly aware that the Fascists had many admirers in England. I didn't think it made that much sense for Brodie to have been so particularly enamoured of them, given how she reacted to authority at the school and her general sense of herself as a free spirit (who elevated Art and philosophy over math and science). Perhaps she is simply to sly for me, but it seems on the whole, I strongly prefer Doris Lessing over Muriel Spark. The one vaguely amusing bit was how the painter painted all the girls as looking like their teacher, but then this joke was spoiled when she repeated it two or three times, and then even had one of the girls confront the painter over it. Not terribly subtle after all...

[Leeway]

Coincidentally, I'm now shuttling between Lessing's Four-Gated City and Stannard's Spark biography. I respect Lessing and recognize her seriousness. On the other hand, her prose style is, shall we say, utilitarian, and she has hardly any sense of humor. Comparing her to Spark is like comparing boiled potatoes to potato chips. They both have their virtues I think; just don't think you can hold either to the other's standards.

[ejp626]

Coincidentally, I'm now shuttling between Lessing's Four-Gated City and Stannard's Spark biography. I respect Lessing and recognize her seriousness. On the other hand, her prose style is, shall we say, utilitarian, and she has hardly any sense of humor. Comparing her to Spark is like comparing boiled potatoes to potato chips. They both have their virtues I think; just don't think you can hold either to the other's standards.

There's nothing worse than someone insisting that they have a perfectly good sense of humor, but that X or Y just isn't all that funny. At the moment, I do seem to be reading works that are Important and Serious and have little lightness at all (to borrow from the Calvino essays), and that seems to be the rut I want to stick in for a while. So Lessing is a better fit to say nothing of Dostoevsky. The humor I can stomach at the moment is of the wry variety. Or black humor may be ok (there is some of that in The Man Who Cried I Am, which seems to be the book that I had hoped City of Light would be). I imagine this will pass, and I will be more open to books that have a bit more generosity of spirit about them... (At that point, I am considering reading some Montaigne...)