Not to Disturb edition by Muriel Spark Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Not to Disturb edition by Muriel Spark Literature Fiction eBooks 
Behind the high walls of a mansion in Geneva a night of sinister revelry is about to begin . . .
In the staff quarters, the servants led by the cool, unflappable butler are preparing for the downfall of the Baron and Baroness. Meanwhile in the attic, the Baron's invalid brother awaits his fate as an unwitting pawn in their devious plans. And in the library, the Baron, the Baroness and their young handsome secretary are locked in a mysterious, heated discussion.
As the macabre scenario plays itself out, a world of grim humour and gruesome possibilities unfolds . . .
Not to Disturb edition by Muriel Spark Literature Fiction eBooks
I wish I was Muriel Spark. Its that simple - I want to be an artist whose work is spunky, rich and never boring. She worked out her life in her art and guarded her art with her life. A difficult person, quick to anger, constantly picking fights, not much of a mother and yet her fierceness of focus, passion for her art and idiosyncratic nature delights me.Mr. Stannard clearly loves his subject and spent time with her as well. He captures her drive, her disagreeable qualities such as her moodiness and peripatetic nature. But he also gets that her high seriousness comingles with her absurdist humor and that her fictional explorations weren't novels but fictions that inhabit the novel form.
He is also very good on her religious, spiritual explorations as they relate to her fiction but I don't think he get across the role her Catholicism played in her life. While I get a sense of her Catholic intellectualism I don't get a sense of the passion for her faith. I think its there but the book doesn't get at it very well, maybe because she hid it from public view.
The last few hundred pages feel somewhat repetitious, we gather that Muriel grew more comfortable in her skin as she aged and face old age and dying with great courage. I think he could have built more literary criticism into the last part of the book and synthesize some of her themes and show how her work come together as a whole. All in all, an excellent biography one that made me want to read more of her fiction!
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Not to Disturb edition by Muriel Spark Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
This doorstop is a good counterbalance to Mrs. Spark's own evasive autobiography ('Curriculum Vitae') which promised so much and delivered little. The story drags at times, particularly in the second half, when Spark seems to spend most of her time feathering her various nests in Rome and New York. Having spent her early career paying her dues--poverty, poor nutrition, mental affliction, bad companions--Spark doesn't have much to do for the last thirty-five years of her life except buy clothes and jet around.
Martin Stannard is patient and relentless in unraveling two subjects that always made Spark uncomfortable. One is her relationship to her son, Robin, whom she basically abandoned as a child and never much liked afterwards. Another is the tale of Derek Stanford, her writing partner in the early days. Prior to this biography, it was never clear what their relationship was. In 'Curriculum Vitae' Spark makes him out to be a pathetic and overreaching little man who stole and sold her personal papers. In 'A Far Cry from Kensington' Spark caricatures him as the bumptious hack Hector Bartlett, the 'pisseur de copie.' It is now clear that Stanford and Spark were lovers during their writing partnership. Once she became successful, and he didn't, Spark found the memory of him irksome and embarrassing.
Spark personally chose Stannard as her biographer, but she was a most unhelpful subject. This book could never have been published during her lifetime. Stannard never succeeds in making her interesting or likeable. Quite the opposite, in fact; the more you know about her, the less you like her. At least I liked her less as a person...having hitherto based my conception of her mostly upon a 1996 BBC television interview where she was just charming as pie. But as a writer and artist? Oh, I think I respect her more.
The good news is, you can read this book in one sitting. The bad news is, you might not want to. I was thinnking this might be an Agatha Christie type of book with servants huddled outside a door, waiting for the Baron to kill himself and others...I was way wrong. The servants speak in circles, sometimes amusing, sometimes I had no idea what they were talking about. And then there's the "one in the attic." Yes, a crazy relative locked in the attic who eventually makes his appearance chained up wearing a red velvet pantsuit! At this point, I wasn't sure what to think! What kind of book am I reading?? Finally, I just didn't care.
I didn't intend to buy this twice!
An absurdist novelette that could have been a theatrical farce. It's fun.
If you like morbid (not grisly at all) slightly sinister tales, this is for you. It's a quick little read and perfectly engrossing for a flight somewhere...even if you're not traveling. The publishers descriptions are enough to tell you what you need to know. I recommend it as an twisted little simple tale.
This is an excellent and balanced view of the famous author. It is very readable, and one feels that one truly gets to know Spark by reading it. While Spark could be difficult at times, like many creative people, the author knows the subject well enough to provide glimpses of Spark's life that help to explain her quirks and help the reader to understand her reasoning. The only thing I was disappointed in is that the book doesn't cover the writing of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" as thoroughly as I wish, nor does it delve very heavily into Spark's view of the play or the movie that were adapted from her novel. Still, it's an excellent read, with numerous photos of Spark, her family and friends to help one get a better visual picture of the people and the times. I doubt any fan of Spark or biographies in general could be disappointed in this book.
I wish I was Muriel Spark. Its that simple - I want to be an artist whose work is spunky, rich and never boring. She worked out her life in her art and guarded her art with her life. A difficult person, quick to anger, constantly picking fights, not much of a mother and yet her fierceness of focus, passion for her art and idiosyncratic nature delights me.
Mr. Stannard clearly loves his subject and spent time with her as well. He captures her drive, her disagreeable qualities such as her moodiness and peripatetic nature. But he also gets that her high seriousness comingles with her absurdist humor and that her fictional explorations weren't novels but fictions that inhabit the novel form.
He is also very good on her religious, spiritual explorations as they relate to her fiction but I don't think he get across the role her Catholicism played in her life. While I get a sense of her Catholic intellectualism I don't get a sense of the passion for her faith. I think its there but the book doesn't get at it very well, maybe because she hid it from public view.
The last few hundred pages feel somewhat repetitious, we gather that Muriel grew more comfortable in her skin as she aged and face old age and dying with great courage. I think he could have built more literary criticism into the last part of the book and synthesize some of her themes and show how her work come together as a whole. All in all, an excellent biography one that made me want to read more of her fiction!
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