Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“And the material doesn’t stain,” the salesgirl says.

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

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Wanna read a truly messed up little novel by someone who tends to be seen as charming and wry? Here you go. There was a moment about three chapters in where I was decidedly taken aback by the revelation of the opening sentence. I was both hooked and appalled (more or less, I find it hard to be appalled but this worked). Anyway, this is a story about a woman of about 30 (I will get to that) who gets on a plane from the […]

It is not because we are rats that we tend to abandon people who are down, it is because we are embarrassed.

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

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This is one of the middle/late novels by Muriel Spark. In this novel, our narrator finds herself embroiled in a publication scandal and involved in the publication of a complete hack writer. She constantly (and probably over does it) refers to this write as a pisseur de copie, meaning a writer who churns out rubbish. Anyway, she is fired and must look for work in a new part of town, in a less reputable publishing company, and hence the title of the novel. The novel circulates around […]

It is difficult for people of advanced years to start remembering they must die. It is best to form the habit while young.

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These are three short and early novels by the Scottish writer Muriel Spark. I am rereading the latter two.   Memento Mori This novel begins with a phone call to an older Dame at a retirement home. The caller tells the woman “You must remember that you will die” and this mysterious and potentially scary call becomes the the central plot to the novel, and opens up to a darkly funny story as the call repeats over and over again. As the call repeats, and […]

Winter Break

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Oroonoko – 2/5 Stars This novel, or maybe not a novel, came out in 1688 and like most early novels there is a strong narrative discomfort in the telling of narrative fictionally. So throughout the novel there’s a lot of extra-text discussions of the truth of the story. Novels have often been mistrusted because of this, but of course, the goal and function of fiction is that sometimes truth isn’t fully explored in nonfiction. And like with theater and poetry, there is a need to […]

If we took a holiday Took some time to celebrate Just one day out of life It would be, it would be so nice

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This novel was author Muriel Spark’s favorite of her own works. It is short — a mere 107 pages — but suspenseful, dark and twisted. The NYT called it a “spiny and treacherous masterpiece.” What makes it all the more horrifying is that the reader knows from the beginning what is going to happen. Lise, the young woman going on holiday, is going to be murdered. We know how it happens but we don’t know who does it or exactly how Lise gets herself into […]



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