I have purposely not read The Comforters or Robinson because I got the sense early that Memento Mori was, as you say, when she became "in full possession of her talents". And, man, Memento Mori is a great book. It does make my top tier (of those I've read), along with Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means, A Far Cry from Kensington, and (inevitably) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
Peckham Rye is pretty good too as I recall. (The funny thing about Memento Mori is that I read it at pretty much the same time as Kingsley Amis's Ending Up and Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, all novels of varying degrees of viciousness (lots in Amis and Spark, less in Taylor) about people living (or, rather, dying) in old folks' homes.)
Oh man I like Memento Mori. What a fun book. I think I just wonder a bit as I'm reading it [& possibly most of her stuff] whether the author just ultimately hates all these characters. I think the answer is probably not but I'd have to think about it. Have not read The Comforters but am now primed.
I think she doesn't _hate_ them but there's also a cruelty there. Somebody said about Mary McCarthy that in her books she's always telling you someone's slip is showing and I feel like Muriel Spark is that x500.
I'm now contemplating what critical difference there is between "she hates them" and "she treats them cruelly." Philosophers grading me... expressions disappointed
This Didion book sounds so sad. It is wild how all five year olds (my daughter is five) are cute and precious and most adults are really not cute and precious, and many adults are a terrible mess. When does it change? Seems impossible to deal with.
My sense is that the awareness that they could become unpleasant adults hits around the age of 12 or so, when their emotional lives start to center more on their peers than on their parents. I taught middle school and high school students for a while, and they would start out as truly unpleasant people who managed to combine ignorance with fairly deplorable characters. After several years you could start to see some character developing in them, and the possibility that they could become good people.
In terms of realizations about myself, I remember when I first met someone my own age who had gotten divorced, and thus couldn't ignore the fact that people my age were not better at personal relationships than our parents, that many of us would create the same chaos our parents had.
It is really sad. If I had kids I don't think I could read Blue Nights, though I could maybe manage Notes to John. There is something kind of remarkable about how Didion is this figure that many writers envy and yet in her real life… the worst thing often did happen.
This is pretty much the division between who the artist is and who the person is. As an artist you can potentially achieve immortality, but as a person, you have the same likelihood of misery as everyone else. Maybe more likelihood, since you're by definition a person with the mistaken belief that you can become happy by becoming a great artist . . .
As an artist, Didion lived the dream - attractive, great prose style, widely read and enjoyed, able to make serious money writing screenplays with her husband. What's not to want? It goes without saying, none of that had anything to do with what happened in her marriage and to her daughter. But of course, what happens to the people that you love affects your happiness far more than the quality of your prose.
It's always worth remembering that Shakespeare's big plan was to take all the money he earned from writing and turn it into an entailed estate that meant that his line of male descendants would each be a wealthy member of the gentry. Then his only son died in childhood.
You will not find ME going to bat for The Comforters - I agree that it is quite bad! Probably the worst of the Sparks that I've read. Robinson, I agree, is quite average: I almost wish she wrote it later in her career so we could get a sense of what her more developed voice would have done with a story like that. Memento Mori is one of the few I haven't read!!!!!
I don't think Memento Mori would make my top tier of Sparks but it's definitely Her in a way the first two books aren't. It's interesting to me how she almost instantly gravitates toward writing about old people lol. It makes sense with how she thinks about time and I feel like it's yet another reason that Robinson is just okay.
Is it bad that that plot summary made me want to read the Comforters…
no… but if you do you'll have to report back
I have purposely not read The Comforters or Robinson because I got the sense early that Memento Mori was, as you say, when she became "in full possession of her talents". And, man, Memento Mori is a great book. It does make my top tier (of those I've read), along with Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means, A Far Cry from Kensington, and (inevitably) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
I haven't read A Far Cry from Kensington yet… I'm doing a chronological read so right now I'm partway through The Ballad of Peckham Rye.
Liked Ballad!!!
Peckham Rye is pretty good too as I recall. (The funny thing about Memento Mori is that I read it at pretty much the same time as Kingsley Amis's Ending Up and Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, all novels of varying degrees of viciousness (lots in Amis and Spark, less in Taylor) about people living (or, rather, dying) in old folks' homes.)
Oh man I like Memento Mori. What a fun book. I think I just wonder a bit as I'm reading it [& possibly most of her stuff] whether the author just ultimately hates all these characters. I think the answer is probably not but I'd have to think about it. Have not read The Comforters but am now primed.
... Is this a Muriel Spark completionist summer?
I think she doesn't _hate_ them but there's also a cruelty there. Somebody said about Mary McCarthy that in her books she's always telling you someone's slip is showing and I feel like Muriel Spark is that x500.
I'm now contemplating what critical difference there is between "she hates them" and "she treats them cruelly." Philosophers grading me... expressions disappointed
This Didion book sounds so sad. It is wild how all five year olds (my daughter is five) are cute and precious and most adults are really not cute and precious, and many adults are a terrible mess. When does it change? Seems impossible to deal with.
My sense is that the awareness that they could become unpleasant adults hits around the age of 12 or so, when their emotional lives start to center more on their peers than on their parents. I taught middle school and high school students for a while, and they would start out as truly unpleasant people who managed to combine ignorance with fairly deplorable characters. After several years you could start to see some character developing in them, and the possibility that they could become good people.
In terms of realizations about myself, I remember when I first met someone my own age who had gotten divorced, and thus couldn't ignore the fact that people my age were not better at personal relationships than our parents, that many of us would create the same chaos our parents had.
It is really sad. If I had kids I don't think I could read Blue Nights, though I could maybe manage Notes to John. There is something kind of remarkable about how Didion is this figure that many writers envy and yet in her real life… the worst thing often did happen.
This is pretty much the division between who the artist is and who the person is. As an artist you can potentially achieve immortality, but as a person, you have the same likelihood of misery as everyone else. Maybe more likelihood, since you're by definition a person with the mistaken belief that you can become happy by becoming a great artist . . .
As an artist, Didion lived the dream - attractive, great prose style, widely read and enjoyed, able to make serious money writing screenplays with her husband. What's not to want? It goes without saying, none of that had anything to do with what happened in her marriage and to her daughter. But of course, what happens to the people that you love affects your happiness far more than the quality of your prose.
It's always worth remembering that Shakespeare's big plan was to take all the money he earned from writing and turn it into an entailed estate that meant that his line of male descendants would each be a wealthy member of the gentry. Then his only son died in childhood.
You will not find ME going to bat for The Comforters - I agree that it is quite bad! Probably the worst of the Sparks that I've read. Robinson, I agree, is quite average: I almost wish she wrote it later in her career so we could get a sense of what her more developed voice would have done with a story like that. Memento Mori is one of the few I haven't read!!!!!
I don't think Memento Mori would make my top tier of Sparks but it's definitely Her in a way the first two books aren't. It's interesting to me how she almost instantly gravitates toward writing about old people lol. It makes sense with how she thinks about time and I feel like it's yet another reason that Robinson is just okay.
Loitering with Intent is prob my fav fwiw... her autobiography is also quite interesting, if not being kind of full of it also.
Loitering is my fav but I haven't read it in 10+ years so we'll see if that changes.