{"id":3080,"date":"2006-04-16T13:09:38","date_gmt":"2006-04-16T13:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/memento-mori.html"},"modified":"2006-04-16T13:09:38","modified_gmt":"2006-04-16T13:09:38","slug":"memento-mori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/memento-mori.html","title":{"rendered":"Memento Mori"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novelist Muriel Spark passed away at age 88 in Florence, her home for many years.<\/a><\/p>\n

From the Scotsman (Spark was born in Scotland)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Like many other people, for a long time I knew little of Spark apart from the magnificent film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. But after finishing my undergraduate degree, a lecturer advised me that I might want to apply to do a PhD – he also mentioned Spark as a suitable subject. <\/p>\n

The outcome was that I spent three years reading her books intently, writing chapters towards my thesis. Her best work combines a sense of the comic macabre with piercing satire. In an essay, she said that the modern novel should prick the conscience while being harsh and mocking – the only possible reaction to the absurdity of the contemporary scene. <\/p>\n

Spark was a Catholic convert, and much of her best work reads like an extended dialogue with herself about the nature of God. In novels such as The Only Problem and The Mandelbaum Gate specific theological debates are touched on, the ‘problem’ being human suffering – why would God allow it to happen? What is the nature of evil and how are we to understand it in a religious context? <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From Thomas Mallon’s review of her last novel, The Finishing School<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Being who she is — a Roman Catholic convert with a firm belief in sin and salvation — Spark regards jealousy not as a psychological problem but a spiritual one, a particular sin against the Holy Ghost. Her narrative voice, speaking as always ex cathedra, tells us that jealousy, ”unlike some sins of the flesh, gives no one any pleasure. It is a miserable emotion for the jealous one with equally miserable effects on others.” Its miasmic nature is demonstrated by the next turns of Spark’s nasty, cackling plot<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here’s an interview from two years ago:<\/a><\/p>\n

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As soon as she stopped taking the pills she began to recover, and as soon as she recovered she converted to Catholicism: a major step for a daughter of Presbyterian Edinburgh. "I find Presbyterianism a bit too censorious. It has great qualities, mostly on the side of truthfulness – they\u2019re very truthful in their approach to life, in the sense of moralistic, but it can be a bit arid," she says. Catholicism entails a very different way of seeing life, but then "I was seeing life differently anyway. That\u2019s why I was happy to be a Catholic: it matched up with the way I was feeling in any case." The religious turning point also proved an artistic one, releasing her from whatever had been holding her back. Within three years her first novel, The Comforters – about a young woman who "hears" herself being written into a novel – was published to critical acclaim. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Her novels are spare and unflinching, if sometimes (especially later) a bit indirect. Aiding and Abetting<\/em>, her next-to-last novel fell into that category, IMHO.<\/a> Memento Mori<\/em> will stick with you – a rather ingenious device begins it – various old people receiving anonymous phone calls reminding them that they will die.<\/a> A theme in some other great fiction here and there.<\/a> And, I suspect, a motivator sparking the work of a great artist or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novelist Muriel Spark passed away at age 88 in Florence, her home for many years. From the Scotsman (Spark was born in Scotland) Like many other people, for a long time I knew little of Spark apart from the magnificent film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. 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