DDC/MDS
| 823 |
Publication
Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott company, 1958.
Original publication date
1958
Description
When their plane, bound for the Azores, crashes on a tiny island, January Marlow and her fellow survivors become the unwelcome guests of the island's solitary owner, Robinson.
Status
Available
Call number
Collection
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
As we almost guessed from the title, Spark's second novel turns out to be an island story, complete with a map of the island as frontispiece. Islands in fiction come in two basic categories, the deserted (Robinson Crusoe to Five on a Treasure Island and Lord of the flies) and the Magus-dominated
But - as we also guessed - there's more to all this than sea changes, strange noises, Prospero's books, secret passages, a plane crash and a murder mystery. That would be barely enough to fill 50 pages in a Spark novel, and we have a good 150 here...
So, there's English social comedy, with the narrator (a slightly bohemian poet and widowed mother) finding that the men she's with on the island strangely remind her of her brothers-in-law, one a pompously respectable doctor, the other an amusing but unreliable bookie. There's Robinson's rather austere and Jansenist version of Catholicism, which makes the narrator, a recent convert, uncomfortable with her own more exuberant faith. There's the occultism of one of the other castaways - as so often in Spark, he's a fraud and a charlatan, but we're left wondering whether there isn't some real evil underlying his self-serving mumbo-jumbo. There's the ambiguous foreigner, Jimmie - said to be a Gibraltarian-born Dutchman - whose sexuality is in question throughout the novel but never quite resolved. And - last but by no means least - there's a pomegranate plantation and a ping-pong-playing pussycat.
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(The Odyssey and The Tempest to The invention of Morel). Needless to say, Spark cunningly manages to combine the two, when Robinson, the Prospero of his eponymous island, goes missing halfway through the book, presumed murdered by one of the three survivors of the plane crash. But - as we also guessed - there's more to all this than sea changes, strange noises, Prospero's books, secret passages, a plane crash and a murder mystery. That would be barely enough to fill 50 pages in a Spark novel, and we have a good 150 here...
So, there's English social comedy, with the narrator (a slightly bohemian poet and widowed mother) finding that the men she's with on the island strangely remind her of her brothers-in-law, one a pompously respectable doctor, the other an amusing but unreliable bookie. There's Robinson's rather austere and Jansenist version of Catholicism, which makes the narrator, a recent convert, uncomfortable with her own more exuberant faith. There's the occultism of one of the other castaways - as so often in Spark, he's a fraud and a charlatan, but we're left wondering whether there isn't some real evil underlying his self-serving mumbo-jumbo. There's the ambiguous foreigner, Jimmie - said to be a Gibraltarian-born Dutchman - whose sexuality is in question throughout the novel but never quite resolved. And - last but by no means least - there's a pomegranate plantation and a ping-pong-playing pussycat.
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LibraryThing member herschelian
Years and years since I read this - long overdue for a re-read!
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Some odd folks stuck on an island together get to play at surreal games while waiting for rescue. Not my favorite by Dame Spark, but it's a slim book worth giving a try.
LibraryThing member Lukerik
Telling the reader at the start of a novel that something awful is going to happen is a clever trick, but only really works if the author then takes the trouble to make the reader care about the characters. I am also astonished that Spark invites so many comparisons with Robinson Crusoe and then
On the other hand, she writes well on a sentence by sentence basis and the plot makes sense.
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does nothing to justify them.On the other hand, she writes well on a sentence by sentence basis and the plot makes sense.
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LibraryThing member ivanfranko
Perhaps the most absorbing interest in this short novel is the prominence that the Catholic faith takes in Spark's approach to the psychological interpretation of her fellow castaways and of Robinson himself, lord of all he surveys.
It is a very good read. Muriel Spark is a champion at put-downs
Muriel Spark wrote at a high standard over a long career.
It is a very good read. Muriel Spark is a champion at put-downs
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that are directed at loathsome characters such at fellow cast-away, Tom Wells. Her female hero in this novel (January Marlowe) is a clear headed, decisive woman who gets cross when others behave poorly and worse. I thought her comparison of her two castaway companions with her brothers-in-law clever.Muriel Spark wrote at a high standard over a long career.
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Subjects
Physical description
185 p.; 20 cm