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Dame Muriel Spark and Her Works

 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
11:34 / 15.04.06
Dame Muriel Spark has died in Italy.

I must admit that 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is on my 'to read' list rather than my 'have read' list. What do people think of that and her other works?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
10:22 / 18.06.06
I've just finished The Girls of Slender Means (cf Morrisey, "I am a man/of slender means", also one of her other novels, The Public Image, named Lydon's post-pistols dub act).

It's good. It's set just after the war's ended, in a club for rich girls who've fallen on hard times. It's about the unique culture that grows up there- when the anarchist poet genius boyfriend is brought round he sees it as a model for a new, beautiful, poverty-struck society...I'll talk more about it if other people have read it.

It's the only one of hers I've read so I'd be interested to know if there are better ones I should and in what order.
 
 
Jackie Susann
23:07 / 18.06.06
The only one I've read is Jean Brodie and that is stellar - it immediately shot everything else of hers onto my to-read list (where they are, realistically, probably going to stay). The games she plays with readerly expectations and the linguistic innovation are phenomenal, and it is still a really spritely, fun read.
 
  
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