Every now and again I develop an full-on literary crush, where I happen upon an book and love it so much that I get an all consuming need to read everything by that author I can possibly get my hands on. It’s been a while but this week I fell head over heels in love with Muriel Spark. As with all great love affairs, there’s a story to it…
After a slightly depressing weekend, on the spur of the moment I decided to visit Edinburgh for a day and lose myself in the delights of the festival; strangely I’ve been reading about it for weeks but it took until Monday to realise that its only up the road and therefore well within reachable distance. I spent a lovely, largely silent day wandering around in the rain, mainly spending my time in art exhibitions as I wasn’t really in the mood for either crowds or the enforced hilarity of stand-up comics. My word addiction kicked in toward the end of the day though, and I decided to go into the first theatre I saw and just see something . That happened to be an adaptation of Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means and though the play was pretty ropey, it was enough to give me a hint that the story behind it might be worth checking out. It was; I couldn’t go to sleep that night until I’d finished it and have had a completely one track mind since. Spare, sharp prose that can say so much in so few words- amazing. My new love.
Luckily I’d finished my re-reading of The Boy with the TopKnot on the train on the way there and have laughed and cried at it all over again. It’s such a deceptively breezy, easy read yet it manages to deal with the incredibly complexity of mental illness, families, responsibility and culture in such a searingly honest way. Or at least I think it does- it does make me wonder how real it all is and I wonder whether anyone else finds the schism between subject and tone a problem rather than a strength. Can Sanghera can always have been that chipper about it all? It’ll be interesting to have a chat about that and the millions of other issues the book raises at the next meeting!
Don’t forget: THURSDAY September 3rd at 6pm at our new home, Cafe Roco, for BIRTHDAY BOOK GROUP. There will be cake, a birthday book quiz and rich tea biscuits (as requested) for Raymond. And red-hot intellectual discussion, of course.
