The Driver's Seat (Penguin Modern Classics)

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seat with respect to the other characters. She herself is driven by sexual frustration and secular loneliness to offer herself up as a sacrifice, not to the will of God, but to the infernal demands of the tormenting demons that possess Lise’s actions are rituals, pointing the way to a death fetish. But beyond them lies an altogether different possibility. The missing woman Anne Donovan on Writing: ‘Buddha Da’, ‘Being Emily’, and the Importance of Language | Interview by Adrian Searle (2008) By Maggie Scott

at the Lost Booker: Muriel Spark Looking back at the Lost Booker: Muriel Spark

We publish a Literature Newsletter when we have news and features on UK and international literature, plus opportunities for the industry to share. A far cry from Morningside", The Scotsman, 23 April 2006, archived from the original on 11 July 2012 , retrieved 8 April 2007 . Companion shelves 'unfair' Spark biography", The Telegraph, 15 March 2016, archived from the original on 6 July 2020 , retrieved 6 July 2020 . On leaving school, she studied précis writing at Heriot Watt College while teaching in a private school, later finding employment as a personal secretary. Her first novel, The Comforters, was published to great critical acclaim in 1957. It featured several references to Catholicism and conversion to Catholicism, although its main theme revolved around a young woman who becomes aware that she is a character in a novel.Events that happen in the plane are also given twice. First there’s a description of the businessman inexplicably vacating his seat to move away from Lise and Bill. Almost immediately there’s a cut to the following evening, in which the businessman reveals: “I moved my seat. I was afraid.”

Muriel Spark - Literature - British Council Dame Muriel Spark - Literature - British Council

self out of the ruins of her public image by becoming a Stella Maris. Poised by the Italian sea, associated with the stars and sea-shells, Madonna-like of aspect, she poses for the reader with her child at her breast, Many people miss the darkness in Muriel Spark’s work, but it was never more in evidence than in The Driver’s Seat. Although it is never specified, Lise’s journey appears to be about mental illness and challenges our attitudes towards, and tolerance of, people who have psychological problems and beliefs which are different to what is perceived as ‘the norm’. She appears inappropriately flirty when talking to the airline clerk, and greedy and ignorant with Bill. She’s irresponsible and unhinged with Mrs Fiedke and, frightening and controlling when dealing with her killer. Obituary", News, BBC, 15 April 2006, archived from the original on 23 April 2006 , retrieved 15 April 2006 .Lise’s dress factors largely in this, as a (multi-coloured) red herring. It’s a calling card – a way to be recognised and remembered. Often Spark’s short fiction depicts varied types of female personalities. These stories, narrated in first person and set in Africa, tell little about the narrators themselves but focus on the manipulative power of the central female characters. In “The Pawnbroker’s Wife,” the narrator tells the story of Mrs. Jan Cloote, who is never identified by her first name. Her pawnbroker husband has disappeared, and Mrs. Cloote carries on the business herself but denies the slightly sordid reputation of her vocation by claiming that she is only the pawnbroker’s wife. Thus, in her name and her speech, she tries the separate her actions from her image. Such “distancing” allows Mrs. Cloote freedom in refusing to accept responsibility for her conduct, no matter how cruel or petty, as she performs the duties of a pawnbroker (and ironically she is far more successful in business than her husband had been). She uses a show of politeness to remain corrupt without having to admit fault or make concessions. She breaks her promises to customers and sells the pawned items of her friends at the first opportunity. Mrs. Cloote’s poor taste, grasping manipulation, and innocent pretense give her character an insidious cast. Yet the narrator who reveals these facts refuses to pass judgment regarding Mrs. Cloote’smorality. That matter is left to the reader. The Curtain Blown by the Breeze

Analysis of Muriel Spark’s Stories – Literary Theory and Analysis of Muriel Spark’s Stories – Literary Theory and

Lise’s behaviour might be described as strange or, rather, absurd. There is not just her outbursts of laughter but other events, such as her deliberate action in leaving her passport in a taxi or her heated refusal to buy a dress when she learns that it resists stains, indicate a woman under stress. It culminates in her final action – encouraging Richard, a known psychopath, to kill her. The message Spark is giving us is clear. Living in our regimented, consumer society can only lead to this sort of irrational response. Publishing history In 1937, she went to Southern Rhodesia to marry, returning to England in 1944 after her divorce. She then entered the Political Intelligence department of the British Foreign Office and worked on various forms of subtle propaganda. There’s testimony from the salesgirl and office colleagues through to those who take advantage of her – right down to the man who kills her. Each has their own agenda and, each casts Lise in a different light. This is the joke at Lise’s expense. She’s not in ‘the driver’s seat’. She delegates the moment of her death (or orgasm – popularised by Freud as “the little death”) to a man.

Maybe its stream of facts is a string of unreliable accounts? What if Lise hadn’t planned to die, but merely to go on holiday? Instead the narrative paints Lise as predator. She thrills in the pursuit (“‘The torment of it,’ Lisa says. ‘Not knowing exactly where and when he’s going to turn up.’”). Romance and gender