The Driver's Seat (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Like the protagonist of Spark’s debut novel The Comforters (1957), The Driver’s Seat implies that Lise may have some awareness of her own fictional nature. Abandoning the book she bought to read on the plane, Lise says:

The Driver’s Seat : undoing character, becoming legend The Driver’s Seat : undoing character, becoming legend

It was not until 1957, after conversion to Catholicism, that she published her first novel, The Comforters, a book of extraordinary originality that won the applause of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh - not because they were also Catholic authors but because of the skill and depth of her writing. Four more novels followed in the next three years, all of high and varied interest, but it was the fifth of them, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), that introduced her work to a large popular audience, especially when it was turned into a successful play and later filmed. Lise. But Bill, who thinks he knows better, keeps after her all day, in search of a convert and an orgasm, spilling rice from a loose zipper on his suitcase. In most people’s lists of the best film adaptation of a Scottish novel, the 1969 version of Muriel Spark’s The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie would deservedly be near the top, with a pre-damehood Maggie Smith winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the title character. However, while that film has garnered the garlands and awards, it is not the only big screen adaptation of Spark. 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 genderLise’s actions are rituals, pointing the way to a death fetish. But beyond them lies an altogether different possibility. The missing woman As we follow Lise on her holiday, it soon becomes apparent that she is looking for something, or more precisely, someone, some as-yet-nameless person who will fulfill her deepest desires. As, with mounting and barely suppressed hysteria, she restlessly pinballs through airports, shops, parks, and city streets, she never stops searching. Spark periodically punctuates this quest with sudden flash-forwards, brief and brutal: As a result, The Driver’s Seat contains two narratives. In one, strangers dictate Lise’s character and motivations. Lise is mad. She’s a liar. She makes no sense. She’s suicidal. Sex in her hands is entirely destructive.

THE DRIVER’S SEAT by Muriel Spark (BOOK REVIEW) THE DRIVER’S SEAT by Muriel Spark (BOOK REVIEW)

Dame Muriel Spark, 1918–2006: The novelist of identity", The Weekly Standard, 1 May 2006, archived from the original on 6 August 2006 , retrieved 12 July 2006 . Spark of Genius" (magazine), Doublethink (a consideration of the author's work), no.Winter, 2006, archived from the original on 9 July 2006 , retrieved 12 July 2006 . The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.

She studied the lives and works of Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters and John Masefield. Her earliest book, Child of Light (1951), was a critical biography of Mary Shelley, written to celebrate the centenary of her death. This was followed by biographies of Emily Brontë and John Masefield, and in 1993 , The Essence of the Brontës was published, an anthology of her writings on the family.