Mondoweiss

Katharine Weber On Literary/Religious Identity (and Muriel Spark)

My report on a literary evening at Makor brought another demurral, on points large and small, from Triangle author Katharine Weber:

I did not say "cramped," but crammed.

My mother being raised in a Protestant identity bubble
by her Protestant mother, despite being a Warburg in
New York City, does signify and pertain to the
question at hand, who is a Jew, how are we identified,
and by whom?

How The New Yorker Made Muriel Spark's Reputation

When I went into my Muriel Spark phase a few months back, I soon learned that she had had a relationship with The New Yorker. But none of the books that promote the New Yorker mythology even mentions her. You will read all about Mr. Shawn and Capote and Updike and Thurber and many lesser talents. Nothing about Spark. Which is odd because the magazine established her international reputation.

Much of what follows below comes from looking around in the (fascinating) New Yorker Archive at the New York Public Library. I'd planned to blog it soon enough; Dame Muriel's death Friday makes me hustle this into code.

Intellectual Monster: The Life and Work of Muriel Spark

I'm in a state of grief, gratitude and excitement over Muriel Spark's death. This reflects the fact that I only really discovered her for myself six months back. Yes, I had read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie some time ago. But it was rereading The Prime last November that catapulted me into Dame Muriel's universe. Since then I've been reading her closely and studying her marvelous spidering method.

As a fresh devotee (the zeal of the convert), it seems to me I might perform a service now by telling others about her. I'll do so in two entries. First my general take on the life and work. And then a more specific treatment, of how The New Yorker magazine created Dame Muriel's international reputation in 1961.

Sopranos Again

Watching the latest episode of the Sopranos (Wow, great!), I was reminded of the art lesson I quote from Muriel Spark in a recent entry—

Fiction is lies. And in order to do this you have got to have a very good sense of what is the truth. You can't do the art of deception, of deceiving people so they suspend disbelief, without having that sense very strongly indeed

Her principle is demonstrated by Tony's visits to the therapist. "My shrink," he calls her. Well, you cannot go to a therapist and be as otherwise degraded as Tony Soprano, you cannot believe in therapy and disbelieve in homosexuality, the big theme of the latest episode. It is utterly implausible. But who cares? The therapy sessions are artistically necessary: they yield up Tony's interior life in ways that this shrewd, grunting action figure would not otherwise allow us to see, they make him reflective and sympathetic, in short, make him a main character. So we all go willingly along with the lie.

The Death of Dame Muriel

This morning I was working when I thought, I wonder if Muriel Spark has died, and I went online and put in her name, and yes, she had died in Italy, the news was announced a few hours ago. It's not that I have morbid powers—I've been studying Dame Muriel and a few weeks back I asked her for an interview, through her agent, who told me that the author was not well. Still, now and then in these circumstances one gets a flutter, and when a spirit as dark and powerful and rivetting as Dame Muriel's goes, it sends waves...

I find the news stunning. A great genius has passed. I don't think any writer of the last century so combined the literary virtues she had: storytelling, invention, surprise, spiritual depth, psychological insight, wit, and economy. Please tell me who— nobody. It all came together for Spark in a few short years in her late 30s and early 40s (the late 50s and 60s). And then it passed and she became more ordinary. Still in those years she left staggering monuments. Naipaul and Updike were her imitators.

I'll have a lot more to say about this event in the next day or two. But let me get down my first feelings: Awe, more awe, and celebration.

(Alleged!) Extortion at the Post

The Times is confused about the scandal at the Post. On the one hand, it regards it as titillating gossip. Thus the montage of gossipy photos and the nut-graf dismissing the story as the gossip that everyone is buzzing about. On the other hand, the giant front page display, dominating the page. A picture of Anthony Haden-Guest (on the front page at last!) where I am expecting to find a sheet-draped corpse outside the Baghdad mosque. Because, after all, this is a federal investigation.

The Times confusion is understandable. We've always known that Page 6 plays favorites, it's hard to take the thing seriously. Years ago I heard an editor say they couldn't print a certain item, it would piss off their friend, and the Post needed friends—they were the sources for their nasty items about their targets. So from a reader's standpoint the page was always compromised and what did it matter whether there was money involved.

Of course the money makes it truly sinister. Makes the Post characters far more intriguing. Throws a window open on the entertainment culture. An important story. God knows, maybe it will bring the conservatives down?

I'm reminded of my (latest) literary idol: Muriel Spark. Dame Muriel believes that almost all human relations can be boiled down to one principle: blackmail. In her greatest tales, you will always find someone who purports to believe in one ideal or another blackmailing another. Even Sandy in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It is Spark's bottom line on human nature. And now the Post has revealed itself, as a fine Muriel Spark plot. Oh right—allegedly.