The Bachelors by Muriel Spark

The Bachelors by Muriel Spark

The Bachelors displays the best of Sparkian satire, placing her at the heart of a great literary tradition alongside Waugh and Trollope, Wilde and Wodehouse. It demands rediscovery. 'It's easy to see why Waugh admired The Bachelors. On one level, it is a blithely carnivorous satire in the Waugh mould. The bachelors of the title - almost the only men we meet in the narrative - are the thirty-something male barristers, teachers, journalists and museum attendants of a small patch of West London. They lead inturned, doddery, superannuated lives, pottering between grocers, coffee-houses, bedsits and the houses of their mothers and aunts. But the comedy here is serious in a way that Waugh's satanically energetic comedies of misery rarely are . . . comedies of English manners have seldom been darker' Daily Telegraph 'My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème' Ian Rankin 'Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive' John Updike, New Yorker

A wholly original presence in modern literature -- ANDREW MOTION
Muriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive -- JOHN UPDIKE * * New Yorker * *
I am dazzled by The BachelorsIt is the cleverest and most elegant of all Mrs Spark's clever and elegant books -- EVELYN WAUGH
She has a receptive and wholly distinctive genius -- A N WILSON * * Spectator * *
My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème -- IAN RANKIN
A profoundly serious comic writer whose wit advances, never undermines or diminishes, her ideas * * New York Times Book Review * *
The care with which she uses words is matched by a gloriously carefree attitude. It's all part of her sanity, her breezy authorial self-confidence; and because of this I think that reading a blast of her prose every morning is a far more restorative way to start a day than a shot of espresso * * Daily Telegraph * *
Spark is a natural, a paradigm of that rare sort of artist from whom work of the highest quality flows as elementally as current through a circuit * * New Yorker * *
It's easy to see why Waugh admired The Bachelors. But the comedy here is serious in a way that Waugh's satanically energetic comedies of misery rarely are . . . comedies of English manners have rarely been darker * * Daily Telegraph * *

Muriel Spark, DBE, C.Litt., was born in Edinburgh in 1918 and educated in Scotland. A poet and novelist, she also wrote children's books, radio plays, the comedy Doctors of Philosophy and biographies of nineteenth-century literary figures, including Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë. Muriel Spark has garnered international praise and many awards, including the David Cohen Prize for Literature, the Ingersoll T.S. Eliot Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Boccaccio Prize for European Literature, the Gold Pen Award, the first Enlightenment Award and the Italia Prize for dramatic radio. She died in 2006.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781782117551
ISBN 10	1782117555
Title	The Bachelors
Author	Muriel Spark
Series	Canons
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Canongate Books
Year published	2015-12-03
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable