Memento Mori
Muriel Spark author AL Kennedy editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Published:4th Feb '10
Should be back in stock very soon
A brilliant, daring and darkly funny novel by Muriel Spark, 'mistress of the highest high comedy' (The Times)
Unforgettably astounding and a joy to read, Memento Mori is considered by many to be the greatest novel by the wizardly Dame Muriel Spark. In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone informs each, "Remember you must die." Their geriatric feathers are soon thoroughly ruffled by these seemingly supernatural phone calls, and in the resulting flurry many old secrets are dusted off. Beneath the once decorous surface of their lives, unsavories like blackmail and adultery are now to be glimpsed. As spooky as it is witty, poignant and wickedly hilarious, Memento Mori may ostensibly concern death, but it is a book which leaves one relishing life all the more.
There is a Waugh-like brilliance to this novel, in the easy economical narrative, the continuous invention producing a series of surprises, the well-cut dialogue, the controlled tone . . . the most remarkable of Miss Spark's achievements. Nothing is forced, least of all the humour -- V. S. Naipaul
I am reading a trio of novels by Muriel Spark, a marvellously witty English writer . . . Her best, I think, is Memento Mori, which is chillingly brilliant -- Tennessee Williams
The greatest Scottish novelist of modern times . . . My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the creme de la creme -- Ian Rankin
Spark is a writer who can take the meditative and make it mercurially funny, playful and mischievious -- Ali Smith
There is a Waugh-like brilliance to this novel, in the easy economical narrative, the continuous invention producing a series of surprises, the well-cut dialogue, the controlled tone. This last is the most remarkable of Miss Spark's achievements. Nothing is forced, least of all the humour * V. S. Naipaul, NEW STATESMAN *
I am reading a trio of novels by Muriel Spark, a marvelously witty English writer, one of the few lady writers I like to read. Her best, I think, is Memento Mori, which is chillingly brilliant * Tennessee Williams *
This funny and macabre book has delighted me as much as any novel that I have read since the war * Graham Greene *
A brilliant and singularly gruesome achchievement * Evelyn Waugh *
ISBN: 9781844085521
Dimensions: 198mm x 126mm x 16mm
Weight: 200g
240 pages