"We are never out of touch, in a Spark novel, with the happiness of creation; the sudden willful largesse of magic and wit, the cunning tautness of suspense." John Updike, The New Yorker
Not to disturb. That is the order of the baron to his staff as he sequesters himself in the library with the baroness and their secretary. The servants have a certain knowledge of what is about to occur, and they keep vigil in the luxurious mansion outside Geneva while a violent argument, salacious in origin, rages behind the closed doors, and the baron's crazed brother howls in the attic. As the publisher notes in the synopsis, "the long night produces a complex tale of false testimonies, corruption, an impromptu wedding, and a plot for murder."
Told in the sharpest, snappiest of prose, this story races by in less than a hundred pages, the pace driven not just by "the cunning tautness of suspense," but by the wickedly black humor as well. Yet neither attribute excludes the other. The suspense generated is justified by the resolution, and the humor does nothing to detract from the more serious themes of classism and religious faith. In short, this was one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a while. So tight, so precise as to leave me a little astonished both at its brilliance and that I never caught on to the Muriel Spark thing before.
The book begins:
The other servants fall silent as Lister enters the room. ‘Their life,’ says Lister, ‘a general mist of error. Their death, a hideous storm of terror. — I quote from The Duchess of Malf by John Webster, an English dramatist of old.’
‘When you say a thing is not impossible, that isn’t quite as if to say it’s possible,’ says Eleanor who, although younger than Lister, is his aunt. She is taking off her outdoor clothes. ‘Only technically is the not impossible, possible.’
‘We are not discussing possibilities today,’ Lister says. ‘To- day we speak of acts. This is not the time for inconsequential talk.’
‘Of facts accomplished,’ says Pablo the handyman.
Eleanor hangs her winter coat on a hanger.
‘The whole of Geneva will be talking,’ she says.
And ends:
The plain-clothes man in the hall is dozing on a chair, waiting for the relief man to come, as is also the plain-clothes man on the upstairs landing. The household is straggling up the back stairs to their beds.By noon they will be covered in the profound sleep of those who have kept faithful vigil all night, while outside the house the sunlight is laughing on the walls.
Little has changed from one place to another in the novella as the servants still mount the back stairs at the end. There is no displacement of social inequalities, but a biting reminder that the lower class here has learned all of its ravenous plotting from the upper class responsible for its own demise. They have scripted the events of the evening for public consumption via the press, and anticipate financial gain from the mimetic exercise. The rich have informed the corruption of the poor who seek not to redefine but to benefit from the existing system of corruption.
Don't you want to know what happens in the end? More might spoil it for you. As for me, more Muriel Spark is in order. Much more.