Muriel Spark's success seems to spring from her skill in engaging the active involvement of the reader in her stories. Time in her narrative does not always move chronologically. The reader is made to jump from present to past to future and in the end, detective-wise, he enjoys going back to the beginning in order to put the pieces together for himself so as to get the full picture.
Five of Muriel Spark's most popular novels have been put together in "A Spark in Time" to illustrate how she uses the time technique to match her themes. Together they form a mosaic which, in the end, is illustrative of her attitude to life - that great stage of life where we all play a part.
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"The Driver's Seat" , said to be Muriel Spark's favourite, was adapted for film in 1974 in a movie called 'Identikit' featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol. Almost 40 years later, the book has been nominated for a major literary award. It is 'a present-tense novel with a future direction' in the sense that everything Lise, the protagonist, does on that last day of her life is done with a thought to the future.Throughout the day, she cleverly leaves a trail of evidence behind her which will permit her to be easily identified on the following day, or on whichever day her body will be found. For, she has decided to put an end to her life, but needs someone to do for her the act which she dares not do herself - suicide with a difference. Her past is, perhaps, responsible for her present predicament.
About Linette Arthurton Bruno
Born Linette Alfreda Arthurton on the small Caribbean island of Montserrat now ravaged by the Soufrière Hills volcano, Linette Bruno has long been an admirer of the narrative technique of Muriel Spark and made the 'Theme of Time in the Works of Muriel Spark' the study of her research for the obtention of the Masters
degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1977.
Muriel Spark's success seems to spring from her skill in engaging the active involvement of the reader in her stories. Time in her narrative does not always move chronologically. The reader is made to jump from present to past to future and in the end, detective-wise, he enjoys going back to the beginning in order to put the pieces together for himself so as to get the full picture.
Five of Muriel Spark's most popular novels have been put together in "A Spark in Time" to illustrate how she uses the time technique to match her themes. Together they form a mosaic which, in the end, is illustrative of her attitude to life - that great stage of life where we all play a part.
Born Linette Alfreda Arthurton on the small Caribbean island of Montserrat now ravaged by the Soufrière Hills volcano, Linette Bruno has long been an admirer of the narrative technique of Muriel Spark and made the 'Theme of Time in the Works of Muriel Spark' the study of her research for the obtention of the Masters
degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1977.