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Not to Disturb
A storm rages round the towers of the big house near Geneva. Behind the locked doors of the library, the Baron, the Baroness and their handsome young secretary are not to be disturbed. In the attic, the Baron's lunatic brother howls and hurls plates at his keeper.
But in the staff quarters, all is under control. Under the personal supervision of Lister, the Baron's incomparable butler, the servants make their own, highly lucrative preparations for the tragedy.
The night is long, but morning will bring a crime passionnel of outstanding attraction and endless possibilities.
Muriel Spark has created a world in her own idiom - bizarre, gruesome and brilliantly funny.
But in the staff quarters, all is under control. Under the personal supervision of Lister, the Baron's incomparable butler, the servants make their own, highly lucrative preparations for the tragedy.
The night is long, but morning will bring a crime passionnel of outstanding attraction and endless possibilities.
Muriel Spark has created a world in her own idiom - bizarre, gruesome and brilliantly funny.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
18 people are currently reading
1014 people want to read
About the author
Muriel Spark
218 books1,283 followersDame Muriel Spark, DBE was a prolific Scottish novelist, short story writer and poet whose darkly comedic voice made her one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Spark received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1965 for The Mandelbaum Gate, the Ingersoll Foundation TS Eliot Award in 1992 and the David Cohen Prize in 1997. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993, in recognition of her services to literature. She has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, in 1969 for The Public Image and in 1981 for Loitering with Intent. In 1998, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature". In 2010, Spark was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize of 1970 for The Driver's Seat.
Spark received eight honorary doctorates in her lifetime. These included a Doctor of the University degree (Honoris causa) from her alma mater, Heriot-Watt University in 1995; a Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris causa) from the American University of Paris in 2005; and Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, St Andrews and Strathclyde.
Spark grew up in Edinburgh and worked as a department store secretary, writer for trade magazines, and literary editor before publishing her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, published in 1961, and considered her masterpiece, was made into a stage play, a TV series, and a film.
Spark received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1965 for The Mandelbaum Gate, the Ingersoll Foundation TS Eliot Award in 1992 and the David Cohen Prize in 1997. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993, in recognition of her services to literature. She has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, in 1969 for The Public Image and in 1981 for Loitering with Intent. In 1998, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature". In 2010, Spark was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize of 1970 for The Driver's Seat.
Spark received eight honorary doctorates in her lifetime. These included a Doctor of the University degree (Honoris causa) from her alma mater, Heriot-Watt University in 1995; a Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris causa) from the American University of Paris in 2005; and Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, St Andrews and Strathclyde.
Spark grew up in Edinburgh and worked as a department store secretary, writer for trade magazines, and literary editor before publishing her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, published in 1961, and considered her masterpiece, was made into a stage play, a TV series, and a film.
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June 10, 2022
One of Spark's lesser novels this may be, but Not to Disturb was just as pleasing on the eye to me as some of her more well known works. Scrolling through her books, I was surprised by just how many novels she actually wrote, and that lead me to get hold of a couple of others that I had previously not even heard of after being impressed by this. Not to Disturb is a sinister black comic romp that is set at the Château Klopstock - home to the suicidal Baron Cecil Klopstock and the Baroness. The novella is dialogue heavy, and with the narrative mostly taking place within the Château it kind of has the feel of a play. On the surface the story is absolutely ridiculous, and focuses on the Klopstock servants, led by Lister, the head butler, and their plan to make large financial gains by selling memoirs to the press after the inevitable double murder/suicide of the Baron, Baroness, and their lover, the libertine secretary Victor Passerat, after they are locked away in the library and not to be disturbed. Waiting for the night to pass before calling the police after the tragic events, bizarrely we see a pregnant servant get married, the mention of a sex drug developed in Edinburgh, bothersome interlopers including the pompous Price Eugene and two women (one turning out to be a man) who are stuck out in the rain after loosing the car keys, and most of all the randy and deranged wailing younger brother of the Baron who lives in the attic and throws himself in a fit of sexual excitement all over the nearest female. Despite being set in Geneva, Not to Disturb I found to be quintessential British, and got me thinking of a of Jeeves and Wooster in some ways, and in spite of it's ludicrous nature, Spark is clever enough to work on more than one level, teasing in an entertaining way on top but still pushing the reader into deeper more serious thought in regards to the hypocrisies of the master-servant relationship, the falsity of modern social forms, religion and art. I liked it a lot, and being a fan of farce obviously helped. That's six Spark novels now done, and it's only 'The Driver's Seat' so far that I wasn't that keen on. With plenty more of her work still to go I'll more than likely come across others that don't hit the heights of something like 'The Girls of Slender Means', but I get the sense I won't ever grow tired of reading her. She is certainly up there now with my fave British writers that's for sure.
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December 14, 2020
The eternal triangle has come full circle.
Better late than never!
After a near lifetime of avoiding Muriel Spark’s books, I finally relented and read The Driver’s Seat (1970), and that claustrophobic and obsessive little book nearly put me off altogether. There was nothing I liked about the characters, the situation or the story, but I liked the prose, its flow, its flavor, its lightness while evoking the mad, opaque protagonist’s haste towards her lovingly imagined end. So I picked up The Girls of Slender Means (1963) and was deeply gratified by that much more empathetic story of a wide cast of distinctly drawn characters presented from a number of temporal vantage points that cast the events in an atmosphere of inevitability, and done so even more masterfully than in the splendid The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), which I read next. The Only Problem (1984), a modern updating of or, better yet, meditation on the Book of Job, surprised me with the unique storyline she interwove into this meditation, even managing to develop the kind of anticipatory tension attained by the better mystery writers.
Spark displayed in these four novels a remarkably wide range of forms of irony – often at the cost of her characters – but in Not To Disturb (1971) her many ironies were flattened and sharpened into bitterly funny, absurd satire.(*)
In the manor of the Baron Klopstocks it is Upstairs/Downstairs with a vengeance when the reader is dropped in media res and must struggle for orientation as the domestic staff arrange journalistic exclusives and film and book contracts while cheerfully anticipating that the noble couple and their mutual lover put a bloody end to each other in the locked library. Set during one late night and in just a few rooms, heavy on dialogue, the text could well be a theater piece as the absurdities mount to monstrous proportions leaving this reader trying to suppress incredulous snorts of laughter and wondering just how far Spark would be willing to go. Far, I assure you.
(*) I understand that she also composed a satire of the Watergate scandal set in a nunnery (!) in The Abbess of Crewe. I hesitate…
May 26, 2016
The closest Spark came to experimenting with her usual modus for writing a novel: this one obscures plot info to nouveau roman levels of mystery, making the reader complicit in the act of assembling the novel’s plot and meaning.
August 12, 2019
This evening I went to a wonderful Edinburgh Book Festival event with Ali Smith, in which she talked about the many literary influences on the Seasonal Quartet. Specifically, she cited Muriel Spark as a force within Spring, one of the best novels I’ve read in 2019. Now, how did Smith put it… Something like ‘Spark’s droll distant observation’. I love this feature of Muriel Spark novellas, as it gives them such a distinctive and appealing voice. ‘Not to Disturb’ extends the conceit to the point that I felt like the audience in a theatre. This feeling is compounded by the book's constrained timescale (one night) and setting (a mansion and its grounds). According to the introduction, though, ‘Not to Disturb’ has never been staged as a play! What a missed opportunity - or perhaps it is too obvious? In any event, the dialogue is notably witty even by Spark’s high standards and would surely be very suitable for theatre.
The setup is as follows: the Klopstock mansion has a large staff of servants, headed by Lister the butler, who have carefully prepared for their employers to kill each other one stormy night. Lister is a wonderful character who deploys his quasi-uncanny soothsaying and organisational powers to the benefit of fellow servants. A Jeeves who has chosen his own side in the class struggle, if you will. Also notable are the very pregnant Heloise, the youthful Hadrian and Pablo, and Clovis the chef. As ever with Spark, each character is conjured vividly to life in remarkably few lines. The night is filled with frenetic scheming, dreadful weather, loud noises from a madman in the attic, and a cavalcade of visitors. The Reverend is inveigled into Lister’s plans and Prince Eugene fobbed off. In terms of plot, there is little to it. Yet I found this a particularly pleasurable Spark experience for its sly strangeness, cheerful amorality, and allusive byplay. For example:
Spark’s genius is to totally ignore the apparent locus of events: the aristocrats arguing in the locked room. Instead the reader spends the night amid the penumbra of servants, who are far more interesting. The Baron and Baroness might think the narrative belongs to them, but their staff have firm control over it.
The setup is as follows: the Klopstock mansion has a large staff of servants, headed by Lister the butler, who have carefully prepared for their employers to kill each other one stormy night. Lister is a wonderful character who deploys his quasi-uncanny soothsaying and organisational powers to the benefit of fellow servants. A Jeeves who has chosen his own side in the class struggle, if you will. Also notable are the very pregnant Heloise, the youthful Hadrian and Pablo, and Clovis the chef. As ever with Spark, each character is conjured vividly to life in remarkably few lines. The night is filled with frenetic scheming, dreadful weather, loud noises from a madman in the attic, and a cavalcade of visitors. The Reverend is inveigled into Lister’s plans and Prince Eugene fobbed off. In terms of plot, there is little to it. Yet I found this a particularly pleasurable Spark experience for its sly strangeness, cheerful amorality, and allusive byplay. For example:
"Any break in the meeting might distract them from the quarrel and side-track the climax, wouldn’t you think?”
“The Baron said not to disturb,” says Lister, "as if to say, nobody leaves the room till we’ve had a clarification, let the tension mount as it may. And that’s final. She’ll never leave the library.”
“Well, they must be getting hungry. They’ve had nothing to eat.”
“Let them eat cake,” says Lister.
[...]
“There must have been some good in them,” Eleanor says. “They couldn’t have been all bad.”
“Oh, I agree. They did wrong well. And they were good for a purpose so long as they lasted,” Lister says. “As paper cups are suitable for occasions, you use them and throw them away. Who brought that fur coat in here?”
Spark’s genius is to totally ignore the apparent locus of events: the aristocrats arguing in the locked room. Instead the reader spends the night amid the penumbra of servants, who are far more interesting. The Baron and Baroness might think the narrative belongs to them, but their staff have firm control over it.
January 1, 2015
Thanks to the excellent year-end stock in the English language section at our local used bookstore, I lucked out this Christmas with four beautiful Muriel Spark paperbacks. With eight hours of flight time from the US back to Iceland ahead of me, I decided to start with this "curiously disturbing" novella, and basically read it through in one sitting.
As with all of Spark's novels that I've read thus far, Not to Disturb drops you into the story once it's already started—there's no preamble, no back story, no real explanation of what is going on. the dialog is round-about and confusing at first; you don't know who any of the people talking are. And yet, rather than deterring you from continuing (or deterring me, as it happens), it just sucks you further in. You sink into the story and just figure out what is going on as you go. It's disconcerting, yes, but it's also clever and addictive and seriously hard to pull off.
The 'what's going on' of the story is (again, unsurprisingly) absurd and strange and really quite weird. As are many of the characters and relationships, for that matter. And while there are all these characters and obviously unspoken story lines (I wonder, actually, if this started as a different book, or if this is a paired down version of a much more extensive novel), there's a lot that is simply not gone into here. There's so much story that exists completely off the page. I find this rather amazing, particularly as someone who, as a writer, is always compelled to fill in all of the back story, to make sure that the reader has all the 'irrelevant' information before the real story gets underway.
And perhaps this isn't always the best way to go. Because Spark demonstrates here, sometimes the most compelling way to tell a story is to only hint at the whole of it.
As with all of Spark's novels that I've read thus far, Not to Disturb drops you into the story once it's already started—there's no preamble, no back story, no real explanation of what is going on. the dialog is round-about and confusing at first; you don't know who any of the people talking are. And yet, rather than deterring you from continuing (or deterring me, as it happens), it just sucks you further in. You sink into the story and just figure out what is going on as you go. It's disconcerting, yes, but it's also clever and addictive and seriously hard to pull off.
The 'what's going on' of the story is (again, unsurprisingly) absurd and strange and really quite weird. As are many of the characters and relationships, for that matter. And while there are all these characters and obviously unspoken story lines (I wonder, actually, if this started as a different book, or if this is a paired down version of a much more extensive novel), there's a lot that is simply not gone into here. There's so much story that exists completely off the page. I find this rather amazing, particularly as someone who, as a writer, is always compelled to fill in all of the back story, to make sure that the reader has all the 'irrelevant' information before the real story gets underway.
And perhaps this isn't always the best way to go. Because Spark demonstrates here, sometimes the most compelling way to tell a story is to only hint at the whole of it.
March 28, 2016
A kind of inside out locked-room mystery, where the room is locked but the players yet live. The ensuing conflict, instead, has been finely pinpointed by the house staff, who are already selling the movie deals and making preparations for the future, while timeline and linear causality are eschewed in favor of the fatedness of a self-conscious plotline. But rather than become a convoluted metafictive exercise, Spark's light touch and sparkling dialogue keep his in the realm of an eccentric, witty page turner of sorts.
July 8, 2018
Three and half stars.
It is another strange book by Muriel Spark. The other strange work I had encountered was The Hothouse By The East River. It is a strange book in the sense I did not understand the plot as much as I understood it. Is it confusing? I was led to believe (or did I will myself to believe) certain sequences of plot. I thought that was natural. But Spark fooled me at the end (or did she fool me from the beginning?). What I thought was a crime did end up as a natural course of action.
The novel also has weird characters. These are the characters that one does not normally encounter in one's life. The characters are not real. But strangely that did not put me off. I kept on reading. I enjoyed the conversations. Even the conversations did not look real or normal dialogues. Yet it held me on. Why? May be the underlying qualities by which human nature is revealed held my interest. Or was it merely the lovely prose and unusual dialogues conjured up by Spark? I am still wondering. May be, I will have to reread it sometimes later.
One thing is certain: Spark still amuses me with her writing.
It is another strange book by Muriel Spark. The other strange work I had encountered was The Hothouse By The East River. It is a strange book in the sense I did not understand the plot as much as I understood it. Is it confusing? I was led to believe (or did I will myself to believe) certain sequences of plot. I thought that was natural. But Spark fooled me at the end (or did she fool me from the beginning?). What I thought was a crime did end up as a natural course of action.
The novel also has weird characters. These are the characters that one does not normally encounter in one's life. The characters are not real. But strangely that did not put me off. I kept on reading. I enjoyed the conversations. Even the conversations did not look real or normal dialogues. Yet it held me on. Why? May be the underlying qualities by which human nature is revealed held my interest. Or was it merely the lovely prose and unusual dialogues conjured up by Spark? I am still wondering. May be, I will have to reread it sometimes later.
One thing is certain: Spark still amuses me with her writing.
February 21, 2025
La porta chiusa dall’interno di una biblioteca nasconde l’imminente strage che sta per compiersi. Il barone e la baronessa Klopstock sono chiusi lì sin dal tardo pomeriggio insieme a quello che era uno dei loro segretari, Victor Passerat.
La casa intera sembra trattenere il fiato, conscia che qualcosa di terribile sta per accadere, mentre fuori un fragoroso temporale sta per sconquassare il cielo, illuminandolo con fulmini affilati. La servitù, raccolta nella cucina, è pronta per ogni evenienza, sente già l’odore di sangue versato, il pathos della tragedia.
Pare si preparino da tutta la vita per questo momento: le dichiarazioni che faranno ai giornalisti sono già pronte, già registrate, le loro autobiografie sono già scritte e pronte per essere pubblicate, mentre il cuoco ha scritto la sceneggiatura per un grande film che verrà prodotto in America.
Cosa stia succedendo in biblioteca è impossibile sapere. La furia del temporale, i lamenti dell’uomo rinchiuso nell’attico, lo sbattere continuo di persiane sapientemente allentate: tutto contribuisce ad isolare quella stanza, a renderla inaccessibile all’orecchio della servitù, che potrà così giustificarsi per non aver fermato quella tragedia annunciata.
Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...
La casa intera sembra trattenere il fiato, conscia che qualcosa di terribile sta per accadere, mentre fuori un fragoroso temporale sta per sconquassare il cielo, illuminandolo con fulmini affilati. La servitù, raccolta nella cucina, è pronta per ogni evenienza, sente già l’odore di sangue versato, il pathos della tragedia.
Pare si preparino da tutta la vita per questo momento: le dichiarazioni che faranno ai giornalisti sono già pronte, già registrate, le loro autobiografie sono già scritte e pronte per essere pubblicate, mentre il cuoco ha scritto la sceneggiatura per un grande film che verrà prodotto in America.
Cosa stia succedendo in biblioteca è impossibile sapere. La furia del temporale, i lamenti dell’uomo rinchiuso nell’attico, lo sbattere continuo di persiane sapientemente allentate: tutto contribuisce ad isolare quella stanza, a renderla inaccessibile all’orecchio della servitù, che potrà così giustificarsi per non aver fermato quella tragedia annunciata.
Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...
June 11, 2021
On a stormy night in a mansion near Geneva, Baron and Baroness Klopstock have locked themselves into their library with their young secretary Victor Passerat. A bitter argument ensues, but their instructions are very clear, they are not to be disturbed.
Downstairs, the servants wait for what they see as the inevitable expiration of the three.
In his rooms at the top of the house the Baron’s brother, and heir, is believed to be crazy, and in fits of rage hurls plates at his carer.
The servants meanwhile, headed by the butler, plan devious schemes. The driver of a car outside, waiting for the secretary, is repeatedly told they are not to be disturbed.
There is so much going on in these gripping 90 pages that another author could easily have taken three times the pages to tell the story, such is Spark’s skill. It’s a satirical take on a typical golden age crime novel; the scent of murder is in the air throughout, but Spark explores other themes.
I think it would make a wonderful film.
Downstairs, the servants wait for what they see as the inevitable expiration of the three.
In his rooms at the top of the house the Baron’s brother, and heir, is believed to be crazy, and in fits of rage hurls plates at his carer.
The servants meanwhile, headed by the butler, plan devious schemes. The driver of a car outside, waiting for the secretary, is repeatedly told they are not to be disturbed.
There is so much going on in these gripping 90 pages that another author could easily have taken three times the pages to tell the story, such is Spark’s skill. It’s a satirical take on a typical golden age crime novel; the scent of murder is in the air throughout, but Spark explores other themes.
I think it would make a wonderful film.
August 21, 2022
Amoral and decidedly chaotic, a somewhat dated take on tabloid culture but still fresh where it marries the absurdly Gothic with postmodern jokes about narrative structure and authorial intent
February 24, 2016
"'Here they come,' says Lister to his troop, 'Klopstock and barrel.'"
Muriel Spark's outrageously funny novella Not to Disturb (1971) demonstrates the immense power of prose: the power to create alternate realities. While Ms. Spark's reality is not entirely compatible with what we are accustomed to, it is internally consistent and believable. The novella reminds me of René Magritte's surrealistic paintings that challenge our traditional - not to say cliché - perceptions of reality.
The story takes place in a huge mansion of Baron and Baroness Klopstock near Geneva in Switzerland. The servants - who have been explicitly told Not to Disturb - are preparing for the death of three people locked in the library: in the heat of an argument the Baron will kill the Baroness and Victor, their mutual lover, and then he will shoot himself. Press people and movie producers are waiting and the servants are working on selling their memoirs and the reports of the grisly events to the highest bidders. Ms. Spark offers a wide range of finely drawn characters, including Lister, the butler, who is the servants' leader, and unforgettably pregnant Heloise. The servants' preparations for the event that will assure their future affluence are meticulous: they dictate the memoirs, take posed pictures, and work on movie scenarios about the Klopstock tragedy. They are concerned about the tiniest details, for example, Lister worries: "The wind is high tonight, [...] We might not hear the shots."
In one of my favorite paintings by Magritte La Durée poignardée (Time Transfixed) a small steam-puffing locomotive emerges from the fireplace wall in an otherwise empty dining room. The incongruousness of the locomotive within the dining room setting provides the surrealistic disturbance of reality. In Ms. Spark's novella the reality, as we know it, is disturbed - perhaps one should say rearranged - by several interventions/inversions. First of all, the temporal uncertainty is suspended: the servants do not just expect the grim events, they *know* that the events will happen. The future is preordained, and the cause-effect relationship is inverted: effects may well occur before the event that causes them. Furthermore, the master-servant relationship is inverted. While "the butler did it" is the motif of many novels that are set in rich people's mansions, the focus here is completely on the affairs of the servants, with the masters' affairs in the background of the story. The only reason for upper classes to exist is to provide motives for actions of servants.
The novella offers demented fun and a hilarious ending. And then there is him in the attic - probably my favorite theme in the book. Let me quote Ms. Spark: "Hadrian and Sister Barton edge into the drawing room, supporting between them him from the attic [...] 'What a noise he's making,' says Heloise."
Three and three quarter stars.
Muriel Spark's outrageously funny novella Not to Disturb (1971) demonstrates the immense power of prose: the power to create alternate realities. While Ms. Spark's reality is not entirely compatible with what we are accustomed to, it is internally consistent and believable. The novella reminds me of René Magritte's surrealistic paintings that challenge our traditional - not to say cliché - perceptions of reality.
The story takes place in a huge mansion of Baron and Baroness Klopstock near Geneva in Switzerland. The servants - who have been explicitly told Not to Disturb - are preparing for the death of three people locked in the library: in the heat of an argument the Baron will kill the Baroness and Victor, their mutual lover, and then he will shoot himself. Press people and movie producers are waiting and the servants are working on selling their memoirs and the reports of the grisly events to the highest bidders. Ms. Spark offers a wide range of finely drawn characters, including Lister, the butler, who is the servants' leader, and unforgettably pregnant Heloise. The servants' preparations for the event that will assure their future affluence are meticulous: they dictate the memoirs, take posed pictures, and work on movie scenarios about the Klopstock tragedy. They are concerned about the tiniest details, for example, Lister worries: "The wind is high tonight, [...] We might not hear the shots."
In one of my favorite paintings by Magritte La Durée poignardée (Time Transfixed) a small steam-puffing locomotive emerges from the fireplace wall in an otherwise empty dining room. The incongruousness of the locomotive within the dining room setting provides the surrealistic disturbance of reality. In Ms. Spark's novella the reality, as we know it, is disturbed - perhaps one should say rearranged - by several interventions/inversions. First of all, the temporal uncertainty is suspended: the servants do not just expect the grim events, they *know* that the events will happen. The future is preordained, and the cause-effect relationship is inverted: effects may well occur before the event that causes them. Furthermore, the master-servant relationship is inverted. While "the butler did it" is the motif of many novels that are set in rich people's mansions, the focus here is completely on the affairs of the servants, with the masters' affairs in the background of the story. The only reason for upper classes to exist is to provide motives for actions of servants.
The novella offers demented fun and a hilarious ending. And then there is him in the attic - probably my favorite theme in the book. Let me quote Ms. Spark: "Hadrian and Sister Barton edge into the drawing room, supporting between them him from the attic [...] 'What a noise he's making,' says Heloise."
Three and three quarter stars.
May 25, 2018
Sic transit gloria mundi...
Form and fiction, gothic and bohemian, fatalist and deterministic. And comedic. Spark's classic wrangling with religion is present, there's a madman in the attic, and a tragi-comic couple wandering the baronial grounds who, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are justly concerned for their friend but wind up candidates for "stupid deaths" themselves. This is the first of three Spark novels set in Europe that I'm reading; next up are The Takeover and The Only Problem. Excellent reading for thinking and laughing.
Best quotes:
"To put it squarely, as I say in my memoir, the eternal triangle has come full circle."
"Eleanor, the bridegroom is C of E, I think.'
'No, they're Catholics.'
'Oh well, he went to Winchester, an English school.'
'No, he never went to school. He was always unable.'
'He went for a week.'
'It wasn't enough. '
Form and fiction, gothic and bohemian, fatalist and deterministic. And comedic. Spark's classic wrangling with religion is present, there's a madman in the attic, and a tragi-comic couple wandering the baronial grounds who, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are justly concerned for their friend but wind up candidates for "stupid deaths" themselves. This is the first of three Spark novels set in Europe that I'm reading; next up are The Takeover and The Only Problem. Excellent reading for thinking and laughing.
Best quotes:
"To put it squarely, as I say in my memoir, the eternal triangle has come full circle."
"Eleanor, the bridegroom is C of E, I think.'
'No, they're Catholics.'
'Oh well, he went to Winchester, an English school.'
'No, he never went to school. He was always unable.'
'He went for a week.'
'It wasn't enough. '
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2015
Agree with other reviewers who felt that this dark comedy read like a play; it reminded me of Pirandello or Beckett, crossed with Downton Abbey. I love her at her best, she has become one of my favorite writers, but this is definitely a product of its time (1971) and a sketch compared with some of her masterpieces.
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October 22, 2010What a strange little book. I've been reading it on the subway the past few nights and it's so so bizzare - reminds me of surreal Russian writers my mom likes like Kharms and Vvedensky.
February 8, 2011
Told with great self-control this novella convincingly weaves between the sinister and the silly.
October 29, 2017
Deliciously creepy. Perfect for two days before Halloween, really
July 17, 2018
Not To Disturb by Muriel Spark - Very Good
Good old Edinburgh Central Library came to my rescue. I was struggling to find a copy of this book, was almost going to borrow a digital copy from the library. I popped in to ask them about how that works (not tried this facility yet) and discovered they'd just got a copy of the new Berlinn edition. Woo Hoo!
This is a gothic novel worthy of my friend Susan (she has a habit of postulating wild gothic fantasies with the ultimate aim of turning one into a ballet....except they get wilder, more cliched and funnier with every comment)
Anyway, it ticks all the boxes. A castle in Switzerland, a thunderstorm, a madman in the attic! Baron Klopstick, his wife and their secretary Victor Passerat (a fey young man in a velvet suit, silk shirt and cravat! Quite the dandy) have locked themselves in the library with the order that they are not to be disturbed. Meanwhile, the servants are gathered 'downstairs'. They seem to know exactly what is about to happen and are writing their memoirs and press releases, filming themselves for a documentary, selling the rights for a film - all under the direction of Lister the Butler. Of course there is a pregnant maid and there is much speculation of who the father might be and how to position herself to advantage once the storm breaks - in every sense of the word.
I think this one might be one of my favourites read for this challenge. Loved it.
Good old Edinburgh Central Library came to my rescue. I was struggling to find a copy of this book, was almost going to borrow a digital copy from the library. I popped in to ask them about how that works (not tried this facility yet) and discovered they'd just got a copy of the new Berlinn edition. Woo Hoo!
This is a gothic novel worthy of my friend Susan (she has a habit of postulating wild gothic fantasies with the ultimate aim of turning one into a ballet....except they get wilder, more cliched and funnier with every comment)
Anyway, it ticks all the boxes. A castle in Switzerland, a thunderstorm, a madman in the attic! Baron Klopstick, his wife and their secretary Victor Passerat (a fey young man in a velvet suit, silk shirt and cravat! Quite the dandy) have locked themselves in the library with the order that they are not to be disturbed. Meanwhile, the servants are gathered 'downstairs'. They seem to know exactly what is about to happen and are writing their memoirs and press releases, filming themselves for a documentary, selling the rights for a film - all under the direction of Lister the Butler. Of course there is a pregnant maid and there is much speculation of who the father might be and how to position herself to advantage once the storm breaks - in every sense of the word.
I think this one might be one of my favourites read for this challenge. Loved it.
January 25, 2013
I didn't like or (admittedly) understand this book. The blurb on the back of the book gave me the impression that I was reading a standard murder mystery, but honestly the murder takes a backseat to the rest of the book, which is about god knows what. Hell, it's not even a mystery, because there's no intrigue. What it really reads like is a transcript of all the boring things that socialites talk about rather than a story.
December 20, 2014
Like Downton Abbey on laudanum...Quick-witted and critical, Spark provides a modern look at the very human natures of The Help and the needs of The Media.
November 9, 2018
It's a very story. Thank you for this contrast. I think it's need to be read more than one. It's very difficult and ironic. I loved.
4/5
4/5
March 30, 2022
This was so horrifically boring and I only read it because it was the shortest thing on my shelf. I’m not the biggest fan of murder mysteries to begin with and this was just dull.
December 7, 2023
einfach fiebertraum
September 17, 2023
A farce which could easily be imagined as a play or movie because of its emphasis on conversation and scene. The “below stairs” staff of the Chateau Klopstock plot survival strategies in light of an impending double murder/suicide over a love affair in the library “upstairs.” Witty and absurd in Spark’s masterful prose, I snickered and snorted through this quick read. More Spark is on the horizon.
December 10, 2021
Not To Disturb is an upstairs-downstairs mystery turned neatly inside-out, a dreamlike satire where the house staff pull off an audacious coup against their higher-ups. This slim novella is suffused with the author’s inimitable sparkling dialogue and comes highly recommended.
June 26, 2019
2.5-3*
May 24, 2020
"The masseuse is large but she appears to have very little moral resistance."
October 10, 2020
Fun, but unlikely to persist in memory.
September 23, 2022
Playing with a variety of gendres
May 20, 2024
Only 3 stars bc it’s too short to leave a lasting impression but even this is a little work of genius in its own way (most similar to The Driver’s Seat)
August 2, 2023
A strange little book that describes the behaviour of a group of servants on a particular night at the home of a Swiss Baron and Baroness. That description doesn't really capture all the oddness and manipulation and clairvoyance involved. Unusual, possibly unique, and very readable.
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