lunabee34

I just finished reading Muriel Spark's Memento Mori. It's the first Spark novel I've read, and I was incredibly impressed. She has such a lovely, spare style. SPOILER ALERT: This book is about aging; in fact almost the entire cast of characters is over the age of 70, and just as I think it is incredibly difficult to write about and from the perspective of children I also think it's difficult to do the same for the elderly. (I think Margaret Atwood does a bang up job of it in The Blind Assassin, however). Old people in literature are often either imbued with some kind of magical wisdom or they are portrayed as very flat characters, those for whom the living is done, the backdrop for the other characters who really have work to do. The strength of this novel is that all these characters are very real and not one of them is done with living: they are perverted or paranoid or wise or dignified or perceptive or neurotic to the degree that all humans are, regardless of age. The main action of the novel concerns a phone call that each character receives that says to remember he or she must die. Each hears the voice differently when it calls. This is a very uncomfortable book to read at times. It is unflinching in its discussion of the problems of age and sometimes it's difficult to empathize with the characters. It is also hilariously funny: from Godfrey's staring at his housekeeper's garters to Dame Lettie's paranoid fantasies finally coming true through her own machinations, it's very grimly humorous. But I do think the dark nature of the book is tempered with a real hope and peace that some of the characters achieve. I highly recommend it.