Jean Brodie

When I went into my Muriel Spark phase a few months back, I soon learned that she had had a relationship with The New Yorker. But none of the books that promote the New Yorker mythology even mentions her. You will read all about Mr. Shawn and Capote and Updike and Thurber and many lesser talents. Nothing about Spark. Which is odd because the magazine established her international reputation. Much of what follows below comes from looking around in the (fascinating) New Yorker Archive at the New York Public Library. I'd planned to blog it soon enough; Dame Muriel's death Friday makes me hustle this into code.  read more »

I'm in a state of grief, gratitude and excitement over Muriel Spark's death. This reflects the fact that I only really discovered her for myself six months back. Yes, I had read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie some time ago. But it was rereading The Prime last November that catapulted me into Dame Muriel's universe. Since then I've been reading her closely and studying her marvelous spidering method.

As a fresh devotee (the zeal of the convert), it seems to me I might perform a service now by telling others about her. I'll do so in two entries. First my general take on the life and work. And then a more specific treatment, of how The New Yorker magazine created Dame Muriel's international reputation in 1961.  read more »

The Times is confused about the scandal at the Post. On the one hand, it regards it as titillating gossip. Thus the montage of gossipy photos and the nut-graf dismissing the story as the gossip that everyone is buzzing about. On the other hand, the giant front page display, dominating the page. A picture of Anthony Haden-Guest (on the front page at last!) where I am expecting to find a sheet-draped corpse outside the Baghdad mosque. Because, after all, this is a federal investigation.

The Times confusion is understandable. We've always known that Page 6 plays favorites, it's hard to take the thing seriously. Years ago I heard an editor say they couldn't print a certain item, it would piss off their friend, and the Post needed friends—they were the sources for their nasty items about their targets. So from a reader's standpoint the page was always compromised and what did it matter whether there was money involved.

Of course the money makes it truly sinister. Makes the Post characters far more intriguing. Throws a window open on the entertainment culture. An important story. God knows, maybe it will bring the conservatives down?

I'm reminded of my (latest) literary idol: Muriel Spark. Dame Muriel believes that almost all human relations can be boiled down to one principle: blackmail. In her greatest tales, you will always find someone who purports to believe in one ideal or another blackmailing another. Even Sandy in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It is Spark's bottom line on human nature. And now the Post has revealed itself, as a fine Muriel Spark plot. Oh right—allegedly.

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