A mitad de siglo, en el Londres de la postguerra, Fleur, una joven autora inédita, se entrega apasionadamente a la redacción de su primera novela. Pero son tiempos difíciles, el racionamiento sigue en vigor, y ha de ganarse la vida. Por eso, empieza a trabajar, en calidad de secretaria, para la Sociedad Autobiográfica, un extraño grupo de neuróticos guiados por el carismático y no menos extraño sir Quentin. Pero, gradualmente, el misterio se adueña de la vida de Fleur. Los hechos reales se asemejan sospechosamente a los sucesos descritos en su novela inacabada: sir Quentin y sus lunáticos seguidores parecen imitar a los personajes que ella ha creado en la intimidad de su cuarto. Hasta que, cuando el manuscrito de la novela desaparece, realidad y ficción se confunden definitivamente, y entonces...

Looking back on her life, Fleur Talbot informs us that it felt wonderful to be an artist and a woman in the twentieth century. They were heady days for Fleur in 1949. She was busy living a somewhat chaotic life, penning her first novel, “Warrender Chase,” and taking on temporary employment as secretary to Sir Quentin Oliver and his Autobiographical Association. Life has a way of imitating art, or vice versa, and certainly in this case Fleur is quick to note similarities between her character, Warrender, and Sir Quentin. Indeed, more similarities emerge between lesser characters and those she encounters in her employment. It’s almost as though they were deliberately enacting her novel. Does it seem too fanciful? Fleur certainly thinks so, suspecting rather that Sir Quentin is up to something nefarious. It’s bound to end in either heartache or heart attack, but both would be, I’m sure she’d agree, grist for the mill of her future endeavours as a novelist.

Muriel Spark is clearly having the time of her life with Fleur’s autobiographical account of her younger life. But she’s also having great fun with the play between fiction and autobiography as well as the preposterous lives we imagine for our favourite novelists. Nothing is really as it seems here. How could it be? It would be absurd. On the other hand, life just might be absurd. And for a novelist as playful and subtle as Spark, it almost certainly must be.

Good fun and warmly recommended. ( )

Pretty funny. I'll have to read this in print sometime.

Quotable: "How wonderful it feels to be an artist, and a woman, in the twentieth century!" ( )

A writer writes a book about a writer who is writing a book, joining a circle of writers writing books - and all of them are autobiographical to some degree. It could be very tedious but in Spark's hands it is sharp, witty and challenging. October 2019 ( )

Spark has ruined me for many books; Spark could do this so much better is an unfair thought that has crossed my mind too many times recent years as I read non-Spark books. Yes, there are now only two types of books in my classification.

She does so much with so little. It's almost infuriating how concise and controlled her writing is even while it's presenting itself as a madcap froth of inconsequence.

At this point - my ninth Spark -, I cannot foresee there ever being a dud Spark. ( )