The Ballad of Peckham Rye (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The barmaid said: ‘It was only a few weeks ago. You saw it in the papers. That chap who left the girl at the altar, that’s him. She lives up the Grove. Crewe by name.’ The rest of the characters are well drawn with sharp social satire; from the young thugs, the disillusioned members of the typing pool, the failing to cope director to the ambitious young women. One landlady out of a group of three said, ‘No, she’s a Dixie Morse. Crewe’s the stepfather. I know because she works at Meadows Meade in poor Miss Coverdale’s pool that was. Miss Coverdale told me about her. The fellow had a good position as a refrigerator engineer.’ There was I,’ sang out an old man who was visible with his old wife on the corner bench over in the public bar, ‘waiting at the church, waiting at the church.’ Muriel Spark imbastisce una commedia ricca di humor inglese ambientandola nella Londra degli anni '60, una Londra industrializzata e sempre più attenta alla situazione degli impiegati. È in questo scenario che entra in gioco il protagonista di questa sinistra ballata: è Dougal Douglas, esperto di "scienze umane" incaricato da una piccola industria tessile di studiare gli impiegati e di migliorarne condizioni di lavoro e di vita, arrivando infine a ridurre l'assenteismo.

Dame 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". Quirky and rather brief novel which I rather enjoyed. It is part fable with a spot of magic realism, a dash of humour, some nice twists and clever observations of life in the early 1960s. Quirky, farcical, and darkly comic, it sure was entertaining. But, for me, seeing as the bar was raised higher in other novels, It isn't one of her absolute greats. If I were to give the novel my own title, it might be "Sympathy for the Devil." It is clever, dastardly, and no one escapes this man's antics including the reader. Though each character is an archetype, or at least a type, they have at the same time a unique humanness.

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There was I,' sang out an old man in the public bar, 'waiting at the church, waiting at the church.'

Wilt thou take this woman to be thy wedded wife?” with “ ‘No,’ Humphrey said, ‘to be quite frank, I won’t’ ”. As the novella opens, people are discussing an aborted wedding involving Dixie Morse, a typist at Meadows, Meade & Grindley (a local textiles’ factory), and Humphrey Place, a refrigerator engineer. Some three weeks’ earlier, Humphrey had said ‘no’ at the altar, walking out on Dixie and a church full of guests. I do have a few thoughts about another aspect of this book however. While reading some of Spark's other novels, I realised what a fine observer of people's behavior she was, and I began to look forward to her descriptions of characters almost as much as to the stories they found themselves in. While reading this 1960 story, spotting such descriptions became my main focus. The old man in the quote above is a good example. After he'd sung the line about waiting at the church, and after he'd been reproved by his wife and the barmaid, each in her own fashion, he took a draught of his bitter with a tremble of the elbow and a turn of the wrist. What the reader cannot yet know—and will not discover almost until the end of the novel—is that by that point in narrative time these characters did not hear of Humphrey's return because they were either in jail, in Africa, or dead.The gloriously off-kilter world of Muriel Spark continues to be a source of fascination for me. I loved this novella, especially the first half. It’s wonderfully dark and twisted, characteristically Sparkian in its unconventional view. When Dougal Douglas comes to town and insinuates himself into two rival companies as a "human research" man, ostensibly to improve productivity and thereby profits, he upsets many fixed conditions. He is quite the con man, hardly ever shows up at work, has the business owners completely fooled and messes with various relationships in the town. As usual, Muriel Spark was enough over my head that I finished this highly comic novel and was not quite sure what I had just read. And that's pretty much all I have to say about the plot part of this book. If you're interested in what Muriel Spark can do with such an age-old theme, you can read this short book for yourself. Someone enticed me to read this by comparing it to William Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth. Ah, that siren's call... "this book is just like one you love..."