Memento Mori

Great condition & fast delivery. I’ve been chasing this book for years.

Ms Sparks’ novel weaves a story of multiple lives of variously elderly people some of whom have hidden motives behind their outwardly pleasant exteriors. Ms Sparks’ sharp with and wry humor underlies every episode. A mysterious caller, or callers, intones “remember you must die “ throughout.Perhaps the closing chapter acting as multiple obituaries is the least satisfactory, feeling hurried and having little flair.Overall the writing is clear and the prose lucid.

Memento Mori was mentioned in Michele Giuttari’s novel, “A Florentine Death.” It piqued my curiosity so I promptly found it and download it on my Kindle.What a delightful novel, perhaps more so for me as I’ve been spending much time with aged parents and residents at my mother’s new dementia care home. Muriel Spark’s observations about the human condition, twisting plot, and bantering dialogue kept me hooked.Coincidentally while reading Ms. Spark’s novel I received a quote by her on WeCroak. It said: “When people say nothing happens in their lives I believe them. But you must understand that everything happens to an artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost and wonders never cease.”So true!P.S. if you’re unfamiliar with WeCroak it is an app driven by a philosophy that in Bhutan they say contemplating death five times daily brings happiness. Thus the app delivers 5 quotes a day.

I loved this book when I read it in college, and now that I am in the age range of the characters I still love it. If you can put up with a touch of what was not yet called magic realism when Ms Spark wrote the book, you are in for a treat. A group of elderly people, connected in many ways over their long lifetimes, all receive a phone call reminding them to remember that they must die. How they react reveals their characters, while Spark packs the book with assorted insights and cleverness. When I was in college I had to keep reminding me that these vivid people were old; now that I am old I am much less surprised at how they are like everybody else. Superb entertainment, with depth to spare under the sparkling surface.

This is a bleakly comic book about a group of privileged elders receiving the same "robocall." "Remember you must die." It offends them and they look for ways to punish the caller. There is another cohort of poor invalids, "the grannies" who die as they must, and one woman who is part of each group. Muriel Spark is/was a writer of crisp, sardonic prose. Technically it's omniscient close third person for most, more distant for others.

The author shines a spotlight on the thoughts and preoccupations of an aging population in the story  Memento Mori (New Directions Classic) .Set in England in the 1950s, we meet the elderly characters residing sometimes on their own, or with a spouse, or in nursing homes. In all cases, their fears of those who would ignore them or harm them are articulated as persecutions. One specific persecution takes the form of anonymous phone calls with the message: "Remember you must die."As each person experiences the calls, he or she describes the caller's voice to the police. But they all report something different. Eventually, it seems likely that the calls are a form of hallucination that stems from a preoccupation with death and loss.Some consider this tale to be a kind of dark comedy, and while I found the characters interesting and very realistically developed, having known people from this age group whose preoccupations have turned to paranoia at times, I soon tired of the tale and was happy to finally come to its end. 3.0 stars.

Reading this at age 45 was more fun than reading it at 80. Muriel Spark’s writing style is that if a generation of well educated novelists dedicated to amusing readers like themselves. Now that I am experienced I can vouch for the accuracy of her descriptions of septuagenarians. She must have spent a great deal of time in nursing homes, observing like one of her characters did. She seldom saw them as old dears. They are spiteful more than forgetful. They are cunning. They are still interested in life.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER...Intrigued by Michael Dirda's praise in the Washington Post, I ordered and read this book,"Memento Mori," Muriel Spark's 1959 novel about Brits coping with old age and death.A classic indeed.As a woman of a certain age, I found "Memento Mori" appropriate, as I had found "ThePrime of Miss Jean Brody" when I was considerably younger. It was "weird" to be sure,but uniquely funny and surprisingly satisfying.I look forward to reading "The Informed Air," Spark's latest and, sadly, final memoir.Kathleen L. C.