Status
Available
Genres
Publication
New York : Putnam, c1984.
Description
A wealthy academic's life shatters when his estranged wife becomes the suspected leader of a terrorist organization Having led a successful, comfortable life, Harvey Gotham retires to the French countryside to pursue bookish obsessions--namely, a long monograph on the Book of Job, the biblical narrative of faith in the face of extraordinary suffering. But Gotham's intellectual interests soon bleed into his daily life when a series of misfortunes, from a destructive affair to his wife's involvement with an extremist group, threaten to destroy everything he holds dear. Hailed by the New York Times as "an extremely sophisticated account of the perils that surround our unsuspecting lives in the world today,"The Only Problem balances Spark's unique blend of razor-sharp satire and moral introspection in one fast-paced, absorbing novel. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Muriel Spark including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's archive at the National Library of Scotland. … (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member stillatim
Two things of note here: first, it turns out that this isn't even in print, except for omnibus editions of Spark's works. This is a horrible travesty. Second, I spoke about it with my wife. She's a fan of Spark's better known books (Brodie, Girls of Slender Means), but even then, she says she's
This, combined with a few of my other current preoccupations, meant that I was in a *perfect* frame of mind to read this book. Just to get it out of the way: there's no character development, barely any characters as such at all, nobody with whom to sympathize, and an outlandish conceit that will be all but incomprehensible to those who don't have some knowledge of the Book of Job.
What the book does, though, is remarkable. What starts out as a kind of romantic comedy slowly turns into an extraordinary meditation on what it means to be Job-like in the present and, even more ballsily, what it would mean to *tell* the story of Job in the present. It turns out--and this is a bit of a stretch, I admit--that the author of Job is somewhat like Satan, able to do whatever she will with the characters before her, while also being a bit like God, inasmuch as she can, when and if she chooses, make the ending happy by seemingly ending the suffering. But that won't necessarily make the character of Job himself happy, and certainly won't make the reader happy either, because other sufferings are coming and we know it. And despite all that, it's a tale worth telling and pondering, simply because our other options are being the annoying aunt, being the irritating policemen (the police-woman is the one non-Job like, attractive option left to us), being the blockheaded terrorist, being the, erm, flighty woman, or being the asshole. These 'comforters' (note to self: re-read Spark's first novel with this in mind), like the comforters in Job, are unbearable and misleading. The only thing that matters is the book, and our relationship to it.
So, as in her The Comforters, Spark marshals all the hyper-textual trickery and self-reflexivity you could wish for, but instead of concluding that everything is uncertain and we can never say what we want to and vanity vanity vanity, you're left wit the idea that literature, ideas and morality really do matter. Revolutionary.
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never sure what Spark is trying to *do*. Is it *good* that her student turns on Miss Jean, or bad? Is she good, or bad? And so on. This, combined with a few of my other current preoccupations, meant that I was in a *perfect* frame of mind to read this book. Just to get it out of the way: there's no character development, barely any characters as such at all, nobody with whom to sympathize, and an outlandish conceit that will be all but incomprehensible to those who don't have some knowledge of the Book of Job.
What the book does, though, is remarkable. What starts out as a kind of romantic comedy slowly turns into an extraordinary meditation on what it means to be Job-like in the present and, even more ballsily, what it would mean to *tell* the story of Job in the present. It turns out--and this is a bit of a stretch, I admit--that the author of Job is somewhat like Satan, able to do whatever she will with the characters before her, while also being a bit like God, inasmuch as she can, when and if she chooses, make the ending happy by seemingly ending the suffering. But that won't necessarily make the character of Job himself happy, and certainly won't make the reader happy either, because other sufferings are coming and we know it. And despite all that, it's a tale worth telling and pondering, simply because our other options are being the annoying aunt, being the irritating policemen (the police-woman is the one non-Job like, attractive option left to us), being the blockheaded terrorist, being the, erm, flighty woman, or being the asshole. These 'comforters' (note to self: re-read Spark's first novel with this in mind), like the comforters in Job, are unbearable and misleading. The only thing that matters is the book, and our relationship to it.
So, as in her The Comforters, Spark marshals all the hyper-textual trickery and self-reflexivity you could wish for, but instead of concluding that everything is uncertain and we can never say what we want to and vanity vanity vanity, you're left wit the idea that literature, ideas and morality really do matter. Revolutionary.
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LibraryThing member thorold
There was something niggling away at me when I read The comforters and I realised afterwards what it was - I'd got it in the back of my mind that there was a Muriel Spark novel about the Book of Job, and I was expecting it to be that one. With hindsight, the title probably does imply a reference to
Anyway, it turns out that The only problem is the one that is about an amateur scholar writing a monograph about Job and finding himself afflicted with his own share of arbitrary suffering in the process. No boils or dung-heaps, but a lot of journalists and police interrogators who descend on him in his lonely chateau in the Vosges when it appears that his estranged wife may be involved with a Baader-Meinhof-style terrorist organisation.
Quirky and unpredictable as always, and full of witty, penetrating lines, although not quite as experimental in form as some of the others. The narrative is fairly linear, and most of the oddity is expressed through the wilful mixing-up of theological debate with a very secular story of crime, infidelity and divorce. It looks as though Spark was really looking for an excuse to have a bit of a dust-up with God about the way he treated Job - not quite the all-out rage of a Joseph Roth, but a firm rapping of the divine fingers about his failure to respect due academic process: Job’s problem was partly a lack of knowledge. He was without access to any system of study which would point to the reason for his afflictions. He said specifically, “I desire to reason with God,” and expected God to come out like a man and state his case. - a comment which is delivered not in the framework of a seminar but during a wonderful comic set-piece press-conference where the Job-figure, Harvey, is fielding questions from crime-reporters about his wife's sensational activities.
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Job, only in some convoluted symbolic way that I was too sleepy to work out at the time...Anyway, it turns out that The only problem is the one that is about an amateur scholar writing a monograph about Job and finding himself afflicted with his own share of arbitrary suffering in the process. No boils or dung-heaps, but a lot of journalists and police interrogators who descend on him in his lonely chateau in the Vosges when it appears that his estranged wife may be involved with a Baader-Meinhof-style terrorist organisation.
Quirky and unpredictable as always, and full of witty, penetrating lines, although not quite as experimental in form as some of the others. The narrative is fairly linear, and most of the oddity is expressed through the wilful mixing-up of theological debate with a very secular story of crime, infidelity and divorce. It looks as though Spark was really looking for an excuse to have a bit of a dust-up with God about the way he treated Job - not quite the all-out rage of a Joseph Roth, but a firm rapping of the divine fingers about his failure to respect due academic process: Job’s problem was partly a lack of knowledge. He was without access to any system of study which would point to the reason for his afflictions. He said specifically, “I desire to reason with God,” and expected God to come out like a man and state his case. - a comment which is delivered not in the framework of a seminar but during a wonderful comic set-piece press-conference where the Job-figure, Harvey, is fielding questions from crime-reporters about his wife's sensational activities.
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LibraryThing member ivanfranko
The only problem is how a bounteous God can permit suffering in this world. Spark uses a rich young man who is completing a treatise on the Book of Job to examine the role of the sufferer at the perils of the behaviour of others; especially others who might normally be "comforters"; friends,
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family, the law in this case. The outcome to the story brings the suffering for Harvey Gotham to an end but only in a random fashion. Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
I usually love Muriel Spark, but this one didn't work for me. It's an odd story about clueless adults mixed up in politics and casually switching around how they partner up. And in the background, the main character studies the Book of Job from the Bible.
LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
The eponymous "Only Problem" is that of how a benevolent omnipotent God allows suffering in the world, as epitomised in the Book Of Job, which is the obsession of the central character, Harvey. There is some interesting discussion of The Problem, but the story is more about Harvey's more modern-day
Spark doesn't tend to describe transitions - rather she narrates vignettes from different points in the plot. (I also noticed this in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie). It's an interesting and distinctive approach, and one that perhaps mirrors life.
An enjoyable and idiosyncratic book, though a little unsatisfying.
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(and somewhat self-inflicted) sufferings. These are almost insignificant by most definitions of suffering, which gives the book a satiric edge, although the humour is bone dry. Spark doesn't tend to describe transitions - rather she narrates vignettes from different points in the plot. (I also noticed this in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie). It's an interesting and distinctive approach, and one that perhaps mirrors life.
An enjoyable and idiosyncratic book, though a little unsatisfying.
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Language
Original publication date
1984
Physical description
179 p.; 23 cm
ISBN
0399129871 / 9780399129872
Local notes
fiction