Call number
FIC SPA
Collection
Genres
Publication
Doubleday (2004), 181 pages
Description
College Sunrise is a vaguely disreputable finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina, run the school as a way to support themselves while he works, somewhat falteringly, on his novel. Into his creative writing class comes seventeen-year-old Chris Wiley, a literary prodigy whose historical novel-in-progress on Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of her husband Lord Darnley has already excited the interest of publishers. The inevitable results are keen envy and a game of cat and mouse not free of sexual jealousy and attraction. Nobody writing has a keener instinct than Muriel Spark for hypocrisy, self-delusion, and moral ambiguity, or a more deliciously satirical eye. The Finishing School is certain to be another Spark landmark.… (more)
Subjects
Media reviews
The problem is that ''The Finishing School'' reads more like a parody of a Muriel Spark novel than the real thing.
Her novels are so full of arbitrary quirks that they ought to be terrible, and yet they somehow never are. . . The only part of ''The Finishing School'' that doesn't work is its epilogic last three pages.
But what grace and beauty she's still displaying during the golden days and starlit nights of her absolutely marvelous career.
This may be partly the old story of the artist, in the last stage of a long career, losing faith in the magic of illusion and wanting to reveal the illusion of the magic, except that Spark has always played footsie with the machinery and cocked a snook at realism.
This is a work, as usual, of glittering Sparkian ice, whose thinly frozen surface tempts you to jump up and down jovially above something deeper and darker than Loch Ness.
Nevertheless, the book gives the impression of being oddly insubstantial, even when it deals with worlds such as publishing and selling film rights with which this author is profoundly familiar.
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
Another very short, highly-packed book, in which the author hardly seems to be doing any work at all: most of the stories happen offstage and are merely hinted at in passing whilst the book appears to run on along its enjoyable trajectory by momentum alone. A nice trick if you can do it: Spark had
Nina and Rowland run a small, unconventional school in Switzerland where rich parents can park their teenagers for a year or so. Rowland is also a writer, trying to complete his first novel, but he's unsettled by a growing obsession with one of his students, the 17-year-old Chris, who is writing an historical novel about Mary Queen of Scots and apparently making much better progress than Rowland. Chris's extreme youth and his red hair are already starting to arouse the interest of publishers, to Rowland's fury.
Spark in her eighties and with more than twenty novels behind her is having fun playing around with ideas about the difficulty of putting pen to paper, but there's also a lot of play with language that goes with the other end of the career - "finishing", "polishing off" and so on. And there are echoes of the writing-and-mental-health theme from The Comforters, and obviously allusions to the form and subject-matter of The prime of Miss Jean Brodie, right down to the final pages where she does a round-up of what has happened to all the students since. Plenty of dark themes lurking in the distance, but the mood is full of upbeat optimism. These young people might be lacking in all kinds of taste and values, but they more than make up for it by being so young and ready to enjoy life.
Sometimes novels written in extreme old age are a bit of an embarrassment, but this is one that makes you wish Spark had had time for a few more.
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had quite a bit of practice by the time she got this far.Nina and Rowland run a small, unconventional school in Switzerland where rich parents can park their teenagers for a year or so. Rowland is also a writer, trying to complete his first novel, but he's unsettled by a growing obsession with one of his students, the 17-year-old Chris, who is writing an historical novel about Mary Queen of Scots and apparently making much better progress than Rowland. Chris's extreme youth and his red hair are already starting to arouse the interest of publishers, to Rowland's fury.
Spark in her eighties and with more than twenty novels behind her is having fun playing around with ideas about the difficulty of putting pen to paper, but there's also a lot of play with language that goes with the other end of the career - "finishing", "polishing off" and so on. And there are echoes of the writing-and-mental-health theme from The Comforters, and obviously allusions to the form and subject-matter of The prime of Miss Jean Brodie, right down to the final pages where she does a round-up of what has happened to all the students since. Plenty of dark themes lurking in the distance, but the mood is full of upbeat optimism. These young people might be lacking in all kinds of taste and values, but they more than make up for it by being so young and ready to enjoy life.
Sometimes novels written in extreme old age are a bit of an embarrassment, but this is one that makes you wish Spark had had time for a few more.
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LibraryThing member thevoice1208
Short book, quick read. Good story.
LibraryThing member bhowell
This is a delightful little book, witty and somtimes cruel. It is truly amazing given the author's age that she can turn out a book of this quality. The Tatler described it as "An exploration of teenage homosexuality, attempted murder, jealousy, adultery, all dealt with in the most polite and
In fact it is more about jealousy and obsession as opposed to teenage homosexuality. It is the jealousy and obsession which is the heart of the story which you know as you read is going to end up very badly. But how? Read it and find out.
It all takes place in a small finishing school in Switzerland.
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darkly comic way."In fact it is more about jealousy and obsession as opposed to teenage homosexuality. It is the jealousy and obsession which is the heart of the story which you know as you read is going to end up very badly. But how? Read it and find out.
It all takes place in a small finishing school in Switzerland.
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LibraryThing member SirRoger
Muriel Spark wows me every time. Hooray for writers like her! The story is masterful, and oh, so subtle. If no one's planning a movie for this one yet, they definitely should.
LibraryThing member Prop2gether
While the news reviews range from A to F on this last novel of Muriel Spark, I found it just as entertaining as her others. It is sharp where it needs to be and the story, while lighter than air, is still integral to the finale. Enjoy!
LibraryThing member Djupstrom
Nothing really happens in the novel...boring!
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
It is perhaps ironic that the main selling point of Chris's novel, in the story 'The Finishing School', is that he himself is only seventeen and redheaded. I say ironic, because, as charming as this little volume sometimes is, I think it was only published because Muriel Spark's name is attached
One of the 'testimonials' on the inside cover suggests that this is a more humourous, more human version of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', but it most certainly is not. 'Brodie' was a masterpiece; this is the work of an aging writer keen to see one more volume printed.
Is 'The Finishing School' worth reading? Only if you're a die-hard Muriel Spark fan, or a completist wanting to read her entire canon. I'm both, I suppose. The story, about the jealousy and rivalry between a young amateur writer and a creative writing lecturer struggling to finish his own novel, has been done before, many, many times. The story doesn't work very well, and the characters are never as convincing as they usually are in a Spark novel.
Fortunately I managed to get through this work in a fistful of hours, but I was always thinking about those other Spark novels that I've come to love so much. She's a talented writer, but sadly her prime has passed.
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and she is now a sprightly 87 years old.One of the 'testimonials' on the inside cover suggests that this is a more humourous, more human version of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', but it most certainly is not. 'Brodie' was a masterpiece; this is the work of an aging writer keen to see one more volume printed.
Is 'The Finishing School' worth reading? Only if you're a die-hard Muriel Spark fan, or a completist wanting to read her entire canon. I'm both, I suppose. The story, about the jealousy and rivalry between a young amateur writer and a creative writing lecturer struggling to finish his own novel, has been done before, many, many times. The story doesn't work very well, and the characters are never as convincing as they usually are in a Spark novel.
Fortunately I managed to get through this work in a fistful of hours, but I was always thinking about those other Spark novels that I've come to love so much. She's a talented writer, but sadly her prime has passed.
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LibraryThing member CasualFriday
The Finishing School of the title is College Sunrise, a small, unconventional, and borderline disreputable school run by aspiring novelist Rowland Mahler and his wife Nina. Their star pupil is Chris Wiley, a self-confident 17-year-old who is writing a historical novel about Mary Queen of Scots.
This novella is short and certainly not sweet; it is mostly tartly funny. It's a slight piece of work; the characters other than Rowland and Chris are thinly sketched, but the good writing and the narrator's biting authorial asides make for very good entertainment. I've never read Muriel Spark, and I'll certainly read her again.
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Rowland, who is suffering from writer's block, reads bits of Chris's novel and finds it alarmingly good. Sexual and professional jealousy spur Rowland to the brink of a nervous breakdown.This novella is short and certainly not sweet; it is mostly tartly funny. It's a slight piece of work; the characters other than Rowland and Chris are thinly sketched, but the good writing and the narrator's biting authorial asides make for very good entertainment. I've never read Muriel Spark, and I'll certainly read her again.
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LibraryThing member miketroll
A delicious little book! Light, fizzy, impish fun. Muriel Spark has a sublime writing gift, the ability to paint an entire scene in a few well chosen words. And in the art of gentle irony she is a supreme master (mistress?).
LibraryThing member abirdman
Thin and barely nourishing, this is nevertheless a readable book by a prolific and important first rate British author, and apparently her last finished novel.
LibraryThing member nocto
Little more than a short story really. And while short stories have a habit of driving me bananas, possibly because they tend to come in books containing one good yarn and ten substandard ones, I enjoyed this standalone one. It's about the symbiotic relationship between aspiring novelist Rowland,
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currently running a anachronistic kind of modern day co-educational finishing school, and his student Chris, an actually-getting-on-with-it novelist, with a cast of other odd characters getting in the way from time to time. I gave up expecting sense out of Muriel Spark's stories years ago, sometimes you get sense but on the whole they are the kind of thing you just surf along with and get entertained by, and never expect a sensible ending! Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
"When you finish at College Sunrise you should be really and truly finished," Nina told the girls. "Like the finish on a rare piece of furniture. Your jumped-up parents (may God preserve their bank accounts) will want to see something for their money."
I picked this up at the library earlier this
I picked this up at the library earlier this
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week, as I like the author's books and haven't read this one before. It turns out that this was Muriel Spark's last novel and was published in 2004, so the chararacters have personal computers and watch Sky News, although the setting, in Rowland and Nina's finishing school on the bank of a Swiss lake, seems old fashioned. It is a short and amusing tale, but not much happens except for Rowland's increasing jealousy of their pupil Chris, who is there to write a novel and seems to be breezing through the process, while Rowland is struggling to get to grips with his own book. Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Finishing School is cellophane thin volume of cellophane sensibilities and cellophane merit. Here is a work of airy, meretricious smuggery with no plenty of surface fireworks but no inner spark, which is to say no heart.
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Finishing School is cellophane thin volume of cellophane sensibilities and cellophane merit. Here is a work of airy, meretricious smuggery with no plenty of surface fireworks but no inner spark, which is to say no heart.
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Finishing School is cellophane thin volume of cellophane sensibilities and cellophane merit. Here is a work of airy, meretricious smuggery with no plenty of surface fireworks but no inner spark, which is to say no heart.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
breezy and swift, though aside from its ascerbic humor it had lacked gravity. The Finishing School was a Murdochian sketch pushed forward slightly into realization. The time twisted totems of education and affection pull up short of Don't Stand So Close To Me.
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
This is related to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie only in that it's set in a school. Much less political, much more fun.
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Rowland and Nina run a small finishing school, which moves almost yearly just ahead of its outstanding bills. They offer a varied curriculum suitable for teenage boys and girls, scions of wealthy families, on the verge of becoming whomever it is they might become and requiring just a touch of
Chris is a red-haired student and, possibly, a genius. Or at least he is a writer who actually writes, unlike Rowland, who has been blocked on his novel for several years. Almost inevitably, Rowland develops an unhealthy envy of Chris’ productivity. And Chris develops an unhealthy need for Rowland’s envy. Nina just wants to find an intelligent, scholarly man she can devote herself to (Rowland having failed her in that regard). And the other students and staff have equally complicated hopes and histories all of which weave a tapestry worthy of a Lausanne wall. Situations ensue.
Well into her 80s, Muriel Spark’s last novel is just as sparkling and outlandish as those of her youth. Her characters are intriguing, her situations almost absurd, and the whole concoction a frothy delight.
Easily and gently recommended.
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finishing to, so to speak, finish them off. Perhaps unsurprisingly one of the favourite classes offered is Rowland’s creative writing course. That and Nina’s comme il faut class, where they learn such tidbits as, in England, to eat asparagus with one’s fingers.Chris is a red-haired student and, possibly, a genius. Or at least he is a writer who actually writes, unlike Rowland, who has been blocked on his novel for several years. Almost inevitably, Rowland develops an unhealthy envy of Chris’ productivity. And Chris develops an unhealthy need for Rowland’s envy. Nina just wants to find an intelligent, scholarly man she can devote herself to (Rowland having failed her in that regard). And the other students and staff have equally complicated hopes and histories all of which weave a tapestry worthy of a Lausanne wall. Situations ensue.
Well into her 80s, Muriel Spark’s last novel is just as sparkling and outlandish as those of her youth. Her characters are intriguing, her situations almost absurd, and the whole concoction a frothy delight.
Easily and gently recommended.
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Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2005)
Scotland's National Book Awards (Shortlist — 2004)
Pages
181
ISBN
0385512821 / 9780385512824