Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Canada, Limited (1999), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 160 pages
Description
The Ballad of Peckham Rye is the wickedly farcical fable of a blue-collar town turned upside down. When the firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley hires Dougal Douglas (a.k.a. Douglas Dougal) to do "human research" into the private lives of its workforce, they are in no way prepared for the mayhem, mutiny, and murder he will stir up. "Not only funny but startlingly original", declared The Washington Post, "the legendary character of Dougal Douglas...may not have been boasting when he referred so blithely to his association with the devil". In fact this Music Man of the thoroughly modern corporation changes the lives of all the eccentric characters he meets, from Miss Merle Coverdale, head of the typing pool, to V.R. Druce, unsuspecting Managing Director. The Ballad of Peckham Rye presents Dame Muriel Spark at her most devilishly piquant.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Cariola
Another wry (pun intended) novel by the witty, observant Muriel Spark. It centers on Dougal Douglas, a young Scotsman newly arrived in Peckham Rye. Dougal has his fingers in many pies, spying for more than one master, chatting up whatever available young woman happens to be around, and warning
Spark was an impeccable observer of English society, always writing with affection and tongue in cheek. While I enjoyed this novel, I didn't think it compared favorably to her others that I have read, including 'Memento Mori,' 'A Far Cry from Kensington,' and 'The Girls of Slender Means.'
Show More
everyone that he has "a fatal flaw" (which seems to change with the occasion). In the meantime, Dougal is writing a kind of moral history of Peckham, based on his observations of and interactions with his neighbors, friends, and coworkers.Spark was an impeccable observer of English society, always writing with affection and tongue in cheek. While I enjoyed this novel, I didn't think it compared favorably to her others that I have read, including 'Memento Mori,' 'A Far Cry from Kensington,' and 'The Girls of Slender Means.'
Show Less
LibraryThing member maiamaia
This is how people used to talk when I was little. I don't know when they stopped. I hadn't noticed, I had forgotten it, and this brought it all back. Like how the Turkish have lost their specifically turkish gestures in one chapter of Pamuk's The Black Book (masterpiece). Deja vu. Contains usual
Show More
Spark themes (e.g. affairs, secrets, responsibility for your actions question of, surveillance, jealousy). Sarky, hilarious and exquisitely plotted. The method for writing books by assembling cliches is hilarious. It seems to be a bit how writing works, all these characters looking for An Ear. 4/5 because it is perfect but within a narrow scope - give it 5/5 if you prefer the comic, the minute, the domestic etc. As War and Peace is my all time favourite novel, you can see why for me it's only 4. Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiler69
Newly arrived to Peckham (London) from Scottland, Dougal Douglas (aka Douglas Dougal) is hired by nylon textiles manufacturer Meadows, Meade & Grindley, where his made-to measure position is meant to bridge the gap between industry and the arts. During his stay in Peckham, Dougal carries out "human
The above is mostly summarized from wikipedia, because to be very honest, I was quite confused through this short novel. The only thing that was clear to me was that Douglas Dougal was one very strange fellow, at times amusing, at times maddening, and utterly unknowable. His "fatal flaw", as he likes to repeat, is that he can't stand illness in any form, which makes for some funny exchanges with the woman he thinks of as his girlfriend, whom he's let down through a difficult illness (she eventually announces to him she's marrying someone else). This flaw is fairly ironic as he himself has a deformation, with one shoulder being noticeably higher than the other. I've become a Muriel Spark fan in this past year, but can't say this was my favourite work by her so far. I wouldn't recommend someone new to Spark start with this one, but fans will probably enjoy her strange humour and it's probably the kind of book which becomes more enjoyable on a second reading.
Show More
research" on the "moral character" of the people of the area. As well as working for Meadows, Meade & Grindley, he also works for their rivals, the more prosperous Drover Willis's textile manufacturers (under the pseudonym Douglas Dougal), as well as working as a ghost writer for a retired actress and singer. Only Nelly Mahone recognises Dougal for the manipulative "double-tongued" rogue he is, but no one listens to her as everyone views her as a drunken Irish vagrant. There is speculation as to him possibly being an incarnation of the Devil, but what is certain is that DD wreaks utter havoc in the lives of his co-workers and the residents of Peckham, the least of which is influencing Humphrey Place to dump his bride-to-be Dixie Morse at the altar, as we learn from the very beginning of the story. The above is mostly summarized from wikipedia, because to be very honest, I was quite confused through this short novel. The only thing that was clear to me was that Douglas Dougal was one very strange fellow, at times amusing, at times maddening, and utterly unknowable. His "fatal flaw", as he likes to repeat, is that he can't stand illness in any form, which makes for some funny exchanges with the woman he thinks of as his girlfriend, whom he's let down through a difficult illness (she eventually announces to him she's marrying someone else). This flaw is fairly ironic as he himself has a deformation, with one shoulder being noticeably higher than the other. I've become a Muriel Spark fan in this past year, but can't say this was my favourite work by her so far. I wouldn't recommend someone new to Spark start with this one, but fans will probably enjoy her strange humour and it's probably the kind of book which becomes more enjoyable on a second reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
This is one of Spark's crazier novels, published the year before Miss Jean Brodie. It is set in a working-class district of South London, and the story is all about factory workers and their bosses, dances, nights at the pub, fights about girls, petty crime, adultery, saving up to get married,
The comic disturbing agent in the plot is the Scotsman Dougal Douglas, who often seems to be Psmith playing the part of Donald Farfrae. We're in Wodehouse country, after all: Peckham Rye is just down the road from East Dulwich. Douglas is an agent of chaos who enjoys inserting himself into social situations and interfering at random. Apparently he does this simply to see what will happen, as Psmith did, but he himself also enjoys dropping hints that he is an incarnation of the Devil, an interpretation Spark does nothing to confirm or deny (Peckham Rye is also William Blake country...). In the course of the story he completely undermines employee morale in two local factories where he's been brought into the Personnel department as an "Arts man" with an ill-defined mission to tackle disaffection and absenteeism (so ill-defined that he's able to hold the same job simultaneously in both companies without his bosses noticing anything); he sends several managers into breakdowns or depression; he sabotages a long-planned wedding, and he's indirectly responsible for at least two deaths. And he has time to adapt his adventures to fit a ghosted autobiography he's writing for an elderly actress...
Entertaining in a very Sparkish way, but I'm not sure if it does anything beyond that. There may well be a serious moral tale buried under all that exuberant chaos, but if there is, it's so convoluted and ambiguous that few readers are going to bother to work it out.
Show More
sneaking lovers past the landlady, etc., so it's clearly setting itself up as though it's in the same genre as the novels and plays of contemporaries like Alan Sillitoe and Stan Barstow. But this is most definitely not grittily realistic angry-young-man fiction, it's more like a sophisticated, playful parody of its conventions. No-one here is the victim of anything other than their own moral limitations. The violence, when it occurs, is as balletic as anything in West Side Story, and the story line is constantly wavering at the very edge of realism. The comic disturbing agent in the plot is the Scotsman Dougal Douglas, who often seems to be Psmith playing the part of Donald Farfrae. We're in Wodehouse country, after all: Peckham Rye is just down the road from East Dulwich. Douglas is an agent of chaos who enjoys inserting himself into social situations and interfering at random. Apparently he does this simply to see what will happen, as Psmith did, but he himself also enjoys dropping hints that he is an incarnation of the Devil, an interpretation Spark does nothing to confirm or deny (Peckham Rye is also William Blake country...). In the course of the story he completely undermines employee morale in two local factories where he's been brought into the Personnel department as an "Arts man" with an ill-defined mission to tackle disaffection and absenteeism (so ill-defined that he's able to hold the same job simultaneously in both companies without his bosses noticing anything); he sends several managers into breakdowns or depression; he sabotages a long-planned wedding, and he's indirectly responsible for at least two deaths. And he has time to adapt his adventures to fit a ghosted autobiography he's writing for an elderly actress...
Entertaining in a very Sparkish way, but I'm not sure if it does anything beyond that. There may well be a serious moral tale buried under all that exuberant chaos, but if there is, it's so convoluted and ambiguous that few readers are going to bother to work it out.
Show Less
LibraryThing member alexrichman
Perfectly pleasing romp through the offices of Peckham. The ideal book to read on the sly when you should be doing some work.
LibraryThing member herschelian
Living in central Africa when I read this, I couldn't wait to get to London and go to all the places mentioned in books - they seemed so exotic! Finally made it to Peckham Rye about 2 months ago, 46 years late, and 30 years after I started living in London.
LibraryThing member SirRoger
A bit confusing at first, probably due to 'Scottishisms.' Upon finishing, however, I immediately wanted to read it again. Spark's characters and writing are as original and delightful as always.
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
I'm becoming a bigger and bigger Muriel Spark fan (and not just because I'm eating too much these days). They're all of a type - Spark has a very distinctive style of writing, but it suits her splendidly, and makes her novels very easy to read.
The central question in this novel is perhaps about the
Like so many other of her novels, this is something of a minor classic; worth reading and celebrating, even if it doesn't make the 1001 Books list.
The central question in this novel is perhaps about the
Show More
devil (though I'm not sure - it's a short novel but there's a lot too it). Is Dougal Douglas a devil? Or just devilish? He tells awful, insensitive jokes, and still gets a laugh. He polarises the local population - they're either for or against him. He is a hunchback, and was supposedly born with horns on his head. He damages everybody's life in some way - though it's hard to sympathise with his victims because he does everything with such class and panache.Like so many other of her novels, this is something of a minor classic; worth reading and celebrating, even if it doesn't make the 1001 Books list.
Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
'You are a terror and a treat,' Dougal said.
'You look to me like an Okapi,' he said.
'A what?'
'An Okapi is a rare beast from the Congo. It looks a little like a deer, but it tries to be a giraffe. It has stripes and it stretches its neck as far as possible and its ears are like a donkey's. It is a
'Wy do you say I'm like it?'
'Because you're so shy.'
'Me shy?'
'Yes. You haven't told me about your love affair with Mr. Druce. You're too shy.'
'Oh, that's only a friendship. You've got it all wrong. What makes you think it's a love affair? Who told you that?'
'I've got second sight.'
When Dougal Douglas (aka Douglas Dougal and Mr Dougal-Douglas) comes to live in 1950s Peckham and gets a job in HR for a local company, he seems to cause trouble wherever he goes. He claims to be a devil, and likes to get people to feel the bumps on his head that he says are the remains of his horns, although his friend Humphrey is sure that they are just cysts.
I like Muriel Spark, but hadn't read this book before. I picked it up at a charity book sale at work, and it was well worth 25p .
'You look to me like an Okapi,' he said.
'A what?'
'An Okapi is a rare beast from the Congo. It looks a little like a deer, but it tries to be a giraffe. It has stripes and it stretches its neck as far as possible and its ears are like a donkey's. It is a
Show More
little bit of everything. There are only a few in captivity. It is very shy.''Wy do you say I'm like it?'
'Because you're so shy.'
'Me shy?'
'Yes. You haven't told me about your love affair with Mr. Druce. You're too shy.'
'Oh, that's only a friendship. You've got it all wrong. What makes you think it's a love affair? Who told you that?'
'I've got second sight.'
When Dougal Douglas (aka Douglas Dougal and Mr Dougal-Douglas) comes to live in 1950s Peckham and gets a job in HR for a local company, he seems to cause trouble wherever he goes. He claims to be a devil, and likes to get people to feel the bumps on his head that he says are the remains of his horns, although his friend Humphrey is sure that they are just cysts.
I like Muriel Spark, but hadn't read this book before. I picked it up at a charity book sale at work, and it was well worth 25p .
Show Less
LibraryThing member kittyjay
When Dougal Douglas (or Douglas Dougal) moves to Peckham to work for the firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley, he begins an inquiry into the private lives and morals of the members of the firm and starts a wave of chaos and devilry that ripples through the town.
Those familiar with Muriel Spark may
A witty, quick, and thoroughly wicked romp, The Ballad of Peckham Rye is one of Spark's classics.
Those familiar with Muriel Spark may
Show More
find themselves taken aback at the style of this short novel; though it has the brusque, clear sentences that Spark so favors, it also tends to repeat itself, showing new glimpses of the same conversations or circumstances. What remains the same, however, is Spark's estimable ability to create characters who are realistic and complex, defying easy analysis. Dougal Douglas, with his off-beat mannerisms and wicked instigations, is hard to dislike, but not one to like either. Like the townspeople, the reader finds themselves more curious and intrigued than anything, and eager to see what happens next.A witty, quick, and thoroughly wicked romp, The Ballad of Peckham Rye is one of Spark's classics.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lkernagh
I did not understand this book, at all. Even "wickedly farcical fables" should have some string of logic to them, I would hope. I also don't understand the cover for the audiobook I listened to. Maybe it is to represent the loud fashion of the era the book is set in, which I believe to be 1960
Not one of Spark's better stories, IMO.
Show More
London, when Spark wrote it, making it, at the time, a contemporary novel. I had to resort to the Wikipedia article to make sense out of the story. According to Wikipedia, "The text draws upon the supernatural, as well as issues of Irish and Scottish migrancy and offers a critique of the sterile and unremarkable nature of the lives of the Peckham working class." Ooookkkkkaaayyyy.... I got snippets of the working class bit and if Dougal is to represent the issues that an Irish or Scottish migrant to England faced, that makes sense. The whole devil/shape-shifter aspect of Dougal's character is probably supposed to lend a fable-like quality to the story but it is so subtle that Dougal just really comes across as a human annoyance to a segment of Peckham's population. Spark lets her razor sharp wit flow into characters - all flawed souls - as is her norm, but Dougal tends to overshadow Spark's gift for exposing the human condition of her characters to examination. The end result is a rather strange story that my mind is still trying to make heads or tails of. Not one of Spark's better stories, IMO.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Dougal Douglas, or Douglas Dougal if he is on the other side of the Rye, is an interloping fey source of chaos who nearly evenly divides opinion in Peckham, whether those opinions are expressed by workers in the mills, management, the police, elderly landladies, or aging actresses. Very few can
Muriel Spark is in top form with this sprightly tour de force as she quick-cuts forward and backward in time and jumps from one character to the next. The pace will leave you breathless. But that might also be due to the laughing. Some of what Dougal does is ridiculous. Yet it’s all so Dougal, isn’t it?
So easy to recommend.
Show More
pinpoint what exactly it is they like or dislike about Dougal. Certainly the things he says and what he does are constantly surprising. Dixie, betrothed to Humphrey, doesn’t like him. But Humphrey does. So does Mr Druce and Elaine and Merle. In fact, it’s probably true to say that no one is unaffected by him. But it can’t be leading to something good.Muriel Spark is in top form with this sprightly tour de force as she quick-cuts forward and backward in time and jumps from one character to the next. The pace will leave you breathless. But that might also be due to the laughing. Some of what Dougal does is ridiculous. Yet it’s all so Dougal, isn’t it?
So easy to recommend.
Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1960
Physical description
160 p.; 7.72 inches
ISBN
0141181435 / 9780141181431