William2's Reviews > A Far Cry from Kensington

3.5 stars
Here's what New York Times' reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote about this author:

Here is the recipe for a typical Muriel Spark novel: take a self-enclosed community (of writers, schoolgirls, nuns, rich people, etc.) that is full of incestuous liaisons and fraternal intrigue; toss in a bombshell (like murder, suicide or betrayal) that will richochet dangerously around this little world, and add some allusions to the supernatural to ground these melodramatics in an old-fashioned context of good and evil. Serve up with crisp, authoritative prose and present with a light and heartless hand.

I don't know, but while accurate on the whole there seems something contradictory about this summation. I think it's the clash between "melodramatics" and "crisp, authoritative prose." The heartlessness is still here in this late novel (1988) but what once seemed outrageous no longer does. Therefore I'm less enthusiastic for A Far Cry from Kensington that I was for earlier Spark novels, especially Memento Mori and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie—both 5-star masterpieces. Recommended with reservations.