A Son of the Rock

Polygon, 2018, 93 p, plus iv p General Foreword to this reprinting of Spark’s works and xii p Introduction by Dan Gunn. First published in 1971.

The events of this novella all take place over one night in the villa by Lake Leman in Switzerland owned by Baron and Baroness Klopstock.

Well, I say events, but the most significant happens off-stage, in the room where the Baron, the Baroness and their visitor, Victor Passerat, are closeted, with strict instructions not to be disturbed.

The butler, Lister, and all the servants seem to know what that event will be and act as if it is by force majeure, that there is nothing they can do to prevent it. Lister indeed insists that they must follow the script, as if they are acting in a film. In the meantime they are recording (onto a reel-to-reel tape recorder) their stories of the night.

Dan Gunn in his introduction says that the normal fear of the author of such things is in including spoilers is vitiated in this case by Spark herself having Lister tell his below stairs audience what will happen. “‘Let us not split hairs’” he says, “‘between the past, present and future tenses.’” Gunn goes on to ruminate on the difference between literature in French and English in this regard. The former has more or less dropped the preterite (the passé simple) in favour of the present perfect tense, whereas in English that can quickly become stilted and unsustainable. It is, he says, merely a heightened example of Spark’s eschewing of plain foreshadowing in favour of outright prolepsis, (see my comments on possible prolepsis in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) the novel an example of meta-fiction before that term was coined.

Be that as it may, the result here, along with the distancing effect of the present tense narration, is to make the reader simply not care what happens. If there is no jeopardy, or the jeopardy cannot be combatted, why should we carry on reading? I would go so far as to say that adopting such an approach is a dereliction of duty on the part of the author.

This novel encapsulates my reservations about Spark’s writing, which I once described as reading through a layer of glass.  Make that opaque glass.

With the possible exception of the mad man in the attic the characters are fairly unconvincing and their manners of speech indistinguishable. No one in this book behaves in any rational way. It is simply unbelievable.

Spark does, though, does essay the punning observation “Klopstock and barrel.”

I had thought to read all of Spark’s fiction in time. The more I do the less I feel like doing so.

Pedant’s corner:- “routing among the vegetables” (rooting among,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, scyth (scythe.)