{"id":30799,"date":"2026-01-23T13:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30799"},"modified":"2026-05-01T12:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:50:34","slug":"muriel-spark-the-comforters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2026\/01\/23\/muriel-spark-the-comforters\/","title":{"rendered":"Muriel Spark: The Comforters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Comforters<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
by Muriel Spark (1957)<\/span>
New Directions (1994)<\/span>
204 pp<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years I\u2019ve had the goal of reading all of Muriel Spark\u2019s books, and though I\u2019ve read several, there are still many I haven\u2019t gotten to yet. So I was excited to see an Instagram user put together a schedule to read one Spark novel per month, chronologically, starting in January 2026. I figured I might as well join in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up: The Comforters<\/em>, Spark\u2019s debut novel, first published in 1957. I\u2019d never really heard anyone talk about this book before, so my expectations were modest. But this was so good! And it was also so unmistakably Muriel Spark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Comforters<\/em> begins by introducing us to Laurence Manders, a young man who, while staying for a time with his grandmother, starts to suspect that she is involved in a local smuggling operation. We also meet his girlfriend, Caroline Rose, a writer who has recently converted to Catholicism and is struggling with a strange disturbance. Caroline begins to hear the clicking of a typewriter followed by disembodied voices that narrate not her actions or thoughts but rather the lines of the very novel we are reading. She doesn\u2019t like it: \u201cI intend to stand aside and see if the novel has any real form apart from this artificial plot. I happen to be a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s just a sampling of the strange things going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caroline recognizes that everything happening is just a bit too weird (I mean, come on — whose grandma is part of a smuggling ring?), and so she begins to suspect that they are all characters in a book, and that she, somehow, is hearing the author at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In classic Spark fashion, she doesn\u2019t hold our hand as we watch a fascinating (and often very funny) exploration of faith and fate unfold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m more excited than ever about this project and can\u2019t wait to see what February\u2019s selection, Robinson<\/em>, has in store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m starting a project to read all of Muriel Spark’s novels in chronological order. First up is her debut: The Comforters<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[800,90],"tags":[923,922],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-muriel-spark","tag-1950s","tag-922"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Comforters-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-80L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31008,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799\/revisions\/31008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30799"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}