{"id":30812,"date":"2026-02-11T23:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30812"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:24:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:24:32","slug":"muriel-spark-robinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2026\/02\/11\/muriel-spark-robinson\/","title":{"rendered":"Muriel Spark: Robinson<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

Robinson<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nby Muriel Spark (1958)<\/span>
\nNew Directions (2003)<\/span>
\n176 pp<\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/em> is my tenth novel by Muriel Spark, and one thing I can say with confidence: you never quite know what you\u2019re going to get. Maybe that\u2019s not entirely true. You can expect something off-kilter and slightly astringent, with a dash of Catholicism. But the shape that takes is always a surprise.<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/i> begins with January Marlow (not Jan, as she reminds us) looking back on the time she was stranded on a remote island as one of only three survivors of a plane wreck. The island is called Robinson, after its isolated and enigmatic owner, who purchased it years before and now lives there with his adopted son.<\/p>\n

From the start, Robinson encourages January to keep a journal, recording only the facts. That instruction feels simple enough, but what does that mean? Why only the facts? What is a fact?<\/p>\n

Where this short, strange book goes from there is much of the pleasure, so I won\u2019t spoil it. As often happens when I read Spark, I finished both satisfied and pleasantly confused. There is something here about power, faith, group psychology, and performance that I suspect will reward rereading.<\/p>\n

But beyond that, I had a great time with this one. After all, out of nowhere, we get something like this:<\/p>\n

\n

To teach a cat to play ping-pong you have first to win the confidence and approval of the cat. Bluebell was the second cat I had undertaken to teach; I found her more amenable than the first, which had been a male.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Only Spark!<\/p>\n

Two months and two books in, and I am so glad to be reading Muriel Spark in publication order! Next month we read 1959\u2019s Memento Mori<\/em>, one I\u2019ve yet to read!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I continue my chronological trek through Muriel Spark’s work with her second, 1958’s Robinson<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30813,"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":[923,1287],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-muriel-spark","tag-1950s","tag-1287"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Robinson-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-80Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30812","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=30812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30815,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30812\/revisions\/30815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30812"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}