{"id":30858,"date":"2026-03-31T12:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30858"},"modified":"2026-03-31T12:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:54:40","slug":"muriel-spark-memento-mori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2026\/03\/31\/muriel-spark-memento-mori\/","title":{"rendered":"Muriel Spark: Memento Mori<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

Memento Mori<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nby Muriel Spark (1959)<\/span>
\nNew Directions (2000)<\/span>
\n228 pp<\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\n

\"\"“Can you not ignore it, Dame Lettie?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“No, I cannot. I have tried, but it troubles me deeply. It is a troublesome remark.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Perhaps you might obey it,” said Miss Taylor.<\/span><\/p>\n

“What’s that you say?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“You might, perhaps, try to remember you must die.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

T<\/span>he opening pages of Memento Mori<\/em> are funny and mysterious. It\u2019s there that we learn that the elderly Dame Lettie Colston (and soon there will be others) has received a phone call in which a civil voice says simply: \u201cRemember you must die.\u201d It\u2019s a wonderful setup, particularly because Muriel Spark is, at the same time, introducing us to her characters, and she is always so good at doing that. We meet Dame Lettie\u2019s self-centered brother Godfrey and Godfrey\u2019s wife, Charmian, a once-successful novelist.<\/p>\n

Before long, though, the cast expands. Perspectives shift, social lives reveal a tangled web, and what first appeared to be a central mystery begins, strangely, to recede. The calls continue, but the characters are just as concerned with old affairs, petty grievances, and questions of inheritance. Memento Mori<\/i> is delightful and not at all difficult at the level of sentence or scene, yet, for me, it was challenging to take in as a novel.<\/p>\n

But what a fine novel it is. The scattered cast, the social chatter, the sense that the central device is somehow beside the point, all of this is just what makes the book work.<\/p>\n

Reading Memento Mori<\/i> so soon after The Comforters<\/i>, I am intrigued by the recurrence of disembodied voices. In the earlier novel, the voices are overt, almost playful, calling attention to the act of authorship itself. Here, they arrive more quietly in the form of almost banal anonymous phone calls. It begins to feel as though Muriel Spark is positioning herself as a kind of authorial god, introducing a single, undeniable truth into her characters\u2019 lives through strange means and then watching what happens. Faced with the reminder that they must die, the characters might be given an opportunity for some good old Flannery O\u2019Connor style grace as self-awarenesss. Or maybe not.<\/p>\n

Next up for #22MonthswithMuriel, The Ballad of Peckham Rye<\/em>!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next up for my chronological read through of Muriel Spark’s novels is her third, 1959’s Memento Mori<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30860,"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":[923,938],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-muriel-spark","tag-1950s","tag-938"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Memento-Mori-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=701%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-81I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858","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=30858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30861,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858\/revisions\/30861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30858"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}