{"id":31182,"date":"2026-05-25T21:29:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=31182"},"modified":"2026-05-25T21:29:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:29:41","slug":"muriel-spark-the-bachelors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2026\/05\/25\/muriel-spark-the-bachelors\/","title":{"rendered":"Muriel Spark: The Bachelors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><em><strong>The Bachelors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><br><span style=\"color: #808080;\">by Muriel Spark (1960)<\/span><br><span style=\"color: #808080;\">New Directions (1999)<\/span><br><span style=\"color: #808080;\">186 pp<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Muriel Spark\u2019s fifth novel felt like solid ground after the strangeness of <em>Memento Mori<\/em> and <em>The Ballad of Peckham Rye<\/em>, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well I managed to keep track of this relatively large cast and their various strange goings-on. That doesn\u2019t mean I feel like I entirely have a handle on it! I thoroughly enjoyed it nevertheless. I mean, how could one resist this opening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daylight was appearing over London, the great city of bachelors. Half-pint bottles of milk began to be stood on the doorsteps of houses containing single apartments from Hampstead Heath to Greenwich Park, and from Wanstead Flats to Putney Heath; but especially in Hampstead, especially in Kensington.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the center is a criminal case: Patrick Seton, a spiritual medium, is on trial for forgery and criminal conversion after receiving \u00a32000 from Freda Flower, who still admires him. The prosecutor Martin Bowles has retained Ronald Bridges for his expertise in identifying forged documents. Patrick\u2019s pregnant girlfriend, Alice Dawes, is eagerly awaiting his acquittal so they can finally marry and leave for their honeymoon (assuming Patrick\u2019s divorce goes through\u2014it won\u2019t, if he\u2019s even married). Some suspect Patrick may even be plotting to murder Alice, though no one seems entirely sure why. Alice\u2019s roommate, Elsie Forrest, has meanwhile become enthralled by a priest.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are still more characters, all carrying on their own peculiar schemes and entanglements. Again, I\u2019m proud I managed to keep it all straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, what exactly was I reading? A recurring theme seemed to be influence (spiritual, sexual, financial) and the betrayals that follow from it. You know, the usual day-to-day among London\u2019s bachelors and singles in the early 1960s. Intriguing, funny, and in vintage Sparkian fashion, wonderfully biting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The next book in my Muriel Spark reading project is her fifth: 1960&#8217;s <em>The Bachelors<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31183,"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":[1019,924],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-31182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-muriel-spark","tag-1019","tag-1960s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/The-Bachelors-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-86W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31182","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=31182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31184,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31182\/revisions\/31184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31182"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=31182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}