THAT PROMETHEAN SPARK
The Bottle Imp – Muriel Spark special issue
Muriel Spark was born #OTD, 1 Feb, 1918
“With a writing career that included biography, criticism, drama and short fiction as well as novels, Muriel Spark was never one to do things by halves…”
A 🎂 🧵
1/18
thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/th…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
That Promethean Spark - The Bottle Imp
In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their belief that God had planned for practically everybody before they were born a nasty surprise when they died.Gwen Enstam (The Bottle Imp)
Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Ridicule is the only honourable weapon we have left”
—Muriel Spark, from her 1970 speech “The Desegregation of Art”, given at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York – in THE INTERNATIONAL COMPANION TO THE SCOTTISH NOVEL, ed. Cairns Craig (2025)
2/18
asls.org.uk/publications/books…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #satire #ridicule
International Companion 10 - Association for Scottish Literature
Association for Scottish LiteratureAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Her books are a piercing reminder of how extreme politics can appeal to the sanest-seeming people – & that half-truths & malfeasance are as intrinsic to human nature as breathing”
—The Economist on the continuing relevance of Muriel Spark’s fiction
3/18
economist.com/books-and-arts/2…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #extremism
Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •The Crime of Miss Jean Brodie
“In a novel published thirty years after the 1930s, Spark… criticises the inefficiency of public education in its exposure of the tyrannical leaders’ hypocrisy.”
—Kaiyue He looks at what lessons we can learn from Muriel Spark
4/18
thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/07/te…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #tyranny
Teaching Tyranny: The Crime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Bottle Imp
Pip Osmond-Williams (The Bottle Imp)Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Spark had just passed on to me an unexpected gift: the gift of the future. I’m beginning to think her books are themselves a kind of fruitfulness.”
—Ali Smith on how Muriel Spark gives us the gift of the future
5/18
theguardian.com/books/2018/jan…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #AliSmith
‘Vital, witty, formidably blithe’: Ali Smith on Muriel Spark at 100
Ali Smith (The Guardian)Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Muriel Spark gave me a new model for a feminist hero […] It was about loitering—about the quiet subversiveness of simply existing in public as a woman.”
—Beth Jellicoe on Muriel Spark’s LOITERING WITH INTENT
6/18
electricliterature.com/sometim…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #feminism
Sometimes the Most Feminist Thing You Can Do Is Exist as a Woman in Public - Electric Literature
007595 (Electric Literature)Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“What hash Spark’s characters make of those eternal debates over unlikable characters or unlikable women. These women aren’t unlikable, these women are monstrous… Spark looks at her women like a wolf.”
—Parul Sehgal on Muriel Spark, for the New Yorker
7/18
newyorker.com/books/page-turne…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Spark’s African experiences clearly had a profound effect on her artistic vision. They made her a keen observer, taught her the value of silence, and gave her an insight into a world of casual cruelty”
—Prof Willy Maley on Muriel Spark & Africa
8/18
scottishbooktrust.com/writing-…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #Africa #colonialism
Muriel Spark and Africa
Scottish Book TrustExhaust_Fumes reshared this.
Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Spark thrived in institutions. This is because, like Miss Brodie, she was a conservative anarchist”
Frances Wilson on the similarities between Muriel Spark’s favourite teacher & her most famous protagonist – via @literaryhub
9/18
lithub.com/behind-the-fame-and…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
Behind the Fame (and Inspirations) of Muriel Spark
Literary HubAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •‘[Muriel Spark] observes … “Some of [Burns’s] most successful love songs present the girl’s point of view” … citing the bawdy verse “Wha’ll mow me now”, she comments drily: “If this is difficult to decipher, a little imagination will serve the purpose”’
10/18
scottishbooktrust.com/writing-…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #RobertBurns
Muriel Spark burns bright on Burns Night
Scottish Book TrustAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •The Edinburgh & Borders of Sir Walter Scott & Muriel Spark
Prof Gerry Carruthers in 2024, looking at how both Walter Scott & Muriel Spark engage with the ideas of the Borders & of Edinburgh – reflecting the wider complexity of Scotland, the world & the human condition
11/18
youtu.be/rZit4cibGds?si=5GccyW…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #WalterScott #Borders #Edinburgh
- YouTube
youtu.beAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •Scottish Scholars & Secrets: Developments of Dark Academia in Edinburgh
Natasha Anderson finds roots of Dark Academia running through Edinburgh’s gothic literary traditions, in works by Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, & Ian Rankin
12/18
youtube.com/watch?v=ahpagiSHK7…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #gothic #DarkAcademia #RobertLouisStevenson #IanRankin #Edinburgh
- YouTube
www.youtube.comAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to … Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves.
—The unnerving vision of Muriel Spark
13/18
theguardian.com/books/2025/jun…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
‘Odd things happened when she was around’: the unnerving vision of Muriel Spark
Frances Wilson (The Guardian)Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians.”
—extracts from A GOOD COMB, by Muriel Spark, ed. Penelope Jardine – via @literaryhub
14/18
lithub.com/a-few-words-of-indi…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #advice #Paris
A Few Words of Indispensable Advice from Muriel Spark
Literary HubAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •“knowing the challenges Spark overcame makes me doubly grateful for her”
Writing for the Royal Literary Fund, Lauren J. Joseph reflects on a quality many writers have to develop – the “sheer bloody-mindedness” Spark had in spades
15/18
rlf.org.uk/posts/the-relentles…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #writing
Assoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •AFTERWORDS: Muriel Spark
“One’s prime is elusive…”
—On BBC Sounds: writers Ian Rankin & Zoë Strachan discuss Muriel Spark’s life & work with National Library of Scotland curator Colin McIlroy, & Spark’s friend & memoirist, Alan Taylor
16/18
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018238
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
Afterwords: Muriel Spark
BBCAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •THE CROOKED DIVIDEND
Essays on Muriel Spark
ed. Gerard Carruthers & Helen Stoddart
Muriel Spark in British culture; the influence of Scottish literary traditions on her work; how she explores gender, religion, politics; & more
Also online via Project MUSE
@litstudies
17/18
asls.org.uk/publications/books…
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters
Occasional Papers series no. 24 - Association for Scottish Literature
Association for Scottish LiteratureAssoc for Scottish Literature
in reply to Assoc for Scottish Literature • • •I think that authors’ ghosts creep back
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves
And find the books they wrote.
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,
Sometimes whole paragraphs.
Whole pages are added, re-written, revised…
—Muriel Spark, “Authors’ Ghosts”
published in COMPLETE POEMS (Carcanet, 2015)
18/18
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #poem #poetry