- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books; New edition edition (27 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 014100990X
- ISBN-13: 978-0141009902
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 388,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
At the end of the 20th century, an Englishman in his 60s walks into the Paris practice of famed Bavarian psychiatrist Dr Hildegard Wolf and announces that he is the missing Lord Lucan. But Hildegrad, key protagonist of Muriel Spark's new novel Aiding and Abetting, is already treating one Lord Lucan, and they both have dirt on her--for isn't she really Beate Pappenheim, the fraud who used her menstrual blood to fake her stigmata? Increasingly obsessed with the Lucans, and fearing for her safety, Hildegard flees to London where her path inevitably crosses that of two British Lucan-hunters...
The seventh earl of Lucan disappeared on 7 November 1974, leaving behind him the battered body of his children's nanny Sandra Rivett and a beaten wife. Lucan´s sensational story and the possibilities of his whereabouts over the past quarter century provide Spark with several issues with which wittily to play: identity, blood ("it is not purifying, it is sticky"), class (working class nannies bleed more than the aristocracy), the dynamics of psychiatry ("most of the money wasted on psychoanalysis goes on time spent unravelling the lies of the patient"). But it remains a strange, slight affair--its unspoken tenet being that the Lucan case still preys on the communal mind of the British public, its details (like his penchant for smoked salmon and lamp chops) indelibly printed there. For anyone under 30 that's a difficult argument to swallow, and for good reason. As one wise character puts it "Few people today would take Lucan and his pretensions seriously, as they rather tended to do in the 70s". Times have changed--and perhaps that's Spark's point, that the "psychological paralysis" that allowed Lucan to escape is now long gone. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Unmistakable Spark, to be relished and enjoyed, like a late vintage claret or a high-grade murder' The Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The absurdities of the upper classes often amuse readers, and this one is excellent in that regard. Being the 7th Earl of Lucan doesn't mean that you have any sense, have any purpose in your life, or do any good. Regardless of all that, people will rally around to help him . . . because of the old school tie and all that.
Ms. Spark seems to have imagined her ending, and then simply developed a plot that could connect that back to the real-life murder and attempted murder that form the basis of the book.
Ms. Spark seems to have imagined her ending, and then simply developed a plot that could connect that back to the real-life murder and attempted murder that form the basis of the book.
The second story line is about a fake stigmatic from Bavaria who disappeared after stealing donated funds. Being at least a little imaginative, Beate Pappenheim will appeal to more readers than Lord Lucan will. However, she wasn't really necessary for the joke, but does give Ms. Spark the ability to stretch a short story into a novella.
To stir up a little interest, the book has a small mystery to solve. Who is Lord Lucan? In pursuing this idea of identity, the book takes off on modern psychiatry . . . basically pointing out that there's not much there. Ms. Pappenheim pretends to be a psychiatrist, ignores all the rules, and still creates a series of very devoted patients who depend on her.
Ms. Spark also explores imagery in many significant ways to develop her story. Blood is the key image. Blood ties the upper classes together. Blood is part of a woman's monthly cycle. A messy murder causes blood to be spilled. Being able to use blood in new ways creates opportunity for Ms. Pappenheim. Being able to describe what it's like to kill in cold blood is a way to identify Lord Lucan. And so on. Ms. Sharp shows her writing brilliance in these ways.
Ultimately, I was sorry that she didn't pick a more worthy subject for her humor. Lord Lucan seems like such a useless person that it seems like a waste of one's time to even have to think about him. That could have been overcome by spending more time satirizing those who helped him, but, alas, she did not do that.
If you do decide to read the book, think about who would stick by you no matter what you had done. Why would they? How can you develop more close ties who would do the same, not because they will need to do so, but because you will benefit from that kind of close relationship?
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a real treat to read, with a wonderfully appropriate grande finale which depends on surprise! A unique and suspenseful twist on the traditional murder mystery, this novel features wacky, off-the-wall characters--including two men who claim to be the murderer Lord Lucan, a variety of aristocratic "aiders and abettors" who have protected and financially supported him for twenty-five years, a psychiatrist who was once a phony stigmatic but who is now treating both "Lucans," and several former acquaintances who now want Lucan caught, only because "...times have changed...Lucky Lucan failed to show up [for questioning], which was really lowering our standards....he was a very great bore."
Satiric and mordantly critical of aristocratic pretension, this is vintage Spark. Her plot is very tight, with no loose ends and no digressions, and her selection of details is exquisitely careful and controlled. Her themes and motifs, especially those of blood as it relates to both crime and breeding, are so intricately connected to all the characters and the plot, that it is difficult to discuss them without giving away the clever plot twists. And Spark does all this in less than two hundred pages! It's impossible not to read this at a gallop to find out what happens--while smiling the whole time at Spark's wry wit. Mary Whipple
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Muriel Spark here writes a version of what happened to Lord Lucan, after he murdered the family's young nanny, tried to murder his wife and fled with the assistance of several rich, dissolute, English acquaintances. Some of these were real friends of course, as it seems, in life as well as the course of this novel, they continued to support him while he was hiding out in various places around the world.
Dr Hildegarde Wolfe, a psychologist living and working in Paris, receives visits from two men claiming to be Lord Lucan. Which is the real one? Are they working together? What is it they know about Dr Wolfe that makes them confident she will not expose them?
This is far too relaxed and self-absorbed to be a mystery in the genré sense of the word and suspense is quite absent, since that is not what Muriel Spark is interested in. The book is a short diverting romp through the conundrum of what really happened to Lord Lucan. There is a certain arid quality since no attempt is made to make any of the characters resonant or to flesh out the actual Lucan mystery itself. Little imagination is expended on what Lucan might really have been up to all these years. The characters are draughts-pieces in Spark's game, which doesn't really make itself felt in the human sense. Intellectually, it is also a bit pointless, and ultimately one doesn't really give a damn.
Dr Hildegarde Wolfe, a psychologist living and working in Paris, receives visits from two men claiming to be Lord Lucan. Which is the real one? Are they working together? What is it they know about Dr Wolfe that makes them confident she will not expose them?
This is far too relaxed and self-absorbed to be a mystery in the genré sense of the word and suspense is quite absent, since that is not what Muriel Spark is interested in. The book is a short diverting romp through the conundrum of what really happened to Lord Lucan. There is a certain arid quality since no attempt is made to make any of the characters resonant or to flesh out the actual Lucan mystery itself. Little imagination is expended on what Lucan might really have been up to all these years. The characters are draughts-pieces in Spark's game, which doesn't really make itself felt in the human sense. Intellectually, it is also a bit pointless, and ultimately one doesn't really give a damn.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not of this world, I'm afraid.
Aiding and Abetting
This book was a great disappointment, I thought - a short story padded out to roughly the length of half a novel. Read more
This book was a great disappointment, I thought - a short story padded out to roughly the length of half a novel. Read more
Published on 14 Oct 2008 by John_the_Commonweal
Satire, Irony, and Farce
The absurdities of the upper classes always amuse, and this one is excellent in that regard. Being the 7th Earl of Lucan doesn't mean that you have any sense, have any purpose in... Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2001 by Donald Mitchell
Enigmatic novella
Twenty-five years after the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett, two Lord Lucans consult Parisian psychiatrist Dr. Hildegard Wolf. Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2001
Another excellent novel from one of the finestwriters around
Muriel Spark is one of the most entertaining, imaginative, and endlessly daring writers around. Her use of language is astounding and the way she plays with and subverts your... Read more
Published on 2 Dec 2000 by Leo McMarley
Perfectly wrought work of art
What a fantastic book! I have just finished it and am about to start again. Characters, settings, plot are delineated with an incredible concentration: nothing is superfluous and... Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2000
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