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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Finishing School is concise but it has all the insinuating charm of her best work. Rowland Mahler and his wife Nina run a mixed-sex finishing school called College Sunrise. Rowland has aspirations as a novelist but he has an unconscious rival--a talented pupil, Chris--whose literary efforts effortlessly outpace Rowland's. Soon a poisonous atmosphere suffuses the school as Rowland falls prey to agonies of jealousy. Spark has always been good at the tensions and rivalries of the school environment, and her touch is as sure as ever in this highly diverting piece. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The most sharply original fictional imagination of our time . . . Starting her career as a poet, Spark in many ways remains one--not least in her deftness at finding images in unexpected places."
--"Sunday Times
"What a rich seam Spark has quarried here. Moreover, it is cunning how, to the extent her purpose requires, she exploits the reader's own jealousies or envies, in regard to these imagined students, so rich, so beautiful, so unanxious and so dreadfully young."
--"The Spectator
"[Spark's] faculties are in a state of crystalline sharpness, delineating a world of detail so fine . . . that there is no need to crack the surface to find what lies beneath. The inner workings are all there, visible and faintly absurd, as though fixed in a translucent sheet of fictional ice."
--"Sunday Telegraph
"A delightful book, laced with wry and witty observations, which makes a timely call for a return to a world where the quality of a novelist's prose counts for more than the colour of his hair or the freshness of his face."
--"Daily Mail
"Wittily recalls Spark's best-known work, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . . . Spark so brilliantly captures extreme states of mind--paranoia, hysteria, neurosis, psychosis--because she organizes her chaotic and centrifugal subject matter through tightly structured plots and luminously precise language."
--"Times Literary Supplement
"Another Spark classic . . . An exploration of teenage homosexuality, attempted murder, jealousy, adultery, all dealt with in the most polite and darkly comic way."
--"The Tattler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
'You begin,' he said, 'by setting your scene. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
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Customer Reviews
That is the gist of this slight novella of 156 pages. I can't quite believe in Rowland. Nina is more credible. The other teenagers are merely sketched in. I don't think much of the ending: it seems forced and rushed, as if Muriel Spark were herself in a hurry to end the book somehow. But she writes so easily and entertainingly that it's a pleasant enough read.
Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina run the College Sunrise. The school moves from country to country each year. It is easier that way when finances get tough. They have ten students, nine attend school. The setting this year is Lausanne. The students are well placed and receive a good enough education.
One of the students, Chris Wiley is a literary prodigy who has a novel in progress that has interested the publishers. Of note, Rowland is also a novelist whose intent is to write the novel of the century. At once, Rowland is jealous of his student, Chris. He derives every act he can think of to find the novel, but he fails. The entire school knows what he is after, but no one really cares. Most of the novel revolves around the writing of the novel and who will be the winner.
Into this mixture come sexual intrigue, men and women and men and men. What is it that makes men and women like this game of cat and mouse? Why are we so good at hiding our actual feelings and other people are so good at figuring out what they are?
Who are the hypocrites, and why are we so delusional?
Muriel Spark has written over twenty novels. I have read most of them. This is not her best novel and iat is quite short. Muriel Spark is considered a master of our time. She can capture our hysteria and paranoia in such subtle language. This is a book to be read and savored. Highly recommended. prisrob
But as the reader progresses along the plot, he realises that nothing in Mrs Spark's novel is as it seems. The characters are well drawn, the scenes are often very amusing because they are laced with acute and witty observations about authors, publishers, school life, marital relationships and more generally about present day preoccupations.
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