Apparently London in the early 1960s was quite different than Manhattan in the twenty-teens, lousy with unattached men as it was. These bachelors are not particularly appealing, though, as they appear here to be even more prone to navel-gazing than the rest of us. Even the charms of a character named Matthew, an Irish newspaper correspondent with irresistibly touchable curly black hair, wore thin pretty soon with his nattering.The most appealing bachelor suffers from epilepsy, like the Prince in The Idiot and, I expect from the novel's own gloss, many other figures, literary and real, who are purported to be endowed with certain spiritual insights. What irks about him as a character is not so much that this has the feel of a trope -- Spark implicitly acknowledges as much. It's more that his woes are imbued with a kind of cuteness that permeates the book. The epileptic's name is Ronald, and his fits alienate him from the world even as they provide him with an excuse for retreating from it. His encounter, through work as an expert witness, with a world of spiritualists and frauds introduces him to Alice, a pregnant beauty, and her less pretty but still appealing friend Elsie, and a host of other characters. Many of these characters are sketched with a quick and delightful precision, and the criminal trial that drives the plot and serves as its climax is as suspenseful as a trial in a comic novel could be. This book is fun to read, but it does seem a bit precious. Evelyn Waugh writes about Anglo-Catholics with as much humor and a lot more bang for the buck; this book fits within the genre and is to be preferred only insofar as it treats its own aims with greater modesty.
The Bachelors couldn't have been written by anyone but Muriel Spark. However, it was not as great as other novels of hers I have read. The central characters are all confirmed bachelors and are loosely friends. I could not imagine being married to any one of them without a shudder, which I suppose is the point.These men are brought together by a legal case, though only one is a lawyer. Patrick Seton, a spiritualist medium but really a con man, is on trial for "fraudulent conversion." (Yes, I had to look that up. It is a civil crime of defrauding a family member or personal acquaintance.)As is often the case with a novel by Spark, there is not one redeeming character, including the females. I am not bothered by that and these characters are as well drawn as always. It is a braided tale and not particularly compelling, so I wasn't always wanting to remember who was who and who did what.The best chapters come at the end when the stakes get higher and the trial is held. Sometimes novels are dated yet carry little historical import. This was one of those for me.
Do You like book The Bachelors (1999)?
The Bachelors è stata una lettura deprimente perchè nessuno dei personaggi si comporta bene e non ci sono nobili sentimenti. D'altra parte non ci sono neppure genii del male, ma solo piccole persone grette e meschine. Più di tutto ho trovato la trama confusa e i dialoghi fastidiosi. Non sono stata nemmeno capace di capire il finale, devo ammettere. Speravo in qualcosa di diverso. E' divertente come, nonostante sia sempre difficile per me il rapporto con Muriel Spark, io continui comunque a cercare e leggere i suoi libri. http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.com/...
—Roberta
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Is there a collective noun for a group of bachelors? This is a novel of deception, in which the rather humdrum lives of a bunch of bachelors become entangled around the unsavoury character of Patrick Seton the medium. None of the main characters whether women or men are sympathetically portrayed and the subject matter allows Spark her most acerbic wit and black humour. Again the theme of Catholicism is predominant and set against the claims of spiritualism. I have given three stars because I enjoyed it less than some of her other novels. An interesting and involving read nonetheless
—Lynda
Muriel Spark is a genius. She is impeccable at keeping dialogue flowing throughout her novel and she doesn't spend a lot of time in THE BACHELORS giving a lot of description. Spark allows the characters to be defined and judged by their words as opposed to a lot of explanation about their interior worlds.The story is relatively simple. A spirtualist medium named Patrick Seton is about to be put on trial for defrauding one of his followers of her life-savings. Amidst this emerging scandal are a series of bachelors who are linked in some way with the spirtualist. Each bachelor comes along with their own set of baggage and their own bias towards women. As the story plays out, one is able to see the weaknesses of each player. An element of intensity is added as the reader is introduced to the deceptive relationship Seton has with his girlfriend who is planning to go on vacation with him after the trial. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and am looking forward to finding even more Muriel Spark to devour. She's fabulous!
—Erin
