Spark, Muriel. THE MANDELBAUM GATE. (1965). ***. This is what we used to call a “novel of sensibilities.” Although religion plays a big role in it, it is not a religious novel; nor is it a political novel or a spy novel – although both potentially get worked into it. It is set in Israel in 1961. Our heroine, Barbara Vaughn, is on a pilgrimage of all the biblical sites both in Israel and Jordan. The Mandelbaum Gate was once a check-point that separated Jordanian Jerusalem from Israeli Jerusalem. To pass from Israel into Jordan was usually no problem for Christians – although they had to show proof that they were baptized. For Jews, however, it was impossible. Barbara is half Jewish (by birth, from her mother’s side) and half Christian (from her father’s side). She is what was then called a spinster, although only in her late thirties and, with her intended husband, an archaelogist who is working on digs in Qumram (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), sexually active. The two of them plan to marry – that is if her intended, who is already divorced, can get his former marriage annulled by the Church. Barbara, a recent convert to Catholicism, is adamant about this. The Church does have rules, you know. While in Israel, she needs to travel to site of the digs in Jordan to visit her fiance, and, as a consequence, has to pass through Mandelbaum Gate. She has all the right papers, but she is still nervous, and enlists the help of Freddy Hamilton, a likeable member of the British Embassy. Freddy is actually one of the most interesting characters in the book. You’re never quite certain where he’s coming from. He’s a quiet guy who sends hostesses of parties he’s attended thank you poems written specially for them. His favorite expression, used for most occassions, is, “It’s quite absurd!” Mix these characters together, along with the occassional street Arab and British transplant, and set the whole story against the background of the Eichmann trial, and you end up with this book. It is certainly not one of Ms. Spark’s best, but I think it is still important enough to read – though it doesn’t have to be on the top of your list.
i found this book totally exhilarating. since i haven't read anything else by muriel spark, i have no idea how it compares to her other work, but, come on, hard to beat a picaresque romp in and around israel and palestine taking place a few years after the end of the british mandate with the eichmann trial (not exactly comic matter) as background! the story involves muslim arabs, christian arabs, a jew who recently converted to catholicism, english and israeli jews, and of course good old unreligious but VERY DECENT britons. this decency is part of what's at issue, along with: occupation, colonization, and the birth of israel; sex and love; femininity and masculinity at the onset of post-modernity; and being a cool catholic in a complicated world. spark delivers the crisp, well-wrought, wry, not-quite-explicit prose that we expect from a mid-twentieth century English Writer, and her composition, cutting quickly back and forth in time, is perfect.the inter-cultural stuff is the most fun -- especially the way various groups have the other ones "made" only until it happens that they get totally outsmarted (did i mention this is a spy thriller? it's a spy thriller). here's a sample of the shrewdness required when people of various different cultures are forced to share narrow spaces: "By the time [the servant] returned, Joe had gone a long way to measuring Miss Rickward's substance, and with the experience he had long acquired of the English-woman on her travels, calculated that her cheap, shapeless, pink-and-red cotton dress, broad brown sandals, large old dark-brown leather shoulder bag, unvarnished finger-nails, eyes the colour, near-grey, of western spiritual compromise, and her yellowish, much-filled teeth, added up to a woman of some authority and wealth." and, of course, people are constantly hiding, with lots of unlikely and thrilling masquerading, too.
Do You like book The Mandelbaum Gate (2001)?
Superb story! It reminded me of its Middle Eastern setting the way it wound around narrow corners, popping out in unexpected surprising places, sometimes with profound insight and other times with laugh-out-loud humor.I'm so tempted to share some of my favorite parts to prove my point, but will refrain so as to leave the mystery and wonder to Ms. Spark's clever masterpiece. What I will say is, she seems to give the end away in the beginning ... more than once in fact, but don't be fooled. Stay with the story, follow the rabbit trail and see where it leads. It won't spoil anything to tell you that some of the funniest parts of The Mandelbaum Gate are near the end; in particular I loved the disguises used to cross between Jordan and Israel. The characters, from multi-nationalities, were also vividly and realistically portrayed. The entire time I was reading this book, I could visualize an incredible movie, but only if they didn't mess with the basic elements of the story!I don't include many novels on my 'worth reading over and over' shelf. That in itself says more than almost anything else I could write.Thank you Kathleen for this incredible GOOD read!
—booklady
This is the first of Muriel Spark's books I've read and I thoroughly enjoyed its mix of exotic thriller and gentle English satire, a cross somehow between a less fierce Graham Greene and a milder Evelyn Waugh.All the characters are improbable, most behave wildly at least once, the action flits all over the place and occasionally spins into outright farce. I found my self laughing out loud which made a welcome relief from the emotional timbre of the books I've read recently about beaten women, sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the Japanese treatment of prisoners of war in WWII.
—Lyn Elliott
Muriel Spark was at the top of her game in the 1960's.Her most famous work is "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." This novel is set in Jerusalem in the 1950's, after the war of Israeli independence but before the 1967 June war. The author has a keen grasp of British diplomatic life in the Middle East in the aftermath of the British occupation. The plot revolves around an English woman, half-Jewish,who converts to Catholicism then visits Jordanian territory because she has fallen in love with an archeologist who has been working on the Dead Sea Scrolls excavations. On the trip, she seems to disappear.Critics claim this novel os one of "sensibility." The atmosphere is quietly suspenseful and filled with intrigue and cultural misunderstanding because the characters seem only partially aware of the depths of their own motivations while they are in a state of culture shock. I was reminded of the classic "A Passage to India."
—Lianne
