- Mass Market Paperback: 116 pages
- Publisher: Perigee; Reprint edition (February 1984)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0399509526
- ISBN-13: 978-0399509520
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.5 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Published in 1974 and inspired by Watergate, Muriel Spark's Abbess of Crewe is much more amusing and infinitely drier. It transpires that Alexandra, the title character, has bugged and videotaped the Abbey--except for the confessionals and chapel--with electronic "devices fearfully and wonderfully beyond the reach of a humane vocabulary." After her only rival decamps for London and the arms of a Jesuit, police and newspapers swoop in. All the while, the Abbess (an adherent of Machiavelli, The Art of War, and the Modernist poets) keeps her cool, sacrificing her confederates as necessary and trying to assure herself of helicopter-hopping Gertrude's loyalty. (Gertrude is off curing cannibals of their customs and calls in occasionally from places whose unpronounceable names will soon be replaced by other equally unpronounceable names.) Spark's nuns on the run are more than stand-ins for the sweaty American President and his operatives; the satire extends to Anglo-snobbism and -Catholicism. The Abbess explains to the Pope that "electronic surveillance (even if a convent were one day to practise it) does not differ from any other type of watchfulness, the which is a necessity of a Religious Community; we are told in the Scriptures 'to watch and to pray,' which is itself a paradox."
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Library Journal
"An odd book, not at all what it seems at first near certainly to be?and a wickedly stimulating one," said LJ's reviewer (LJ 11/1/74) of what many believed to be a parody of the Watergate scandal, with the White House replaced by an abbey and Nixon by the title character.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
'WHAT is wrong, Sister Winifrede,' says the Abbess, clear and loud to the receptive air, 'with the traditional keyhole method?' Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
'WHAT is wrong, Sister Winifrede,' says the Abbess, clear and loud to the receptive air, 'with the traditional keyhole method?' Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
a fable to keep you laughing,
By
This review is from: The Abbess of Crewe (Paperback)
If this book were written in a serious tone, I fear it could be taken as very offensive slander. Instead, it is a brilliant send-up of Watergate and similar abuses of power. It centers on the election of a new abbess. Candidate 1 recites her favorite (Protestant) English poetry rather than the Psalms, supports a strong sense of societial class, and uses electronic eavesdropping as a mere extention of listening to convent gossip as a way to maintain proper order. Candidate 2 is compulsive regarding order in her sewing box, maintains an all-too-public liaison with a young Jesuit (outdoors rather than linen closets), and leads the sewing nuns to dreams of freedom. Add to this a missionary nun using Machivelli to deal with cannibal and vegetarian tribes, young Jesuits bungling break-ins, a nun cross-dressing to deliver hush money ... and you have an absolutely hilarious study in justification of means to insure one's "destiny".
4.0 out of 5 stars
Witty and relevant,
By
This review is from: The Abbess of Crewe (Paperback)
I was about nine years old when the Watergate scandal broke, and I must confess that I don't know much about it beyond our national mythology of bugging, break-ins, erased tapes and G. Gordon Liddy. Is this satire fair to Nixon and his gang? I don't know, but I suspect that it is. At any rate, it remains a witty parable of hypocrisy in high places and, given the rate at which our technology is improving, its comments on surveillance are bound to keep this book topical for quite some time to come.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nixon Improved,
By
This review is from: The Abbess of Crewe (Paperback)
Muriel Spark's "Watergate novel" transmutes the interesting but often squalid Washington scandal into something better--the Abbess is more sure-footed and considerably more charming than Nixon, imperious and impervious where Nixon was paranoid. As usual, Spark takes the material of life and, well, to put it bluntly, she improves upon it. Of course, this is the task of the true artist, but Spark doesn't soften the blow of discovering just how disordered and unsavory real-life often is--as when she is dispatching her characters to their various fates, she is sharp, sympathetic, and economical. The perfect necessity of every word is the key, I think to Spark's novels.Literary blathering aside, this is also one of Muriel Spark's funniest books, which makes it doubly wonderful.
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