Reviews for Memento Mori

The average rating for Memento Mori based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-06-09 00:00:00 Michael Smith Remember that you must read! That is what I told myself while preparing a completely unnecessary book order earlier today (unnecessary because I have several lifetimes' worth of books at home already, and exquisite libraries around the corner as well, so I was really just giving in to an unreasonable addiction). I almost ordered Memento Mori by my favourite sparkling lady, until I heard a voice inside me calling gently: "Remember WHAT you have read!" As if a stranger had taken it upon himself to call me in the middle of my everyday business to tell my aging, unreliable brain what I shouldn't have forgotten, I repeatedly saw a scene from this novel popping up from nowhere in my mind. Thinking I hadn't read it, I thought that was very odd. I checked my most reliable source of book memory - Goodreads - and felt confirmed. Ha - I really haven't read Memento Mori yet, as it isn't shelved. But why do I feel that I know how it starts and ends then? I move on to check my less reliable source of book memory - the labyrinth of my physical library, spread out over literally all livable space in my home. And there, on a top shelf, I see a copy of the book. And disturbingly, it is even put in the right spot, next to the other Sparks I KNOW I have read, because I have reviewed them. Remember what you have written... It is not proof enough, though, because I buy books and forget them for decades until I find them by accident after buying another copy of the same book. But it is a reason to delete Memento Mori from my current shopping bag... My newfound copy is yellowish, oldish, probably from a thrift store, and I open it at a random page. Well, now I have some proof at least. It is full of my idiosyncratic book conversation with myself. Exclamation marks, underlined sentences, random notes that don't make sense to me now. I HAVE READ IT! And to double check, I open the first page and read the scene I thought I remembered before I knew I had read the book. And there it is, magically re-enacted. The phone rings and disturbs the peace of mind of an elderly lady. Who wants strangers to remind us of the fact that we get older, and that we are working full-time on fulfilling our lives, full-speed towards completion of our existence? Obviously, oblivion is the only mercy that nature or supernatural power has granted us? That is not what Muriel Spark thinks. She wants order in the world of humankind, especially in inevitable and important matters such as death. If no other order can be established, then at least she would like us to be aware of our lives - as far as that is possible. Charmian, for example, a charming old lady past her prime, doesn't have much left to choose from, but some kind of order there has to be: "Godfrey's wife Charmian sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical order which Godfrey had told her was better than no order at all, since she now had grasp of neither logic nor chronology." That makes me think I should move Spark away from Atwood, where she is shelved in my library at the moment, as that defies chronology, logic AND alphabet, thus being a bit too unruly for an organised mind like Godfrey's. I do hope I remember to do that tonight. In an attempt to organise my thoughts on this novel, which I have read and forgotten and re-remembered and which I am now reviewing for further proof of its existence in my mind, alphabetical or otherwise, I stumble upon the LAST page as well. That makes for a nice symmetry, I believe, and so Muriel Spark must have thought as well, for all the characters in the novel, who were to be reminded that they shall die, have now fulfilled their lives, and been given meaning and sense by properly dying. Of course we want to know HOW they died, so we get a list, but I am slightly disappointed that it is not alphabetical, neither by name nor by illness. Do I take it then that it is a chronological list of fulfilled life? That would be the most logical conclusion, so I will stick to that until proven wrong. Either way, Muriel Spark has a most elegant way of telling us she doesn't really like her characters, or humanity as such, very much. And her way of dealing with that dislike for humankind is to kill it off with charm and wit! Memento mori! And that you must read as much as you can in the meantime. Spark is a must!

Review # 2 was written on 2011-03-24 00:00:00 Charles Pinckney A circle of elderly people in 1950's London are regularly phoned by a stranger who says only 'Remember, you must die,' before hanging up. There is Charmian whose popular novels are undergoing a resurgence of public interest. There is her husband, Godfrey Colston, the brewery magnate, now retired, whose adulteries never seem to go farther than a fugitive glimpse of ladies' stockings and garter clips, and even this may overstimulate him. There is Percy Mannering, the slobbering old poet and grandfather of 23 year old Olive Mannering, one of Godfrey's "whores." There is Eric Colston, the son, a loser, who may be based on Spark's own son, Robin, who fought with his mother tooth and nail, publically excoriating her for being a bad mother. There is Alec Warner who keeps up a torrent of note-taking and record-keeping of the circle's activities to no apparent end. There is retired Inspector Mortimer with the bad heart who views the hoax calls as coming from Death himself. There is the avaricious old servant Mrs. Pettigrew who is blackmailing Godfrey with his old adulteries. Finally, there's the late, libidinous Lisa Brooke, whose fortune might go to any one of these individuals. This dark comedy is a wonder of economy and judicious patterning. It was published in 1959 and has aged remarkably well. One might say it's ageless, as all true classics are. It can be enormously funny. The writing is always impressive. Read it.