April 1959
Here is a novel about a miscellany of old - some formidably ancient - people, all more or less known to one another, whose lives are freakishly interrupted by a voice on the telephone reminding them that they must die. Despite all efforts of police and private detection this voice remains anonymous and also personal to each one of them who hears it - they can none of them agree upon its description. They foregather, unite, argue, observe one another with the ruthless attention of a bunch of old children, but this chief event of death effortlessly overtakes them, and of those who do not die in the course of the story, we are given an austere account at the end.
Further description will not give you the flavour of this book, which is very unusual - like some aromatic herb that you have never encountered and cannot easily define. It sounds macabre, sombre, possibly dull and probably depressing, but the first only is true: it is also entertaining, brilliant and merciless.
I have admiration and respect for Mrs. Spark’s capacities; she has an original mind, writes beautiful English, and has an ear for dialogue sharper than almost anyone I can think of excepting Henry Green - like the difference between remembering a tune and having perfect pitch: she has a sense of humour and she sees some things with an almost unbearable clarity; one feels that certain aspects of old age amuse or appal her, but that other aspects might have done rather more than that. If, in fact, she adds more heart to the rest of her enviable equipment, what a novel she will give us.