The cunning Miss Spark …

… “And She Went On Her Way Rejoicing” - The Rumpus.net. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Spark’s relationship to Newman is key to understanding her literary motives. Because only aftershe converted did Spark start writing novels. Catholicism was the framework within which Spark could assess the anomalies of character and action, and the misguided ways in which people seek to shape their lives. Spark published her first book, The Comforters, in 1957, when she was 39 years old—four years after her conversion. She is not a psychological novelist. She is not interested in character development. Instead, she choreographs her tales around insular, hermetic communities: a nursing home, a wartime hostel for women, a convent, an expat enclave in Africa, a schmaltzy publishing house. In these little environments she can lay bare her characters’ generally atrocious conduct. But however ruthless she appears on the surface, Spark was deeply tuned into human suffering.