Loitering with Intent

Although written thirty years later, this novel harks back to the period of Spark's life in the late 40s and early 50s when she was living the impoverished literary life in London's bedsit land, which also formed the background to A far cry from Kensington and The girls of slender means. The narrator, Fleur Talbot, is a young writer who takes on a secretarial job to support herself while finishing her first novel, Warrender Chase. Her employer, Sir Quentin, runs a club for memoir-writers which Fleur cheerfully assumes must be a cover for a blackmail racket. Her job is to type up the members' work-in-progress whilst silently correcting the most egregious errors of spelling and grammar, but she amuses herself by "improving" them in other ways as well, adding comic detail which the members are always happy to take on board as their own work. But then she starts to notice that bits of the as-yet-unpublished Warrender Chase are turning up in the present-day lives of the memoirists - life seems to be plagiarising art in the most disconcerting way...Loitering with intent is quite a popular title for humorous memoirs, and it's obviously no accident that Spark picked it as the title for a novel that explores the complicated relationship between experience, fiction and memory. This is one of the most believable accounts of the process of writing a novel that I've seen in fiction, but it's also a very funny comic story in itself, with a glorious eccentric old lady, a complex missing-manuscript plot, and a lot of clever jokes at the expense of literary pretensions, incompetent amateur writers, shady publishers, sex, and plenty of little digs at the author's younger self.

I don't know if there's a writer out there that can pack more into two hundred-odd pages than Muriel Spark. Like the other novels of hers that I've read, "Loitering with Intent" doesn't deal with explosively exciting material, but her writing is marvelously precise, and she braids subplots and themes together with more ease than some women braid their own hair. She'd probably be on the short list for the ultimate writer's writer. Anyway, "Loitering with Intent" concerns the intrigue surrounding the composition of a first novel and its author's involvement with a cult-like group of putative autobiographers. It is at once a lovely description of what I'm more-or-less legally obligated to refer to as the "grey period" that occupied the years between between the end of the Second World War and the swinging London of the nineteen sixties, a portrait of a determined young author who may or may not bear a resemblance to Muriel Spark herself, an examination of the folly of human egotism, an amusing parade of enjoyably bizarre, decaying remnants of Britain's former glory -- brief interviews with horrible Britons, if you will -- and, perhaps most important, an author's love-letter to the process of writing. In my review of Ian McEwan's "Amsterdam," which I didn't much enjoy, I noted that one of the book's strong points was that it gave a lovely account of the creative process, to wit, the composing of a symphony. "Loitering with Intent" contains another one. The positively nurturing tone that the book takes when the Miss Talbot describes the development of her novel -- titled Warrender Chase -- makes the romantic entanglements that come and go throughout the book seem unimportant by comparison. I don't suppose it would have been an easy choice for a young woman to give up on family life in order to write in the late 1940s, but the fictional author's obvious passion for the craft of writing makes it seem almost an obvious choice. Her heart belongs to the written word, and it wouldn't be overstating the case to say that this novel's a sort of love letter to writing itself. "Loitering with Intent" is, along with many other things, a sincere testament to the enormous personal fortitude and committed friendships it takes to get any book published. Not that it wastes its time with reflexive, post-modernist gamesmanship, even though, at various points, the line between "fiction" and "reality" is effectively erased as elements of "Warrender Chase" seem to bleed into the rest of the novel. Somewhere around its middle point, "Loitering with Intent" seamlessly transforms into a not-bad semi-thriller, as manuscripts are repeatedly lost, stolen, destroyed and recovered and the publishing industry's dirtiest tricks are brought to light. Give Spark credit for finding an amusing way of dealing with themes that lesser writers might have made dry and tedious. What's amazing about "Loitering with Intent," and about Spark in general, is how well all of these elements seem to cohere, and how easily the resulting product reads. Recommended to aspiring writers, as well as to everyone else, really.

Published when Spark was 64, the story draws on the author's experience as a young woman in post-war London. It is written in the first person and styled as a memoir, giving an element of authenticity in mirroring Spark's own youth as an aspiring writer. The characters are a diverse group of oddballs presented with Spark's typical acerbic humour in a neat plot. Very entertaining.

A nice story with some nice characters but that does not ever really rise above the, well, nice.

Author Fleur Talbot looks back on her life during the time she was writing her first novel in 1949-1950. Money was tight then, and Fleur could barely afford the rent for her single room. Through a friend, Fleur got a job as secretary for the Autobiographical Association headed by Sir Quentin Oliver. At first she puzzled over the odd assortment of individuals that formed the group. Their lives hardly seemed worthy of the type of effort encouraged by Sir Oliver. When the group began to act out scenes from Fleur's novel, Warrender Chase, Fleur started to question Sir Oliver's character and motives.Underneath the wicked humor, this is a novel about writing and writers, particularly autobiography and autobiographical fiction, biographers and novelists. How much falsehood is present in an autobiography, and how much truth is there in autobiographical fiction? Which one is preferable? Spark's novel is a quick and entertaining read that raises philosophical questions for readers to ponder long after turning its last page.I was sure that nothing had happened in their lives and equally sure that Sir Quentin was pumping something artificial into their real lives instead of on paper. Presented fictionally, one could have done something authentic with that poor material. But the inducing them to express themselves in life resulted in falsity.What is truth? I could have realized these people with my fun and games with their life-stories, while Sir Quentin was destroying them with his needling after frankness...

The novel opens on a summer day in 1949, when Fleur Talbot, an aspiring writer at work on a novel called Warrender Chase, get a job as typist for an “Autobiographical Association” that promises to save the memoirs of its illustrious members for a period of 70 years. As she gains material for her novel (and subsequent novels), Fleur begins to suspect that Sir Quentin, its head, is blackmailing its members. What ensues is a bizarre, funny take on the idea that “truth is stranger than fiction.” The phrase “to loiter with intent” is used in a humorous sense to describe anyone who is waiting around for an unspecified purpose. The whole tone of the novel is like this, in some ways; you get the sense that our narrator and the other characters are hanging around, waiting for something to happen.Muriel Spark’s novels won’t appeal to everyone. She was famously detached from (and sometimes brutal to) other people in her personal life, and she has the same attitude towards the characters in her novels, even this one, where the book is written in the first person. But I think she also has to be—Spark’s focus is on human existence and interaction as a whole, so she doesn’t get too deeply invested in her characters. As a result, there are some really great quotes in the book, such as “Contradictions in human character are one of its most consistent notes.” It’s that detachment from her characters that allows Spark to paint a full picture of them. Spark’s novels are characterized by observations of deceit and the use and abuse of power. As with novels like Aiding and Abetting, Spark proves that these kinds of things sometimes happen in some of the most bizarre circumstances.Loitering With Intent is somewhat autobiographical; set around the time that Spark began to write, it captures very well a first-time author’s attempts to get published—a secondary theme to the novel in how it explores the edge of London literary life in the late 1940s/early1950s.

This is the best Muriel Spark I've read. As in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Spark takes on a charismatic leader; but this time, even though she repeatedly calls Sir Quentin evil, the book is humorous with a caustic wit and a realistic view of religion and sexual morality that shows the opposite of evil not to be piety but to be reason. Recommended to everyone with an open mind.

Fleur Talbot is a “modern” young woman, living and working in London in the middle of the twentieth century. An aspiring novelist, she lands a secretarial position with the “Autobiographical Society,” an organization that helps clients write their biographies as life unfolds. The society promises to store these works for seventy years, publishing only after everyone in the book has died.If that sounds a bit strange, hang on, because the story gets more bizarre with every page. The society’s clients are a band of misfits and unknowns, and it’s hard to imagine anyone would be interested in their life stories. But Sir Quentin Oliver, head of the society, coddles them and coaches them through each chapter, focusing on their childhood, their early romantic and sexual experiences, and so forth. As secretary, Fleur has access to their manuscripts and uses her creative talents to spice things up a bit. In the office, which is actually Sir Quentin’s flat, she engages in a power struggle with Quentin's housekeeper Mrs Beryl Tims, and befriends his elderly and incontinent mother, Edwina.But all of this is secondary to Fleur; her life is focused on finishing her novel and getting it published. She’s also distracted by an affair that’s gone sour, and an unlikely friendship with the man’s wife, Dottie. For some reason she convinces Dottie to join the Autobiographical Society and write her memoirs, and gradually discovers Dottie may not be the friend she thought (really? I could have told her that). She also begins to see another side of Sir Quentin that is obvious to the reader, but would stun the society members who idolize him. When Fleur’s manuscript goes missing, and scenes from her novel are played out in real life, the story gets very strange indeed.Spark’s characters are very funny. Edwina pees on the floor nearly every time she stands up; Beryl Tims is very proper and judgmental. There’s an unfrocked priest with a story that’s far less controversial than he thinks, a disabled mystic, and many more. The madcap storyline moves along at a brisk pace. This is a light read, darkly funny, and while I enjoyed it on one level, it was also all a bit over the top. I found it a nice diversion from some of the heavier stuff I’m reading. For my tastes, Spark is best taken in small doses like this one.

Fleur Talbot is an aspiring young writer who is passionately wrapped up in putting the finishing touches on her first novel, Warrender Chase. Since she cannot yet rely on her novel-writing to earn a living, she is forced to take a job with Sir Quentin Oliver, at his dubious organization called The Autobiographical Association. Sir Quentin, who likes to surround himself with titled individuals, has convinced a number of them to write their autobiographies, which are to be kept under wraps for seventy years and revealed only after their deaths, but the lacklustre accounts of their lives are needing a little bit of peppering up, which is where Fleur comes in. Very quickly, Fleur comes to suspect that Sir Quentin's motives are not entirely selfless, and her suspicions are confirmed when she discovers that her Warrender Chase manuscript has been stolen, and than details from her as-yet unpublished novel have somehow been worked into the autobiographies. When life starts to imitate her the plot of her fictional story, Fleur is truly horrified. A wonderful cast of characters, which prominently features Sir Quentin's kooky elderly mother, Dame Edwina, who would make a wonderful protagonist on her very own. Much recommended.

Loitering with Intent is a smart, funny novel set in the publishing world of late 1940s London. Fleur Talbot has written a novel whose characters just happen to resemble the people she works with at the Autobiographical Society--so much so that events in the novel start to happen in real life. But while Fleur insists that it's all just fiction, her employer, Sir Quentin Oliver, goes to extreme lengths to keep the novel from being published--and to get his hands on a copy. Spark's novel brims with eccentric characters, including Sir Oliver, Fleur's employees, and her various lovers--one of whom is the husband of a co-worker who has not only Fleur on the side but also a gay poet named Gray Mauser. The best of the bunch is Sir Oliver's elderly mother, Edwina, who uses her supposed senility and incontinence as weapons and who helps Fleur to get the best of everyone.I read and loved Spark's A Far Cry from Kensington earlier this month and was eager to read more by her. Through Fleur, she's a keen observer of human nature and the foibles of polite society. Loitering with Intent is delightful, witty, urbane, and even at times downright hilarious. Spark is now right up there with Barbara Pym in my estimation--and may even surpass her.

My love for Muriel Spark's writing grows and grows. I love this book. It's witty, clever, suspenseful, and hilarious, all in a perfectly new way.

This is probably my favorite book EVER. Some of the characters remind me of people I used to work with.