I felt like a voyeur reading this great Scottish writer's love letters

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

In his introduction Gunn, who edited Samuel Beckett's letters and teaches at the University of America in Paris, gives a precis of what she experienced in the years 1944-63: 'Spark went through impoverishment, betrayal, discrimination, assault, hunger, paranoid delusions, romantic disappointment, harassment from an erratic ex-husband, the death of a beloved father; nevertheless, she produced seven novels, an array of poems, essays, biographies, and critical introductions, as well as 1,500 letters – doubtless more, given some have been lost. Circumstances were stacked against her; nevertheless, she transformed herself from a little-known poet into a hugely successful and critically acclaimed novelist…'
Nevertheless was one of Spark's favourite words, to be pronounced in the Morningside manner of her childhood: 'niverthelace'. It is baffling that, although she was an inveterate letter writer, no correspondence survives before 1944. Gunn speculates on the reasons, but no-one knows what happened to them. 'That more Spark letters do exist is certain,' he writes optimistically, in the hope, perhaps, of people scouring their attics.
What remains, however, is abundant, illuminating Spark as no biographer could hope to. Anyone contemplating becoming a writer will learn a great deal from this judicious selection about how to protect their interests and reputation. As these letters vividly reveal, there were countless facets to Spark that made her such a dazzling, redoubtable individual: generosity, intellectual curiosity, a work ethic so punishing she frequently became ill, a desire for romantic love that would not impinge on her writing, and a tiger-like ability to defend her professional interests.
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Unarguably the greatest Scottish writer of the 20th century, Spark was born to Barney and Sarah Camberg in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, in February 1918. While her origins were ordinary, it soon became clear that she was not; her exceptional literary abilities were recognised while she was a young schoolgirl.
In 1937, aged 18, she sailed to Southern Rhodesia to marry the teacher Sidney Oswald Spark. A year later she gave birth to their son Samuel, who renamed himself Robin. Shortly after, Sydney's mental instability became alarmingly evident, and Spark left him. In the years that followed, she fought for custody of Robin, sailed to war-time London, and eventually settled her son in Edinburgh, where he was raised by her parents with her financial support.
The letters in which she writes about Robin confirm she did not, as myth has it, abandon him; he was often in her thoughts. Her tone whenever talking about him is warm, if a little detached 'I suppose he is at the collecting stage', she tells her lover, the writer Derek Stanford, in 1950, when itemising Robin's collections of beetles, butterflies and penknives. In letters to Robin, her fondness is palpable as, too, is the emotional distance between them.
Observing Spark in the process of becoming a writer is revelatory. From her late twenties she was utterly focussed on her vocation as a poet, while exhausted by the need to make money; eventually the strain led to a breakdown. A letter requesting financial help from the Royal Literary Fund in 1950 reveals how close she came to penury. Once she turned to fiction, with The Comforters (1957), her financial fortunes began to improve.
Writing to Stanford and other friends, Spark's personality shines: intense, sometimes tortured yet often playful and mordantly funny. She adored beautiful clothes, but was also spiritually questioning, converting first to Anglicanism and, later, to Catholicism, and agonising every step of the way.
Her early love letters to Stanford make the reader feel like a voyeur: 'My darling Derek, I can't begin my day's work until I tell you how greatly I love you' (1949). Over the years, her gradual disenchantment is sad to witness. Towards the volume's end, by which time she had found international fame with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, she loathed and despised him. His mistake? To sell her letters to a dealer, and publish a book about her life.
Muriel Spark in her later years (Image: GORDON TERRIS)
In common with others who made enemies of Spark, Stanford would be hit by epistolary missiles he would never forget. Even in extremis, Spark's caustic wit did not abandon her. Another on the receiving end of ballistic rage was her Macmillan editor Alan Maclean. Gunn offers choice examples of her fury – 'I am tired of your ridiculous lies, your broken promises, your complete waste of my time in discussion, when everything agreed upon is set aside by you in the most casual way.' - and yet, within months, all was forgiven.
In Gunn, Spark's letters have found a worthy editor. His selection is carefully weighted to demonstrate the range of her correspondents – from family and writer friends such as Shirley Hazzard and Paul Scott, to the likes of John Updike and Evelyn Waugh, who were admirers of her novels. As well as allowing the reader to see the full expression of her personality, he also ensures the arc of her career – initially slow-burning, then suddenly meteoric - is clearly signposted. His scrupulous footnotes add a wealth of fascinating, sometimes gossipy information, and should not be skipped.
My only reservation is the length of some of these letters, since on certain subjects Muriel would give vent over several pages. However, Gunn's justifications for never 'filleting' them are sound, among them that Spark would have viewed that as censorship.
The result is a spellbinding portrait of the writer as a relatively young woman. It is impossible not to warm to her. She is entertaining, thoughtful, manic, affectionate, exasperated, flirtatious, apoplectic, occasionally pompous, more often self-deprecating, and never less than interesting. Masefield gave Spark the motto by which to navigate the bumps in the road; in Gunn's superb selection others will find comfort and inspiration in her own hard-won wisdom.