Un abogado, un falso «párroco», un detective, un profesor de instituto que trabaja en el British Council, un epiléptico experto en grafología, un irlandés enamoradizo que evita a toda costa el contacto con el sexo opuesto… Solteros londinenses. Personajes mordazmente británicos que pasan las tardes charlando en los bares o comprando en Fortnum & Mason, atenazados por horrores de todo tipo, como la escandalosa subida del precio de los guisantes. No obstante, su apacible existencia urbanita se verá amenazada con la irrupción de un misterioso personaje: el médium Patrick Seton, que conseguirá que todos ellos transformen sus vidas hasta verse inmersos en una sucesión de estafas, robos, chantajes y desaforadas sesiones de espiritismo, que acabarán desembocando en un juicio grotesco.

3.5* for the book & 4* for this audiobook narrated by Nadia May.

Dark humor about how a court case about whether a spiritualist medium had defrauded one of his circle affects the lives of several bachelors & their friends and relatives. One aspect of the book that bothered me is that all of the women seemed to come across as irrational (to say the least) and as strong evidence of the concept that 'people will believe what they want to believe'. ( )

Daniela:
Londra, 1960, ma potrebbe essere adesso, ai giorni nostri. Attorno ad un circolo spiritista gravitano e s'incrociano personaggi squallidi e imbarazzanti: sfruttatori, opportunisti, finti preti, bamboccioni over40, un irlandese cattolico ossessionato dal sesso che per evitare di cadere in tentazione mangia cipolle crude prima di un incontro galante, sperando così di essere respinto; un procuratore del Regno che persegue un ambiguo medium che ha rubato i soldi che una vedova gli aveva consegnato perchè li investisse, pur facendo egli stesso la stessa cosa coi beni della sua amante...... tutti scapoli. Ma in rispetto della par condicio neanche le donne fanno bella figura: come minimo sono tutte irrimediabilmente stupide. Ma Muriel Spark, più che fustigare vizi e difetti li mette in ridicolo con una grande spiritosissima ironia. I dialoghi sono formidabili, arrivando talvolta a vette degne del teatro dell'assurdo. Una lettura piacevole.

Written around the same time as two of Spark's most popular novels, The ballad of Peckham Rye and The prime of Miss Jean Brodie, this one tends to fade into the background a little by comparison. As the title implies, it's a kind of ironic inversion of the theme of her later bedsit novels, following the progress of a few of the 659 500 unmarried men over the age of 21 that live in London (17.1 bachelors to a street, as one of the characters calculates).

Although they buy their bacon and eggs for the week on Saturday morning, most of these men seem to have found a woman to cook for them at least once a week and perhaps give them a little financial support - preferably an aunt or a widow of a certain age, because the one thing they all fear more than anything is getting involved with the messy business of babies and marriage. Which of course leaves the single young women rather on the shelf: the only men prepared to go to bed with them are either professional heart-breakers or irresponsible and untrustworthy.

The plot revolves around a Spiritualist circle run by one of these wealthy widows. The medium, Patrick Seton, is awaiting trial for defrauding another widow out of her life-savings. Various of the bachelors are involved in this case - one is the prosecuting counsel, another is a handwriting expert giving evidence about a forged letter (which, of course, is stolen in the course of the story), others might or might not be about to give evidence in Patrick's defence. And then there are some rival spiritualists, a gay couple who seem to have a sideline in white-slaving. And Patrick's pregnant girlfriend, trusting in his innocence and hoping that his divorce will come through in time for them to marry - but there isn't any previous marriage, and there are hints that Patrick is plotting to kill her...

All a bit messy, and it doesn't have quite the same marvellous drive of subversive energy we get in Peckham Rye and Miss Jean Brodie, but there are still some great bits of writing, with some of Spark's cunning juxtapositions of apparently unconnected ideas to remind us that this isn't Angus Wilson or early Iris Murdoch, but something much stranger. Lots to make us think twice about the accepted rules of "masculine" and "feminine" behaviour, late-fifties-style, and some hints that Spark hadn't entirely made her mind up that all Spiritualists were either knaves or fools. And a sympathetic account of epilepsy and diabetes, as well as a splendid version of the trial scene we have been expecting to end the book. ( )

Published three years before my last read for #ReadingMuriel2018 The Bachelors has a very different feel from The Girls of Slender Means. Here is a London of the 1950s, of bedsitting rooms, public bars and spiritualist meetings.

Certainly, it is a novel with London very much at its heart – the novel opens with several London place names – and the whole novel has a very London feel to it.

“In Queen’s Gate, Kensington, in Harrington Road, The Boltons, Holland Park, and in King’s Road, Chelsea, and its backwaters, the bachelors stirred between their sheets, reached for their wound watches, and with waking intelligences noted the time; then, remembering it was Saturday morning turned over on their pillows. But soon, since it was Saturday, most would be out on the streets shopping for their bacon and eggs, their week’s supplies of breakfasts and occasional suppers; and these bachelors would set out early, before a quarter past ten, in order to avoid being jostled by the women, the legitimate shoppers.”

Despite the promising opening, The Bachelors is something of a slow burn – and lacks the compelling nature of some other Muriel Spark novels. I was worried I wasn’t going to get on with the novel at all – then suddenly around seventy pages in I realised I was gripped and I ended up finishing rather quickly. Thinking about the novel now in retrospect I actually really like it – so it is a shame that the beginning is a bit of a let-down – a couple of conversations on Twitter suggest I’m not the only reader to feel like this. Spark creates such an authentic community of London bachelors that – considering she uses relatively little description, and quite a lot of dialogue – there is still a lot that is very visual in this novel.

The Bachelors of the title include: a handwriting expert, a lawyer, a priest, a policeman and a spiritual medium. Patrick Seton; the medium is the malevolent presence throughout the novel – he is a truly brilliant Spark villain. Patrick is due to appear in court – charged with defrauding a widow; Freda Flower of her savings. Things however, are not straight forward, as the widow concerned – part of the spiritualist circle – keeps changing her evidence. Like all groups, this spiritualist circle is split into dividing factions – those who think Patrick Seton is innocent and those who see him as a fraud and a criminal. However, even those who believe Patrick defrauded Mrs Flower of her savings – tend to think he is a good medium. Patrick is very confident of being acquitted – and he has a few loyal acolytes who are vocal in their support of him.

However, the reader quickly begins to see Patrick as a really nasty character and potentially a dangerous one. Patrick has a girlfriend – Alice – who is in the early stages of pregnancy – something Patrick is clearly irritated by – thinking of it as ‘her disgusting baby’. Alice wants Patrick to marry her – Patrick tells her, his divorce will be granted soon. Other characters in the novel are surprised to hear that Patrick is married as they had understood him to be single. Alice is an insulin dependent diabetic – and it is quickly apparent that Patrick has a dreadful plan up his sleeve. Not averse to a bit of blackmail – Patrick manages to draw his doctor into the plans for when the ‘unfortunate occurrence’ should be over and he safely acquitted. Patrick is confident he can make everything go his way.

Ronald Bridges is a graphologist; due to give evidence on a note supposedly written by Mrs Flower – though said to have been forged by Patrick Seton – in the up coming trial. Ronald suffers from epilepsy, he is very conscious of his condition, which he seems to feel has blighted his life, and practices using his memory whenever he can. He is a slightly sad discontented man, who wants desperately to be taken seriously. It is Ronald ultimately who is the novel’s rather unlikely hero.

“Ronald was filled with a great melancholy boredom from which he suffered periodically. It was not merely this affair which seemed to suffocate him, but the whole of life – people, small-time criminals, outrage housekeepers, and all his acquaintance from the beginning of time.”

Several of the novel’s other bachelors are concerned with Patrick’s case and the spiritualist group he is part of. Detective Inspector Fergusson is the policeman responsible for Patrick’s appearance in court, while Martin Bowles is the prosecuting barrister. Matthew another of Ronald’s friends has designs on Alice, wanting to get her away from Patrick, watches from the public gallery as the trial gets underway. Alice however is devoted to Patrick despite her friend Elsie’s interference to try and prove his guilt.

While this novel won’t be my favourite Muriel Spark novel, I am glad I have read it, I very much enjoyed hating Patrick Seton – and waiting to see what happened to him made the second half of the book much more compelling. ( )