Resumen
In many of her short, compressed, eccentric novels, Muriel Spark has tackled the problems that accompany the writing of fiction, a theme she returns to in THE FINISHING SCHOOL. Set at an upper-crust boarding school on Lake Geneva, the novel centers on a writing class taught by Rowland Mahler, an aspiring writer himself--but one who hasnt actually written very much. As he struggles to cope with both writing and teaching, he finds himself becoming jealous and resentful of one of his teenage students, a boy named Chris, who seems to be an unmistakably great young writer. Rowlands increasingly ... Show more In many of her short, compressed, eccentric novels, Muriel Spark has tackled the problems that accompany the writing of fiction, a theme she returns to in THE FINISHING SCHOOL. Set at an upper-crust boarding school on Lake Geneva, the novel centers on a writing class taught by Rowland Mahler, an aspiring writer himself--but one who hasnt actually written very much. As he struggles to cope with both writing and teaching, he finds himself becoming jealous and resentful of one of his teenage students, a boy named Chris, who seems to be an unmistakably great young writer. Rowlands increasingly mad obsession with the boy, juxtaposed with Chriss struggles with the plot of his novel (which is about Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots) form the basis for one of Sparks typically quirky and irony-fueled explorations of sin (in this case envy) and the human capacity for violence. The school itself, College Sunrise--decidedly offbeat and seething with sub-plots--is virtually a character in itself.
