Customer Reviews

THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS.

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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This is one of Muriel Spark's most deftly written novels, right up there with her best: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Comforters. The writing here glimmers with wit and polish. It is as if the smartiest, wittiest, greatest storyteller in your life were telling this to you over the best dinner of your life in a cafe in Nice; you've gone through two bottles of wine, the candles are dying and the staff is dying to go home---but you must hear the story to the end! And when you do, you smile all over. You are thrilled to have been told this devilish tale.

This has got to be one of the best novels ever, and practically anything pertaining to the mid- to late-20th century worth writing about is here. The consistent wit is a usual for Spark, but the warmth and even familiarity she shows for her (and with her) characters is rare. And just because it's not the size of War and Peace doesn't mean it lacks depth, meaning, power or insight into human nature. It has all that, and Dame Spark did it with elegance and style. Read it

Don't get me wrong this was a good book but I got confused with all the characters. It kind of jumped around from person to person and from the past to the present. It was interesting reading about the stories of each of the girls. It didn't really seem to follow a story line. The story finally began to come together at the great ending then just kind of stopped. Not the best book I've ever read but its worth reading anyway.

there are so many girls at the may of teck club ( group housing for 'the girls of slender means)- with so many third person points of view, that one almost needs a chart to keep them straight- who's rationing what? who's dating whom?

a few of the girls stand out, but their tales are so intermingled, & their lives so distantly described that i had a hard time caring. but as a fan of muriel spark's work, i kept at it, and was well paid off by the poignant & shocking ending.

spark did quite the job of showing the reader wartime london- with its' almost purposeful frivolities, willfullness to get on, and its' crushing realities.

i recommend it to fans of her work. i suggest starting with the 'prime of miss jean brodie' if you've had no prior introduction.

Nadia May is an A-list voice performer. Her voice, while distinctly feminine, is supple yet strong, rich with some 25 years of audiobook narration experience. Mays has the ability to shift easily among characters, subtly lowering her voice or softening when a heavenly request it made. She is also deft with accents, affecting the broad vowels of a New Englander or traces of a brogue. Not one to opt for easy narrations she is well remembered for her renditions of such titles as Anna Karenina, Tales From Shakespeare, and Trilby.

Her reading of The Girls Of Slender Means adds even more luster to her already sterling reputation as an audio performer. With it she gracefully inhabits the personas of young women in London immediately following World War II. They are all residents of a home called the May of Teck Club, a four story mansion now converted for their use. These are women who no longer live at home but are seeking "an occupation," hence the marvelous title The Girls Of Slender Means.

Spark's novel is primarily the story of five girls, how life was for them during wartime and how it is years later when one of them hears of the death of Nicholas Farrington, a once aspiring poet known by all of the girls.

Muriel Spark once said, "I don't claim that my novels are truth - I claim that they are fiction from which a kind of truth emerges." - an apt description of The Girls f Slender Means, which is well worth a listen.

- Gail Cooke

The "Girls of Slender Means" are single young working women, nearly all under the age of thirty, at the May of Teck Club in London. The club is more or less a boarding house or a dorm at a women's college, where women with limited incomes shares rooms while sunbathing on the roof and sharing a Schiaparelli gown. There are so many women in the house that you almost need a chart to keep track of who's who and who does what job or dates which boy.

Its summer, 1945, at the very end of WWII. The story is told primarily from the perspective of Jane Wright, an assistant at a publishing house, whose life combines pragmatism with the idealism of the literary world. She becomes acquainted with semi-famous, anarchistic author Nicholas Farringdon, "on loan to the Americans," who's only interested in the May of Teck Club for one of its residents. The residents of the boarding house are still very much affected by the recent war; one of them, in tours of the building to prospective residents, shows them the place where a bomb nearly went off and another where, in her opinion, a bomb still was that never exploded.

The Girls of Slender Means is a lot like A Far Cry from Kensington in many respects: there's the boarding house, the overweight publishing employee, the post-war atmosphere. Muriel Spark's work tends to be a lot like that of Barbara Pym--there's a certain sort of quiet gentility in both writers' novels. I've mentioned this before, and I'll mention it again: Spark is witty. It's a charming story... except for the tragedy that occurs within.

There are a number of girls living at the May of Teck (a dormitory style housing for young well bred women) between the time of VE Day in May of 1945 and VJ day in August of 1945. London has been bombed and war torn. The May of Teck allows for the girls of slender means to live on their own. This is where a majority of the story takes place.

A man from their past has been martyred. And so Jane is trying to relocate the girls from the May of Teck to fill in the gaps about that young man.

Slender means has several meanings throughout the book. It was a very interesting look at how these women lived on so little, how they remained cheerful and busy, the life of the girls in dormitory life, a glimpse of London during a scary yet somehow charming period of time.

Muriel Spark (born in Edinburgh, to a Jewish father and an English and Anglican mother) had lived in a similiar style dormitory in London during the Blitz,the continued bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 9/7/1940 and 5/10/1941.

The plot does move around a bit, there are segments from Nicholas's point of view that you may have to re-read to catch the meaning, but Muriel Spark has a knack for creating memorable characters and moments and giving her readers a lot to think about. Parts of the book are allegorical and faith can be carefully examined in the undertones of the book, Dame Spark believed that it wasn't unitl she became a Roman Catholic that she was able to analyze human existence. A great read for a book club.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie made such a tremendous impression on me that I thought I might have found a new favourite author. No such luck. It's as though Muriel ran out of Spark after writing her magnum opus. Okay, okay, the pun's not the thing!

The climax and denouement are brilliant but one has to get there; and getting there is rough going. Ms. Spark could have done better. She clearly had the talent. I feel short changed.

"The Girls of Slender Means" is probably not as entertaining as "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", but for some it is Muriel Spark's most brilliant piece of work.The relevence of the poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland" quoted in the novel should not be neglected.

Muriel Spark's amusing style of writing should not be taken for lightness in subject-matter."The Girls of Slender Means" permits one to appreciate fully the economy and brilliance of her style.

Linette Bruno (Author of 'A Spark in Time')

THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS evokes the inner workings of a "group" of women as delightfully as THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE. The difference here is that the "authority" of Miss Brodie from the first novel is missing, and the girls are a little more grown up; the world around them has grown grimmer--there's the blitz and the prospect of Labour victory...

Spark always manages to create great entertainment out of a profound, humane, and sympathetic but iron-willed moral judgment, and THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS is no exception. Its particular merit is that it evokes a time and place in a nostalgic but unsentimental manner better than most of her works.