Customer Reviews

Reality and Dreams

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This book was an unexpected surprise. I'd read Spark's earliest novels years ago, had only the vague memory that they were enjoyable and well-written. REALITY AND DREAMS is a reminder that Spark is far better than just good. In just 160 pages, she carries off a miracle of imagery, plot twists and character development that swirl about the title's themes and the difficulty that mortals, particularly those engaged in artistic, especially cinematic pursuits, have in distinguishing between the two or understanding how one can beget another. Spark wittily populates her book with a lively, bright ensemble of contemporary British characters whose lives are in one way or another connected with protagonist Tom Richards, a successful movie director. Like most of the characters, he is flawed, but also like most of the characters, there is tension yet some fun in watching him. Appropriate to the theme, Spark creates two films for him to conceive and execute, and such is the power of her vision, they felt real enough that I wanted to see them. She grounds that glamour, however, against the backdrop of contemporary economic realities--redundancy, the British term for unemployment, down-sizing and such becomes a major image and theme as well. Spark's voice is so very truthful throughout, that it is yet another layer of commentary on the relationship between reality and dreams. She can take a bell-clear image, scene or piece of dialogue and make it dense with multiple meaning. Wow! I was very sorry when the book was over.

The most astonishing thing about Muriel Spark (other than how good she is at what she does) is that she does it so sparingly--she never wastes a word. This novel is no exception. As usual, artistry and creation are central themes, but for Spark they are natural themes, and connected to a startling and authoritative view of reality as an artwork, of God as the truly capable artist and artificer. Spark's characters are always deliciously alive, often malicious, always charming or repulsive as need be; Tom is one of Spark's best male characters--appearing in a role often reserved for a possibly autobiographical female character. Read this book, and then hunt down the rest of Muriel Spark's work and enjoy.

Tom Richards is a sixty-three year old film director. He feels like a God up on his crane, shouting orders through his amplifier and, like God, watching the team group and regroup as bidden, especially the stars. So when Tom falls off the crane and breaks twelve ribs as well as his hip, it is quite a tragedy for him.

His new film, Hamburger Girl, is cancelled and then renamed, members of Tom's family vanish then reappear and his life is far from ordinary, something which seems to be the case with most people in the film business.

As Tom says, nothing with him is consistent. It is typical of him and in a way a part of the moves of that world of dreams and reality which he is at home in, the world of filming scenes, casting people in parts, piecing together types, facts and illusions.

At some point Tom says that what he and his crew are doing is real and not real. They live in a world where dreams are reality and reality is dreams. In their world, everything starts from a dream.

A lovely kaleidoscope of witty characters and situations, this novel is thoroughly enjoyable and no doubt shows that the author was still at the top of her form in 1996.

Reality and Dreams reminds me of some of the Faye Weldon novels: it has an edge, and characters who are full of life, but not fully realized. If it is a satire, it is more a satire of human nature than of specific cultural norms, although it does reflect a Britain where the social net has frayed. Reality and Dreams is quite readable and sometimes fun, but it is lightweight, and not all that amusing.