From Publishers Weekly
A swift, blithe comedy of sexual and creative jealousy plays out on the grounds of a dubious finishing school in Dame Spark's gem of a novel, her 22nd. College Sunrise, founded by would-be novelist Rowland Mahler and his practical wife, Nina Parker, is a mobile institution (currently situated in Lausanne) at which very little of use is taught. Rowland does preside over a popular creative writing class (with five students, it boasts more than half the school's enrollment), while Nina takes care of the office business and dispenses delicious advice in her informal etiquette seminars ("[I]f you, as a U.N. employee, are chased by an elephant stand still and wave a white handkerchief. This confuses the elephant's legs"). Trouble arrives in the form of redheaded, 18-year-old Chris Wiley, who has come to College Sunrise to work on his novel about Mary, Queen of Scots. Chris's authorial insouciance—he is supremely confident of his talents and rather dismissive of historical fact—infuriates Rowland, whose ego was inflated by minor early successes and who has a terrible case of writer's block. Rowland becomes obsessed with the novel and its creator, and their struggle—" 'I could kill him,' thought Rowland. 'But would that be enough?' "—forms the heart of the book, even as other players, sketched briefly but brilliantly (the "tall and lonely" Tilly, princess of an unknown and perhaps fictitious country; the sweet, stupid Mary Foot, who wants to own a "sahramix" [sic] shop) fall in and out of love and beds. Spark, who is 86, writes in a polished, rather old-fashioned tone (references to "punk music," laptops and other things of the modern world surprise), but this is a cool, delightful little book of bad deeds and good manners.
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina, are directors of College Sunrise, a private school in Switzerland attended by nine free-spirited teens. Its location changes from year to year, the tuition is exorbitant, and the curriculum, anything but mainstream. Chris Wiley has enrolled for the sole purpose of writing a novel and does not attend classes. Others pursue a variety of interests that include drama, creative writing, and Nina's unique version of modern etiquette. Sex and alcohol are not discouraged, and while Nina and Rowland bring in the occasional guest speaker, they teach most of the classes with minimal educational expertise. In fact, the school itself is questionable as it caters to students who, for various reasons, are unable to attend established institutions. Because Chris and Rowland are concurrently writing books, tension between the two pervades the novel, and becomes its primary theme. Nina begins an affair with a neighbor, one of the students becomes pregnant by the gardener, and, at the end of the term, the school's continued existence is precarious. Spark seems to be laughing at 21st-century permissiveness with well-drawn characters and eloquent writing. High school students will enjoy reading about this fly-by-night "finishing" school and its unusual attendees.
- Pat Bender, The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, PA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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