Reviews

A Woman in the Midst of A Nervous Breakdown goes on vacation and gets murdered... but how did we get here? Spark is totally underrated as a stylist, and this novella, told from the perspective of Lise in a sort of semi-psychotic fever dream, is a wonder of narrative.

anniemlx's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.75

An altogether interesting and perplexing piece of work. A fascinating read that I am still thinking about long after having finished reading it.

sunsetcypress's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Making sense of this novel can be quite the challenge. It's a very short read, best done in one sitting to allow the tension to build, and (to my delight) written mostly using the third-person-dramatic narrative technique, which is not that often used in literature, as the effect can be quite detached, chilling and just overall unusual. Here the author uses it for comedic effect, highlighting the absurdist nature of the text. Both the narrator and the main character therefore express themselves in this very unhinged tone that makes the simplest, most basic statements about ordinary things sound off-kilter, manic and downright deranged. It's an interesting exercise to think about how, just by making a few small changes in demeanour, turn of phrase or simply by introducing a bizarre topic of conversation at the wrong time, one can easily come off as some flavour of creepy or uncanny valley. Very useful as a writing experiment, too, I image. Moreover, while the text is written in grammatically correct English, it has that distinct quality that suggests it's either written by a person for whom English is not their first language (not the case for the author) or that it's been translated from another language into English. There are some clunky phrases peppered throughout, that no native English speaker would use, contributing to the unsettling atmosphere and the sense that something about this whole world is rather off.

The plot itself is straightforward but quite opaque, since the narrator relays only the external, observable actions and offers no further insight or explanations into the thought process of the characters. Lise is a woman in her 30s living in an undisclosed, "Northern" country, who presumably speaks four languages and has been working as an accountant for 16 years. She is unremarkable and seems to lead a very boring, empty, repetitive life, that would plunge anyone into depression. Her small apartment is devoid of personal touches and life mostly seems to happen to her, very much in the cog-in-the-machine, slave-to-the-wage variety. This book was published in the 70s, but after a further 50 years of capitalism, I'd say the employees of today could relate to the feeling of absolute drab and pointlessness that might lead someone to contemplate

suicide. And that turns out to precisely be Lise's plan. She wants to go on one last holiday and find a suitable man to kill her.

In hindsight, a lot of things Lise does can be interpreted as a sort of revolt against the dreariness and conformity of existence. She goes shopping for an outfit with the brightest and most intense colour combinations (girly pop would have loved the colour blocking trend of the 2010s) and adopts a very forward attitude towards the strangers she encounters in her travels. She is particularly interested in men, is very eager to converse with them and open to spontaneously accompanying them to places, looking for someone who is "her type", but makes it known that she is not looking

for sex, she only wants them to kill her. So the question remains: which criteria does she use to choose the proper individual to perform this one act of intimacy with her? She doesn't seem to react well to people who are rude to her or to men who insist on imposing themselves on her sexually or otherwise violently. She hides from the student demonstrations (so she doesn't want to die by getting trampled, beaten or tear-gassed then), she flees from the mechanic and the nutritionist who try to rape her.

Her choice of man is equally challenging to crack when trying to interpret this text:

his violent tendencies are confirmed by his previous murder attempt, his stay in prison and at the mental hospital. He is afraid of her, perhaps because he is trying to suppress his murderous urges, leave her alone and not go back to prison? He perks up when he asks her whether she fears sex. Lise seems to know a whole lot about the facilities he was kept in and it thus puts into question how much of a chance encounter their meeting on the plane was, as well as her meeting with his aunt. To what extent did she premeditate her own suicide-murder? She wants to die, but on her own terms and by the hand of someone reluctant to kill her, but manipulable enough to give into his urges and do her bidding. Is this an act of revenge against this wannabe future murderer? Against men as a gender or society as a whole? An act of kindness, by offering him a release for his suppressed impulses and then ensuring he gets locked up and can no longer hurt anyone who doesn't want to get hurt (unlike her?) Or is it a cry for help, does she truly not want to die and is secretly hoping he will refuse?

Unfortunately, the fly-on-the-wall narrator does not allow us any glimpse of an answer, but the effect is all the more unsettling for it.

In any case, a superficial reading will have you believe that Lise is the menacing agent, disturbing passers-by who are simply minding their own business, but the world she inhabits proves to be a very violent and frightening one. Over the course of a day,

two men attempt to rape her, while student protests quickly and without notice threaten her physical safety and she eventually ends up stabbed to death. As "willing" as one might interpret her suicide, the last man, Richard, still makes the conscious decision to follow her instructions and is completely exercising his own free will, therefore cannot be absolved of the guilt of murdering her.

It is ironic that the people around Lise are so unsettled by her own offbeat, yet ultimately harmless actions, instead of the very real dangers lurking just around the corner. Essentially, the people around her either do not challenge the status-quo in any significant way or are actively against anything that perturbs it. Mrs Fiedke, Richard's aunt, has a comical little aside about how men presumably want "equal rights" with women (this is the 70s), which amounts to diversifying the way they dress, escaping the strict gender roles imposed by patriarchy and exploring their sexuality and gender identities - all elements that would also contribute to the advancement of women's rights, by liberating them as well from the strict confines of prescribed social roles and behaviours; all elements the elderly, and otherwise kindly, Mrs Fiedke opposes.

In such a society, what else is there for Lise to do? How is she ever to find a fulfilling and genuine relationship and build a life of meaning for herself? With this in mind, perhaps her decisions do not seem so irrational anymore, more of an overdue, understandable act of rebellion against sleepy conformity, and a culture that lost its sense of community. Perhaps Muriel Spark's Lise is the OG Rust Cohle: " I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."

georgieholmes's review against another edition

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5.0

Wonderfully weird

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