Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #908514 in Books
• Published on: 1993-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

The superficiality of celebrity uncovered!
Annabel Christopher is an actress who is well on her way to becoming a star, but she lacks one crucial element:talent. Despite this she invests all her energy into creating and mainitaining the optimum public image to propell her to stardom.

Annabel's husband, Frederick, who believes himself to be a talented scriptwriter, is at a loss to understand why his superficial, untalented wife is a success while he struggles to gain respect for his work. He becomes increasingly exasperated at his wife's shallow behaviour and is frustrated at the public image created for him to compliment Annabel's and to present them as the perfect couple. Halfway through the novel, Frederick takes his own life; an 'unspeakable trick' which Annabel regards merely as an inconvenience which may tarnish her public image, an asset she would go to any lengths to protect. She makes the mistake of believing her own carefully crafted publicity, so much so that she becomes obsessed with what people think of her, wrapping herself in her own deluded beliefs.

Muriel Spark's prose, as always, is controlled, witty, sharp and original. She is able to be just cruel enough to her characters - none of whom are particularly likeable and only have a few redeeming features - but this serves only to make for a more interesting read, and Spark carries this off well. The novel covers a very relevant topic for today, despite having been written in the late 60s, by exposing the superficiality of celebrity, how flimsy an image can be, and how quickly it can slip.

The Private Drama
The Public Image
Dame Muriel's 1968 novel is regarded by some lit-crit nabobs as one of
her minor works- but this tale of movie stardom, sex, drugs, suicide,
gossip, glossies and paparazzi- played out in Rome- has, in the celebrity-infested latter-day, come up fresh as paint.

Typically Sparkian in being both witty and disturbing, there is true
depth in the enigmatic finale.