Product Description

'This is the story of a dinner party, a knot of people with pasts and connections which at first seem few but are later found to be many ...The prevailing mood is urbane: the wine is poured, the talk continues, and all the time the ice on which the protagonists' world rests is being thinned from beneath by boiling emotions and ugly motives ...No living writer handles the tension between formality of expression and the subversiveness of thought more elegantly' Candia McWilliam, Independent on Sunday

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183128 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
'This is the story of a dinner party, a knot of people with pasts and connections which at first seem few but are later found to be many ... The prevailing mood is urbane: the wine is poured, the talk continues, and all the time the ice on which the protagonists' world rests is being thinned from beneath by boiling emotions and ugly motives ... No living writer handles the tension between formality of expression and the subversiveness of thought more elegantly' Candia McWilliam, Independent on Sunday 'Stiletto-sharp fiction...as in the bitter confections of Ivy Compton-Burnett, it is the dialogue that propels this dangerous, devilish book' Alan Taylor, Scotland on Sunday 'Extremely clever and highly entertaining ... A young bride is seen to have been connected, apparently by chance, with a sequence of untimely deaths ... Symposium is put together like an intricate jigsaw puzzle' Penelope Lively 'The greatest Scottish novelist of modern times ... She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the creme de la creme' Ian Rankin

Alan Taylor, Scotland on Sunday
'Stiletto-sharp fiction...it is the dialogue that propels this dangerous, devilish book...she creates unease with the minimum of fuss'

Penelope Lively
'The theme is wickedness...Symposium is put together like an intricate jigsaw puzzle...Extremely clever and highly entertaining'

Customer Reviews

Slightly missold, I thought!
I am currently having a massive Muriel Spark binge and I urge anyone who enjoys delicate, short, dark, funny novels to read any of her books, because so far they have all been thought-provoking and often hilarious, in a very dark way...

I just wanted to write a note on this one, though, to say that although the introduction by Ian Rankin is very interesting (and he did 3 years of a PhD on Spark's novels, so it's lovely to read what he has to say on the subject) it is not at all an introduction to this actual book. In fact, 'Symposium' isn't even mentioned by name in the 'introduction', which I think is actually a general speech Rankin made in her honour at some point which Virago have co-opted into use as an intro. I think this is rather bad work by the publishers, as I could have bought the book much cheaper second-hand, and would have done, except that it was presented as having this intro by Rankin which interested me....

That issue set aside (for which I am deducting that star!), this is another wonderful Muriel Spark book. one of her later novels, from 1991: A dinner party, some horrible guests, and her usual wonderfully sneaky female characters....Let the trouble commence.