THE DRIVER'S SEAT BY MURIEL SPARK

While reading THE DRIVER’S SEAT by Muriel Spark, I kept having songs by The Smiths running through my head in particular WHAT SHE SAID with its lines “I smoke cause I’m hoping for an early death” and also “I need to cling to something”.

THE DRIVER’S SEAT is the story of a young woman named Lise who leaves London, her home, on a vacation….From the beginning, she takes a number of actions that are bound to get attention-Wearing a ridiculously loud outfit, leaving important things behind where they will be discovered by others or cause her to remembered, striking up strange teeth clenchingly awkward conversations with strangers she meets along the way….In other words, she wants to be remembered by those she meets and the reason is because she is going on this trip to meet the man who will ultimately murder her.

Who this man she doesn’t know and neither do us the readers until the end of the book….His identity is a clever surprise….We are never sure why this bold stroke of fatalism is being undertaken by Lise….We have clues-The boredom of her humdrum job and accompanying monotony, the lack of any real friendships in her life, her eccentric, off-putting behavior but whether these are symptoms or the disease itself we never know. She also clearly wants other people she encounters along the way to remember her in order to tell the police something afterwards

While reading this book (and it’s a short book, a very quick read, barely over 100 pages) the main impression I got was of some kind of grand bedsit miseryguts, perhaps the high queen of bedsit miseryguts, packing each paragraph with rainy day uncomfortable statements on life coupled with really black English wit which in turn was often coupled with a type of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM social faux pas humor.

I should say in discussions about this book there is a bit of debate about Lise’s mental health and what she does….I would argue it is clear she has some level of precognition about the events of the books….She knows that someone she has never met her before is going to kill her at a specific place and it happens….How much visualization plays a part here is up for debate….But I don’t think insanity plays a part in her mental make-up at all….In a strange way, this book is kind of about taking control of your life.

I actually think more of this book the further I get away from it (I read it about six weeks ago)….It certainly stayed with me as I thought about Lise’s existential plight and her extra-sensory solution….I’m about to start another book by Muriel Sparks entitled MEMENTO MORI….She is a writer with a real streak of black humor and great descriptions of the dark absurdities of life.