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The Girls of Slender Means
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780811213790
ISBN: 081121379X
Label: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 141
Publication Date: 1998-04
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Studio: New Directions Publishing Corporation
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Editorial Review:
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions," begins The Girls of Slender Means Dame Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club itself--"three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit"--its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal: practicing elocution, and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. The novel's harrowing ending reveals that the girls' giddy literary and amorous peregrinations are hiding some tragically painful war wounds. Chosen by Anthony Burgess as one of the Best Modern Novels in The London Sunday Times Review, The Girls of Slender Means is a taut and eerily perfect novel by an author The New York Times has called "One of this century's finest creators of comic-metaphysical entertainment."
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The body has a life of its own.
This small novel has too many characters and too many themes (intelligence work, coupon smuggling, the 'literature' business, religion, sex and love -'Love and money were vital themes in all bedrooms.')
Also, the allegories are a little overstretched, e.g. a bomb for a war that didn't end with the armistice, or the fate of the girl who believes that 'once you admit that you can change the object of a strongly-felt affection, you undermine the whole structure of love and marriage.'
The ... Read More
Rating: - A Little Confusing
Don't get me wrong this was a good book but I got confused with all the characters. It kind of jumped around from person to person and from the past to the present. It was interesting reading about the stories of each of the girls. It didn't really seem to follow a story line. The story finally began to come together at the great ending then just kind of stopped. Not the best book I've ever read but its worth reading anyway.
Rating:  - a choppy beginning- a magnificent end
there are so many girls at the may of teck club ( group housing for 'the girls of slender means)- with so many third person points of view, that one almost needs a chart to keep them straight- who's rationing what? who's dating whom?
a few of the girls stand out, but their tales are so intermingled, & their lives so distantly described that i had a hard time caring. but as a fan of muriel spark's work, i kept at it, and was well paid off by the poignant & shocking ending.
spark ... Read More
Rating: - Whatýs Wrong With This Picture?
I enjoyed settling down with this interesting vignette of the lives and times of a group of single women in a hostel in London in the spring of 1945. The war in Europe has ended, and these unconquerable gals have survived. They have lived through the blitz; survived on low rations; and have kept their social world going by sharing one fancy dress among themselves. Blaring radios, and shrieks of laughter permeate the old building that has been their home for the last several years. Their amorous adventures ... Read More
Rating: - Interesting but fragmentary
Muriel Spark recreates a world that has long since vanished in her depiction of the May of Teck club, a residence for young single women . The story takes place during the final year of World War II. There are frequent changes in viewpoint and time period which became distracting. It is clear that Spark is interested in the sound of words in all their richness and haphazardness, but the collaging strategy takes force from the final tragedy. Lurking behind the narrative are a cast of characters possessing ... Read More
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