04.04.2025 (1): Concerned
Apr. 4th, 2025 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionI read Muriel Spark's Driver's Seat and what follows is full of spoilers: Gosh it has creeped me out and at the same time I empathize very much with Lise. In the end she didn't get her wish; that's what I'm very much torn about. All through the novel various men try violate her and try to and in the end one succeeds, whereas in her driven way she keeps saying, "No sex" and I wish she'd gotten her wish to die without having been violated. My read of her is that she was a hypochondriac (one identity among the slate that she throws out) and also that she was an ordinary woman who tried to live in her own way (but couldn't) and tried to die in her own way as well. This I think is the reason behind the title (other than the literal bit with Carlo). If women are to be violated then at least Lise gets to be violated according to her own wishes. Her life has always been dictated by other people; at least in her death she gets to dictate. Which is why I'm saddened that she didn't get her victory entire.
There's metafiction in here but I haven't read enough detective/mystery fiction to work it out. I did notice Spark's reluctance to enter into Lise's mind. Everything is couched in plausible questions. There is a bit in the middle where she tries to sort out her clothes. The descriptions are taken from the outside, and I think we as readers are supposed to be the unwitting audience to her spectacle. If so I am very much willing. The parted lips and Lise usually slitting them I thought was a very nice, very good clue, as was the dress (though maybe that's lost nowadays - thank goodness. But not really).
I think I'm inclined to construct Lise's interior self very sympathetically. I think most of her descriptions are her trying to see herself from the outside. Her description of her fate too, the 'four languages' part - I thought that was telling. She has multiple hangups and annoyances and she is not someone who is easy to empathize with at first, but she really is lonely and making it up as she goes along (mostly). I think, like most of us, Lise sees her own death walking towards her, but unlike most of us she hurries to meet it. Definitely a wonderful whydunnit.
There's metafiction in here but I haven't read enough detective/mystery fiction to work it out. I did notice Spark's reluctance to enter into Lise's mind. Everything is couched in plausible questions. There is a bit in the middle where she tries to sort out her clothes. The descriptions are taken from the outside, and I think we as readers are supposed to be the unwitting audience to her spectacle. If so I am very much willing. The parted lips and Lise usually slitting them I thought was a very nice, very good clue, as was the dress (though maybe that's lost nowadays - thank goodness. But not really).
I think I'm inclined to construct Lise's interior self very sympathetically. I think most of her descriptions are her trying to see herself from the outside. Her description of her fate too, the 'four languages' part - I thought that was telling. She has multiple hangups and annoyances and she is not someone who is easy to empathize with at first, but she really is lonely and making it up as she goes along (mostly). I think, like most of us, Lise sees her own death walking towards her, but unlike most of us she hurries to meet it. Definitely a wonderful whydunnit.
