#ME MENTO MORI FULL#
#ME MENTO MORI TV#

Obviously, oblivion is the only mercy that nature or supernatural power has granted us? Who wants strangers to remind us of the fact that we get older, and that we are working full-time on fulfilling our lives, full-speed towards completion of our existence? The phone rings and disturbs the peace of mind of an elderly lady. I HAVE READ IT!Īnd to double check, I open the first page and read the scene I thought I remembered before I knew I had read the book. Exclamation marks, underlined sentences, random notes that don't make sense to me now.

#ME MENTO MORI FULL#

It is full of my idiosyncratic book conversation with myself. My newfound copy is yellowish, oldish, probably from a thrift store, and I open it at a random page. But it is a reason to delete Memento Mori from my current shopping bag. It is not proof enough, though, because I buy books and forget them for decades until I find them by accident after buying another copy of the same book. And disturbingly, it is even put in the right spot, next to the other Sparks I KNOW I have read, because I have reviewed them. And there, on a top shelf, I see a copy of the book. I move on to check my less reliable source of book memory - the labyrinth of my physical library, spread out over literally all livable space in my home.

Ha - I really haven't read Memento Mori yet, as it isn't shelved.īut why do I feel that I know how it starts and ends then? I checked my most reliable source of book memory - Goodreads - and felt confirmed.

Thinking I hadn't read it, I thought that was very odd. I almost ordered Memento Mori by my favourite sparkling lady, until I heard a voice inside me calling gently:Īs if a stranger had taken it upon himself to call me in the middle of my everyday business to tell my aging, unreliable brain what I shouldn't have forgotten, I repeatedly saw a scene from this novel popping up from nowhere in my mind. That is what I told myself while preparing a completely unnecessary book order earlier today (unnecessary because I have several lifetimes' worth of books at home already, and exquisite libraries around the corner as well, so I was really just giving in to an unreasonable addiction).

#ME MENTO MORI TV#

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, published in 1961, and considered her masterpiece, was made into a stage play, a TV series, and a film. Spark grew up in Edinburgh and worked as a department store secretary, writer for trade magazines, and literary editor before publishing her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957. These included a Doctor of the University degree (Honoris causa) from her alma mater, Heriot-Watt University in 1995 a Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris causa) from the American University of Paris in 2005 and Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, St Andrews and Strathclyde. Spark received eight honorary doctorates in her lifetime. In 2010, Spark was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize of 1970 for The Driver's Seat. In 1998, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for 'a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature'. She has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, in 1969 for The Public Image and in 1981 for Loitering with Intent. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993, in recognition of her services to literature. Spark received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1965 for The Mandelbaum Gate, the Ingersoll Foundation TS Eliot Award in 1992 and the David Cohen Prize in 1997. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of 'the 50 greatest British writers since 1945'.

Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was a prolific Scottish novelist, short story writer and poet whose darkly comedic voice made her one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century.

Me mento mori