The Finishing School
From Muriel Spark, the grande dame of literary satire, comes this swift, deliciously witty tale of writerly ambition that recalls her beloved The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.College Sunrise is a somewhat louche and vaguely disreputable finishing school located, for now, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina, run the school as a way to support themselves while he works, somewhat falteringly, on his novel. Into Rowland's creative writing class comes seventeen-year-old Chris Wiley, a red-haired literary prodigy whose historical novel-in-progress, on Mary Queen of Scots, has already excited the interest of publishers. The inevitable result: keen envy, and a game of cat and mouse fraught with jealousy and attraction, both literary and sexual.
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Community Reviews
A quick, fun read. This was Muriel Spark's last book.
Rowland and Nina are a young married couple who have started a finishing school called College Sunrise, for rich parents to send their kids off to before university, to become "finished" ("Polished off?" as one young woman refers to it). It's become sort of a mobile college. They started out in Brussels, then moved it to Vienna, and now have set up in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Rowland teaches creative writing at the college. He's been working on a novel of his own for a while but has hit a block recently.
One of the students, Chris, 17, is a (somewhat cocky) whiz kid who is writing a novel of his own, a historical novel based on Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. He seems to be sailing through the writing and publishers and even movie directors have taken a great interest in this Wunderkind. Rowland is, of course, insanely jealous of Chris's self-confidence and apparent ease with himself and his writing. He becomes obsessed with him and even fantasizes about killing him.
The other students and characters seem to be just backdrop to these two, but there's all kinds of sleeping around going on (or is there?)to keep them all busy.
Little bit of an abrupt, disappointing ending, but otherwise lots of fun, subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, humor.
Rowland and Nina are a young married couple who have started a finishing school called College Sunrise, for rich parents to send their kids off to before university, to become "finished" ("Polished off?" as one young woman refers to it). It's become sort of a mobile college. They started out in Brussels, then moved it to Vienna, and now have set up in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Rowland teaches creative writing at the college. He's been working on a novel of his own for a while but has hit a block recently.
One of the students, Chris, 17, is a (somewhat cocky) whiz kid who is writing a novel of his own, a historical novel based on Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. He seems to be sailing through the writing and publishers and even movie directors have taken a great interest in this Wunderkind. Rowland is, of course, insanely jealous of Chris's self-confidence and apparent ease with himself and his writing. He becomes obsessed with him and even fantasizes about killing him.
The other students and characters seem to be just backdrop to these two, but there's all kinds of sleeping around going on (or is there?)to keep them all busy.
Little bit of an abrupt, disappointing ending, but otherwise lots of fun, subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, humor.
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