Book Review: "The Driver's Seat" by Muriel Spark

“Her lips are slightly parted: she, whose lips are usually pressed together with the daily disapprovals of the accountants' office where she has worked continually, except for the months of illness, since she was 18, that is to say, for 16 years and some months. Her lips, when she does not speak or eat, are normally pressed together like the ruled line of a balance sheet, marked straight with her old-fashioned lipstick, a final and judjing mouth, a precision instrument.”

- The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

Now, I have to admit I am not well-versed on the novels of Muriel Spark even though I have read the book 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' and I have attempted to read 'The Driver's Seat' once before (though I didn't make it to the end because of the insufferability of the main character from the outset of the very first chapter. I still had my copy though and for the past couple of years I have thought about giving it another go considering that it is a very short book. I could tell that when I made an attempt before, my mind was not in the right place to read it and so, here we are today having completed the book and honestly - I am surprised that I liked it.

Lise has been in the same dead end job for a really long time and longs to go on holiday and be able to relax in a change of scenery. This is exactly what she does and upon her departure, we know a Lise who is not quite right in the head. She argues with salespeople and retail staff, she behaves erratically and she even meets an older man named Bill who can't stop talking about how 'Yin and Yang' are important in life and how we eat our food. Her clothes are unusually colourful, often making people stare at her and her intentions for the trip (though it states it is for her mental health) are kind of sketchy from the very outset of the novel.

Lise tells several people that she is looking for the "right man," whom she claims to recognize by instinct. This search seems obsessive and irrational, but it drives her actions and interactions throughout the story. Her fixation on finding this man becomes a central theme of the narrative.

She then meets a young and disturbed student named Richard which is really odd because Lise has gone to this new place looking for someone and as we know, this is the main plot of the whole book for some unknown reason. The reader is left thinking 'neither Bill nor Richard could possibly be those men she wanted to meet.' But, the novel is filled with surprises and seems to have an underlying joke that everyone is a little disturbed - even and especially Lise.

The climax of the book is hinted at (and even told to us) from the beginning of the novel and by the end you're kind of left in this stupor of wondering what the hell you just read. But when you really think about it this black comedy makes complete sense because it is a running joke from the very beginning of the book that there is something not quite right with everyone. The reader is left with that meaning kind of hanging in the air and though it is an abrupt conclusion, it does bring the book together in a way that I suppose, was the author's intention to make us realise that Lise meant to do this all along.

I won't tell you what actually happens at the end because it is slightly different to what you're told about it earlier on in the book. Context matters in this case and the ending, though bizzare, explains why context matters perfectly. I enjoyed this book because though I found it funny, I also found it to be a combination of meanings. One is Lise's banal life before her vacation, another is the fact she has created a narrative around herself because of her banal life, then she plays out that fantasy when on holiday. These things come together to make a seriously unpleasant woman but a twisted thriller of a novel packed with tragicomedy.