Robinson – Muriel Spark (1958)

Well. #ReadingMuriel2018 continues apace and although there is no need to read more than one book every two months I shall be reading more than that, during this first phase certainly.

With The Comforters, I felt that Muriel Spark really set out her stall so to speak, her debut novel giving us a real taste of what was to come. However, with her second novel Robinson, she shows we might not want to be too quick to pigeon hole her work. As if a writer like Muriel Spark could ever be accurately pigeon holed anyway.

There are layers to Robinson, which make the whole – reasonably slight – novel, deceptively complex. However, it is very readable and gloriously compelling. In this novel, Spark plays homage to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, often said to have been the first novel. However, as Candia McWilliam points out in her introduction to my Polygon edition, we can also be reminded of another island Robinson – the Swiss Family Robinson (they made me want a tree house). Muriel Spark’s son was called Robin – he lived with her parents and the two appear to have spent most of his life estranged. Layers, of fascinating possibilities to what might have inspired or driven Muriel Spark to write this extraordinary novel.

Religion plays a big part, Spark’s conversion to Catholicism which was in such evidence in The Comforters is present here too in the character of January Marlow, and in the arguments and discussions between her and other characters.
The plot premise is what made me want to read the book – which of us hasn’t wondered about being marooned on a remote island? (ok just me then).

January Marlow, a young widow, has been sent to research a group of islands, and on a flight from the Azores the plane she is on crashes on a tiny, isolated island in the North Atlantic. January is one of just three survivors; Jimmie Waterford and Tom Wells, are her fellow survivors.

“We were a thousand miles from anywhere. I think the effects of the concussion were still upon me when I got up, the fourth morning after the crash. It was some time before I took in the details of Robinson’s establishment, and not till a week later that I began to wonder at his curious isolation.”

January comes to, finding herself attended by a man named Miles Mary Robinson, on a remote island also called Robinson after its owner – with a ping-pong playing cat, and a young boy named Miguel. Miguel is Robinson’s adopted son, the offspring of one of the pomegranate men who come to the island every few months, who Robinson took on after his natural father died. January has a young son at home, who she realises, will believe her to be dead. She records her experiences in a note book journal given to her by Robinson, with the instruction to write the facts.

“To teach a cat to play ping-pong you have first to win the confidence and approval of the cat. Bluebell was the second cat I had undertaken to teach; I found her more amenable than the first, which had been a male.
Ping-pong with a cat is a simplified and more individualistic form of the proper game. You play it close to the ground, and you imagine the net.”

Soon January meets Jimmie Waterford and Tom Wells, the latter a man still recovering from his injuries, she takes an instant dislike to, Jimmie she recognises from the plane. Robinson tells them they have no way of communicating with the rest of the world, and they will have to sit tight till the pomegranate men arrive in three months’ time. Robinson advises January not to waste time staring out to sea hoping to see a boat – that there won’t be any boats coming their way. In flashback we start to learn something of January and her past, she has begun to see parallels in the personalities of her fellow island inhabitants and her two brothers-in-law back in London.

Robinson has a nineteenth century house in a Spanish style, within sight of a lake. He boasts a well-stocked library – containing many uncut first editions – and has provisions to last till his friends the pomegranate men come again. He and Miguel know the small, man shaped island inside and out – and Miguel particularly proves himself a useful guide. However, Robinson strongly objects to January’s Catholicism and it soon becomes a point of conflict between them as he forbids her from teaching Miguel about the rosary.

Dutchman; Jimmie Waterford, with whom January allies herself – turns out to be related to Robinson, he was on his way to the island anyway – sent by members of the family to persuade him home, to take charge of the family business. Tom Wells is a bit of dubious character, a seller of charms, he runs a funny little magazine, and avoids helping around the island whenever he can. Quick to dish out the snide remarks, which make January feel uncomfortable, there is something quite unlikable about him. While the talkative, Jimmie with his eccentric way of speaking, is a breath of fresh air by comparison.

“In the evenings, however, we did not bicker quite so much. The evening after turning out the storehouse, when we were settled in Robinson’s room, some drinking rum, some brandy, we were tired and relaxed with each other so far as to speculate how it would be when were rescued, how surprised everyone would be.”

Tensions rise between the inhabitants, the weeks before that expected boat stretch out before them. Things take a darker turn when Robinson disappears, no trace of him can be found, but there is a trail of blood all over the island, and poor Miguel is utterly inconsolable. Each of the plane survivors begin to suspect one of the others of being a murderer. With everyone wondering about everybody else’s motivations, the pomegranate men and their boat seem further away than ever. Who – if anyone – can be trusted – and what happened to Robinson?

This is a rollicking good read, proof should it be needed (it isn’t) that a page turner and a literary novel are not mutually exclusive. Honestly, I am going to enjoy reading more by Muriel Spark this year. There is something about her quirkiness and slight darkness that appeals to me.