Muriel Spark published ‘Memento Mori’ in 1959, two years before ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’.
The novel is about several old people whose earlier life paths have crossed in different ways.
Now, as they approach their final years, they begin to receive anonymous telephone calls. The caller sounds different to each, but always relays the same message: ‘Remember you must die.’
We never discover the identity of the prankster(s) – maybe it is Death itself!
There is also another prevailing theme: the making and changing of wills. One of the characters, Miss Pettigrew, is potentially the beneficiary of a contested will, and sets out to blackmail her way to the same position in another. A second character repeatedly alters her will, as others fall in and out of her favour.
Two of the old codgers enjoy an extended disagreement over an almost forgotten poet, Ernest Dowson, which sent me scurrying to read up on his tragically short and disappointed life.
Few of the characters are likeable, and several are distinctly unpleasant.
The novel ends with a roll call of death, fitting in one sense but somehow disappointing, given the intricacies of the preceding plot.
Still, ‘Memento Mori’ is a carefully crafted, skilfully written novel that deserves much wider recognition.
TD
July 2023
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