The Girls of Slender Means

Nadia May is an A-list voice performer. Her voice, while distinctly feminine, is supple yet strong, rich with some 25 years of audiobook narration experience. Mays has the ability to shift easily among characters, subtly lowering her voice or softening when a heavenly request it made. She is also deft with accents, affecting the broad vowels of a New Englander or traces of a brogue. Not one to opt for easy narrations she is well remembered for her renditions of such titles as Anna Karenina, Tales From Shakespeare, and Trilby. Her reading of The Girls Of Slender Means adds even more luster to her already sterling reputation as an audio performer. With it she gracefully inhabits the personas of young women in London immediately following World War II. They are all residents of a home called the May of Teck Club, a four story mansion now converted for their use. These are women who no longer live at home but are seeking "an occupation," hence the marvelous title The Girls Of Slender Means. Spark's novel is primarily the story of five girls, how life was for them during wartime and how it is years later when one of them hears of the death of Nicholas Farrington, a once aspiring poet known by all of the girls. Muriel Spark once said, "I don't claim that my novels are truth - I claim that they are fiction from which a kind of truth emerges." - an apt description of The Girls f Slender Means, which is well worth a listen. - Gail Cooke

Don't get me wrong this was a good book but I got confused with all the characters. It kind of jumped around from person to person and from the past to the present. It was interesting reading about the stories of each of the girls. It didn't really seem to follow a story line. The story finally began to come together at the great ending then just kind of stopped. Not the best book I've ever read but its worth reading anyway.

THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS evokes the inner workings of a "group" of women as delightfully as THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE. The difference here is that the "authority" of Miss Brodie from the first novel is missing, and the girls are a little more grown up; the world around them has grown grimmer--there's the blitz and the prospect of Labour victory...Spark always manages to create great entertainment out of a profound, humane, and sympathetic but iron-willed moral judgment, and THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS is no exception. Its particular merit is that it evokes a time and place in a nostalgic but unsentimental manner better than most of her works.

This is one of Muriel Spark's most deftly written novels, right up there with her best: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Comforters. The writing here glimmers with wit and polish. It is as if the smartiest, wittiest, greatest storyteller in your life were telling this to you over the best dinner of your life in a cafe in Nice; you've gone through two bottles of wine, the candles are dying and the staff is dying to go home---but you must hear the story to the end! And when you do, you smile all over. You are thrilled to have been told this devilish tale.

This has got to be one of the best novels ever, and practically anything pertaining to the mid- to late-20th century worth writing about is here. The consistent wit is a usual for Spark, but the warmth and even familiarity she shows for her (and with her) characters is rare. And just because it's not the size of War and Peace doesn't mean it lacks depth, meaning, power or insight into human nature. It has all that, and Dame Spark did it with elegance and style. Read it