Book Review: Territorial Rights was a puzzlement. The usual excellent Muriel Spark sentences, but put to no purpose. Funny in parts, occasionally interesting characters, some nice descriptions, Venice sounds great, but no narrative arc, no direction, no beginning and no end. It's as though Spark just kept typing hoping a plot would come along, a story would magically appear, she'd learn why she was typing. She tries to make it entertaining by placing a bunch of English eccentrics in Venice, with personal histories, secrets, and murder, but I couldn't see the reason for any of it. Territorial Rights is a book for Muriel Spark completists only. Don't make this your first Spark book, or probably even one of your first ten. Read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Drivers Seat, The Girls of Slender Means. After you're in double digits then you can take a chance on this one, because by then you'll have learned what you love about Spark (that is, if you do, of course). Then you can enjoy Territorial Rights for what it is, enjoy Spark's brilliant writing, without plot or meaning. If I ever thought, or Spark ever thought, that she could simply carry a book with her sentences, we've both been disabused. Not bad, not horrible, just not there. [2½★]
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