The book's structure is surprisingly uneven: six chapters in Part 1, the first four introducing new characters. Freddy, Barbara, the Cartwrights who are English expats, Abdul, a Palestinian Muslim. Part 2 is titled Passionate pilgrims and is all one piece, albeit longer.
Janet recommended the book, saying how wonderful it was; she laughed as she spoke and I thought she must have really enjoyed reading it. I looked for my own copy at home, but it must have belonged to my parents. I will have read it as a teenager, not understanding much.
The Mandelbaum Gate is full of humour and insight. The main character, Barbara Vaughan, is a recently converted Roman Catholic with an Anglican/Jewish background. It is 1961 and she is visiting Israel. The city of Jerusalem is divided between Israel and Jordan, the only connection between the two halves the narrow passage through the Mandelbaum Gate. The division in the city reflects other divisions: between Barbara’s loyalties, the Jewish versus the Anglican, between her family and the Catholic Church. There's also a division in time, a before and an after, in the life of Freddy Hamilton, a 50 year-old bland British Foreign Office employee who survived his childhood by smiling in the face of a tyrannical mother. He continues to smile charmingly rather than act, living in fear of other people's passions. His meeting with Barbara changes him in a radical way and he enjoys a brief interlude of pure happiness before his life becomes complicated by what is another theme of the book, a failure to pay attention to what is happening to people one is close to.
That theme has to do with noticing. Barbara’s cousin Miles and his wife fail to notice that she is conducting a torrid love affair under their roof with an archaeologist she met at a local dig. The people at the dig, the people in the pub, they all knew, they could see it. Miles and his wife were prevented from noticing by their preconceived ideas about her – to them, she was a spinster, a school-teacher with a virginal appearance. Besides, they considered the man she loved a social inferior, though he was widely respected as an expert in his field. Barbara feels ignored, unloved.
They dismiss lightly: Barbara's Anglican family likes to turn difficulties they encounter into anecdotes, to amuse their friends and family. A useful coping mechanism at times.
Freddy dismisses issues as ‘quite absurd’ whenever they might require reflection, a task he consistently avoids. For instance, when Barbara mentions that her Church may forbid her to marry a divorcee, he responds with ‘quite absurd...’. His comments are frequently offensive, as when he lazily expresses an antisemitic trope before realizing Barbara is part-Jewish. He leads a most unexamined life. He has no idea who he is.
Barbara recognizes his tendency to skim over the surface of life, and challenges him, "You blow neither hot nor cold." It is a pivotal moment for Freddy, a moment of transformation from one state of being to another, his own personal Mandelbaum Gate.
Nevertheless, he tragically dismisses the cries for help in the letters he receives from home. Those letters document the increasing hatred between his mother and her companion. No one intervenes and a murder occurs.
* * *
There are several delightful vignettes in the book, which bear the ring of truth: while Barbara visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we're privy to the thoughts of the three Franciscans who jealously guard the part of the church allocated to Roman Catholics. It's an hilarious aside, as they observe an English priest exceeding his allotted time for a mass with an unplanned sermon, a sermon replete with opinions the Franciscans deeply object to. The sermon itself is actually relevant to us readers who may not be RC.
Muriel Spark had a background in intelligence (from WWII) and her writing is informed by her knowledge: a story inserted into the narrative takes place in the cadre of Israeli vs Jordanian intelligence.The Israelis created a national water-carrier with giant pipes (a fact), which caused the Jordanians to worry, with some reason. Israel knew the Jordanians had planted a spy and wanted to identify him. Someone asks Freddy what the Israelis would do if they caught this person. He answers: "Mislead him.”
* * *
An aspect of Muriel Spark’s writing which I enjoyed was her ability to reproduce the fluent, understandable and imperfect English spoken by foreigners.
An old aunt from Eastern Europe describes her pickled cucumbers “I have made yesterday cucumbers in pickle, twenty. Thirty-six last week in the jars I have with vinegar made, cucumbers.”
The speech of Israeli guides, one of whom is originally Czech, the other Polish, is typically Israeli - confrontational, almost aggressive. Barbara explains to the guide how her father died: “The horse threw him. He landed in a ditch and died instantly.” The guide answers: “My father died also in a ditch. Shot by the SS.” Holocaust one-upmanship. He immediately moves on to “Why have you made yourself a Catholic to deny your Jewish blood?” His English does not stretch to the word 'converted'. The paranoia, the abhorrence of Christianity both ring true.
Freddy's hotel manager prefers to speak in the present tense: “Now I phone your office and tell them you are safe. Do you like some tea, coffee?” An abundance of pronouns renders his speech quite unclear: “”As I say to him, we can put you through to his room. He says, I been put through to his room…”
Abdul who is an educated Arab, says to Freddy: “Say a poem for me."
Each make different mistakes which help put you in the scene.
Finally a quote from Benny, who is Freddy's mother's companion and suffers from religious mania: "I have tried to bring home the Word of Jesus to her heart but the Devil and his Minions have got her in their bloody claws…”
There is much more. The story is eventful. Some reviewers decried the multitude of complications, but having lived in the Middle East and knowing Arabs, Jews and Christians, I think it's a pretty good portrayal of how things were then. I read the book three times in a row, discovering something new every time. Admittedly I was suffering from Covid and was isolated with nothing else to do. Still I think it's a great book.
(I presented this review to the book group today.)
