{"product_id":"bachelors","title":"Bachelors","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bachelors \u003c\/i\u003edisplays the best of Sparkian satire, placing her at the heart of a great literary tradition alongside Waugh and Trollope, Wilde and Wodehouse. It demands rediscovery.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''It''s easy to see why Waugh admired \u003ci\u003eThe Bachelors\u003c\/i\u003e. On one level, it is a blithely carnivorous satire in the Waugh mould. The bachelors of the title - almost the only men we meet in the narrative - are the thirty-something male barristers, teachers, journalists and museum attendants of a small patch of West London. They lead inturned, doddery, superannuated lives, pottering between grocers, coffee-houses, bedsits and the houses of their mothers and aunts. But the comedy here is serious in a way that Waugh''s satanically energetic comedies of misery rarely are . . . comedies of English manners have seldom been darker'' \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''My admiration for Spark''s contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème'' Ian Rankin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Muriel Spark''s novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive'' John Updike, \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57316273750398,"sku":"NW9781782117551","price":9.72,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781782117551.jpg?v=1778646677","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/products\/bachelors","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}