The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark

First published: 1965

Type of work: Parody

Time of work: 1961

Locale: Israel and Jordan

Principal Characters:

• Freddy Hamilton, a middle-aged British consul in Israel
• Barbara Vaughan, an English visitor to Israel
• Harry Clegg, Barbara’s fiance, an archaeologist
• Ricky Rickward, the headmistress of the school in England at which Barbara taught
• Joe Ramdez, a Jordanian businessman
• Abdul Ramdez, his son, who lives in Israel
• Suzi Ramdez, Joe’s adventuresome daughter

The Novel

The Mandelbaum Gate—in some respects a parody of the popular novel of intrigue—is set in the troubled Middle East of 1961, indeed at the very time of the trial of Adolf Eichmann. The action surges back and forth between Israel and Jordan, countries which are archenemies. In this environment, only those individuals who scrupulously obey the rules or those who are clever enough to evade them can survive.

Freddy Hamilton, a diplomat, is aware of the dangers of travel back and forth between Israel and Jordan, especially for anyone with Jewish blood. Therefore, he attempts to dissuade Barbara Vaughan, an English schoolteacher, from her planned trip to Jordan to visit her fiance, Harry Clegg. Although Barbara is a Roman Catholic by faith, she is half-Jewish. Unaccustomed to the intrigue of this new environment and too stubborn to take seriously Freddy’s warnings, Barbara makes no secret of her background, and before she arrives in Jordan, the gossips and spies have sent word ahead of her.

Realizing that Barbara is in real danger—at best of arrest, at worst of execution in “accident” form—the cautious Freddy Hamilton sets out to find her. After he reappears at his hotel, however, Freddy discovers that two days are missing from his life. Gradually his memory returns. To his surprise, he learns that he descended in disguise upon the convent where Barbara was staying, garbed her as an Arab, and sent her on to complete her pilgrimage. When she came down with scarlet fever, Suzi Ramdez, the independent, adventuresome sister of Freddy’s tolerant friend Abdul Ramdez, hid her at a house owned by the mistress of Joe Ramdez, Abdul’s father. Meanwhile, Barbara’s headmistress, who had considered Barbara her possession in a relationship with sexual overtones, arrived in Jordan to break up the engagement and take Barbara back to England. Overcome by the same kind of madness which seemed to afflict Freddy, the headmistress, Ricky Rickward, became infatuated with Joe Ramdez and also appeared at the Ramdez house, which doubles as a house of prostitution and a center for spies. Although Barbara’s danger is real, the encounters and near misses at the Ramdez house are hilarious, including the detail which Freddy recalls last: the appearance there of a diplomat’s wife, who was obviously involved in the spy ring and whose presence explained mysterious leaks at the consulate. Finally, Freddy recovers his memory in time to foil the spies, and Barbara recovers her health to that she can return to the safety of Israel.

Involved with the central adventure-mystery plot are two relationships, one between Freddy and his domineering mother in England, one between Barbara and her non-Catholic fiance, Harry Clegg. Freddy is imprisoned by the emotional demands of his mother, who bombards him with complaints about her companion, while the companion just as bitterly compels his attention with her letters. After years of patience, Freddy tears up his letters to both women shortly before the two-day adventure. Even though his mother is killed by her companion, it is indicated that Freddy is never again enslaved, not even by the guilt one might have expected. Indeed, it is the news of his mother’s murder which enables him to remember the missing days and thus to be responsible for capturing the diplomatic spies.

Like Freddy, Barbara is imprisoned, strangely enough, by the rules of the faith which means so much to her. Because Harry has been divorced, Barbara cannot marry him with the blessing of the Church. This troubles her so much that she has seriously considered breaking the engagement, and while an appeal to Rome is pending, she has told him that she can no longer sleep with him. As a result of her dangerous and irrational journey through Jordan, Barbara becomes an independent person, willing even to disagree with the Church that she loves. Although she knows that it would cause her pain, she has decided to marry Harry, whatever the Church decrees. At this point, Providence takes a hand. The jealous headmistress produces a certificate indicating that Harry was reared a Catholic, but rather than making an annulment of his marriage impossible, as she had hoped, it invalidates that marriage, and Barbara can marry Harry with the blessing of the Church, after all.

Thus the “Via Dolorosa,” as one chapter is titled, representing the whole pilgrimage which both Freddy and Barbara make in Jordan, results in freeing both of them and in causing both of them to commit themselves to others, Freddy to Barbara, and Barbara to Harry. The way of sorrow and danger becomes the way of love and freedom.

The Characters

Muriel Spark reveals her characters not by the fragmented thoughts which approximate the human consciousness but rather by subtle, skillful, and carefully articulated analysis. Recalling his two-day escapade, for example, Freddy realized “more and more clearly as the years sifted past, that he had been neither a monster nor a fool, but had behaved rather well, and at least with style and courage.” The explanation of the consciousness in this rather old-fashioned, rational way means that the reader is far more certain about events and their effects than in many less coherent novels.

By writing clearly about her characters, Spark does not sacrifice complexity, and all of her major characters are complex. Barbara Vaughan is a devout Catholic, but she can distinguish between the essentials of the faith and the rules of the Church, particularly after her own Way of the Cross. In Jerusalem, she becomes even more aware of the split identity which troubled her throughout her childhood—half Jewish, half sporting English gentry. Although her conversion to Roman Catholicism would seem to have settled her confusion, as her acquaintances in Jerusalem point out, she is still half-Jewish by blood, whatever her faith, and her engagement to a non-Catholic further complicates the issue of identity. While at times Barbara insists on ignoring these problems, as when she rashly enters Jordan after unwisely admitting her Jewish blood, the courage with which she at last faces them and the honesty with which she finally accepts the necessity for paradox in life make her a fascinating character.

Pleasant, seemingly weak Freddy Hamilton, whose primary interest lies in the verses which he will write to please each hostess who entertains him, is developed as a more complex character than he had appeared to be, a person who has repressed his conflicts by embracing what he calls moderation. To him, any extremes are absurd. It is clear, however, that Barbara’s earlier rebuke has challenged his easy philosophy, for at a party in Jordan, he quotes her biblical admonition, “you blow neither hot nor cold and I will spew thee out of my mouth.” It is consistent with Muriel Spark’s love of paradox that Freddy abandons his moderation for a kind of madness, while Barbara tempers her legalistic Catholicism with independence of thought.

Among the most interesting of Spark’s characters are the Arabs, such as Joe and Abdul Ramdez, who delight in intrigue both for its own sake and for profit. To them, Barbara’s concern with principles is suspicious, for it is not possible that one would perform any act because of an abstraction. If Barbara is a spy, then her conduct has an acceptable explanation. Abdul and his sister Suzi Ramdez are also interesting because they reject the.fanaticism which has resulted in so many deaths, so much destruction. The Israeli guide, Mendel Ephraim, is similarly pragmatic, preferring to show Barbara the modern buildings which truly represent Israel, rather than the ruins and shrines which her religious sensibility associates with the Holy Land. Through such perceptive individual portraits, Spark suggests some hope for the Middle East, if the young ever become able to think of their futures instead of a past full of hatred. Because even these minor characters are treated as complex persons, and because Spark refuses to suggest easy answers, her novel has the ring of reality.

Critical Context

In all of her novels, Muriel Spark is preoccupied with man’s relationship to God, but with The Mandelbaum Gate her emphasis changed. After she became a Roman Catholic in 1954, she emphasized the duality between body and soul, this world and the next, generally suggesting that a Catholic could escape from his anguished conflicts only by accepting the Church’s solutions, which generally demanded an offering up of something or of someone.

In The Mandelbaum Gate, the answer is not so easy, nor is the easy answer necessarily desirable. When Barbara tells Freddy, “You were never responsible for me; I’m responsible for myself,” she is emphasizing an individualism which may involve disagreement with the Church. Barbara’s own decision to marry Harry, regardless of whether the Church approves, is the result of her own spiritual development, and the fact that the certificate which frees Harry to marry her is a forgery, important only because the Church agrees to accept it, clearly points out the contrast between legalism and real spirituality. Obviously, God has worked in mysterious ways to join the two lovers, whatever barriers man and his priests may have devised. Just as obviously, Muriel Spark’s perception of man’s relationship to God has deepened since her initial conversion. No less a Catholic, she is more profoundly religious.

Bibliography

Kemp, Peter. Muriel Spark, 1974.

Malkoff, Karl. Muriel Spark, 1968.

Massie, Alan. Muriel Spark, 1979.

Whittaker, Ruth. The Faith and Fiction of Muriel Spark, 1982.