Aiding and Abetting review

After finishing my summer reading project, I wanted something light and fun. What I really wanted to read was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, but since I’ll be reading that soon enough for book club, I decided instead to read another of her books, Aiding and Abetting.

Aiding and Abetting recreates the true story of Lord Lucan, an English earl who, in an attempt to murder his wife, killed his children’s nanny instead and only severely wounded his intended victim. “Lucky” Lucan was pursued by the police from the time of the murder (1974) to the time of his declared death (1999), and despite frequent Lucan sightings, he consistently eluded capture with the help of his “aiding and abetting” aristocratic friends. Spark takes the barebones of this case to form the background of her darkly comedic tale of guilt, connivance, and retribution.

The start of the book finds Lucan visiting a famous Parisian psychiatrist, Hildegard Wolf, whose unorthodox method of psychoanalysis involves talking about herself for several visits before she asks the patient a single question. Lucan visits her for psychiatric help, but also for money, since as he ages his friends are dying and funds are running short. Lucan knows Wolf’s secret, that she was formerly Beate Pappenheim, a fraudulent stigmatic who used her fake wounds to solicit money in exchange for prayers and whose police warrant is still active. A game of cat-and-mouse between the fugitive felon and fugitive fraud ensues. Complicating matters is Lucan’s double, Walker, whom Lucan hired in Mexico to mislead the police, but who now insists on getting a bigger cut of the “aiding” and who also starts seeing Dr. Wolf for psychiatric guidance. Spark further introduces readers to Joe (one of Lucan’s original “aid- and abetters”) and Lacey (the daughter of one of Lucan’s helpers), who follow Lucan’s trail in order to interview him for the book Lacey is writing.

Joe and Lacy are not the most interesting characters, but they provide the author a decent device for “interviewing” Lucan’s supporters. Most of Lucan’s contacts do not claim friendship with him, nor do they know why they helped him. They think it poor form that Lucan never stood trial, but they also almost unanimously believe in his innocence. (An interesting point here is they point out that Lucan didn’t succeed in killing his wife, in almost every case passing over the nanny’s death as unfortunate, but also inconsequential.) Even Joe and Lacey are unsure whether they would turn Lucan in if they found him, and the chase forms the circumstances necessary for their romance. In other words, the purpose of their pursuit becomes excitement and entertainment rather than justice or information.

And this seems to be part of Spark’s point. The particulars of the Lucan case are known by almost everyone in the book. He has a kind of celebrity because of his crime, and in a way those entertained by Lucan’s exploits are involved in the “aiding and abetting” themselves. Keeping newspaper clippings, monitoring the news, giving the case attention can be—and in the case of the people in this book, often is—a wish for Lucan to evade capture in order to prolong the entertainment. The reader, too, is implicated in this—without Lucan’s running, there would be no plot, no basis for the work of fiction being read. The characters are interesting only while they are doing, even though their activities are less than wholesome.

Aiding and Abetting is entertaining and even humorous, but not in a conventional way. Spark’s humor is more a humor of the gaps: what she isn’t saying is funnier than what she is saying, which illustrates her great gift of restraint. Behind her humor is a decidedly moral purpose; the evil and unrepentant are punished in a way Dante would approve of, and those not beyond repentance are left to their screaming consciences. I like Spark’s writing style, which is often described as sparse (an apt description). Her whole way of writing is filled with restraint, giving the reader only what is necessary. I enjoy this because it allows my imagination to run free within the boundaries of the story. Spark’s style fits especially well with the story of Lord Lucan, about whom few details are known after his initial escape.

I don’t think Aiding and Abetting is as good as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless, and it still has me thinking about its themes. I will definitely seek out Muriel Spark’s other books in the future.