The Bachelors

Muriel Spark's The Bachelors is an exploration of the legitimacy of bachelorhood and the relationship between spiritualism and Catholicism, all focused around the most sympathetic and thoughtful character, Ronald, an epileptic and a bachelor.

While the book is called, The Bachelors, it is not, as you might expect, without its women. The women in the book, like the men, are all single--windows and unmarried women, one pregnant. The women are, without exception, taken in by the men--Elsie is taken in by a priest she admires who turns out to be a fraud; Alice is taken in by a real spiritualist who defrauds widows; Mrs. Flowers is taken in by Alice's spiritualist. And the list goes on.

The end of the novel is a twist. Spark sets you up for one thing and gives you another at the very end. She sets you up to approve of bachelorhood, but at the end suggests, instead, marriage: Ronald calls bachelors (including himself) "fruitless souls, crumbling tinder." He writes of bachelors: "it is all demonology and to do with creatures of the air, and there are others besides ourselves, he thought, who lie in their beds like happy countries that have no history. Others ferment in prison; some rot, maimed; some lean over the banisters of presbyteries to see if anyone is going to answer the telephone."

Here, Ronald is comparing bachelors to the spiritualists, whom he contrasts to Catholics. He sees spiritualists as eschewing the body and Catholicism as embracing it. Bachelors, like spiritualists, are disconnected creatures of the air. In fact, Ronald's epileptic fits act as a neat parallel to the trances of the spiritualists.

However, this apparent turn at the end of the book is not the whole truth--throughout the novel, Spark maintains that both spiritualism and Catholicism contain some truth. She points out the errors of spiritualism, but affirms the truth of the trances and of the communications from the other world. In the same way, in Ronald, we see bachelorhood as a legitimate vocation, as long as it is celibate bachelorhood (we see many examples throughout the novel of non-celibate bachelors). Here is a conversation between Ronald and his friend, Matthew, in which Ronald chastens Matthew's idealism:

"'It's the duty of us all to marry,' Matthew said. 'Isn't it? There are two callings, Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony, and one must choose.'
'Must one? Ronald said. 'It seems evident to me that there's no compulsion to make a choice. You are talking about life. It isn't a play.'
'I'm only repeating the teaching of the Church,' Matthew said.
'It isn't official doctrine,' Ronald said. 'There's no moral law against being simply a bachelor. Don't be so excessive.'
'One can't go on sleeping with girls and going to confession.'
'That's a different question,' Ronald said. 'That's sex: we were talking of marriage. You want your sex and you don't want to marry. You never get all you want in life.'"

Ronald's bachelorhood, like his epilepsy, isn't exactly something he chose, but something that was forced on him, and which he accepted. For instance, Ronald was interested in the priesthood, but his epilepsy prevented this. Spark writes from Ronald's perspective:

"The priesthood: closed to me. Yes, said his friends, that's out; and, said his theological counselors, it never would have been any good in any case, you never had a vocation.
'How do you know?'
'Because, in the event, you can't be a priest.'
'That's the sort of retrospective logic that makes us Catholics distrusted.'
'A vocation to the priesthood is the will of God. Nothing can change God's will. You are an epileptic. No epileptic can be a priest. Ergo you never had a vocation. But you can do something else.'"

And, finally, another great exchange (and quite gutsy, I'd say, coming as it did from a recent convert to Catholicism):

Matthew: "Well, as a Catholic how do you feel about--'
Ronald turned on him in a huge attack of irritation. 'As a Catholic I loathe all other Catholics.'
'I can well understand it. Don't shout, for goodness' sake--' Matthew said.
'And I can't bear the Irish.'
'I won't stand for that,' Matthew said.
'Don't ask me,' Ronald shouted, 'how I feel about things as a Catholic. To me, being a Catholic is part of my human existence. I don't feel one way as a human being and another as a Catholic.'"


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