Iris Murdoch Books

One of the best books by one of the best novelists of the 20th century. The story of the heinously bitter and unreliable Bradley Pearson is rich with complexity of character and situation. Between the bitterness and the self-justification, answers to the questions about "what really happened" become almost unknowable- the only "truth" in the book is emotional truth, which rings from every sentence. I want to reread the book now because once I understood what the main text really "was" I felt like I needed to go back and look at it all again in a completely different light

Try this hypothesis: the Black Prince's several authors -- Bradley Pearson plus the others who offer commentaries at the end of his work -- are all Bradley, writing as separate personalities of a full-blown psychotic.

Under this hypothesis, the back-story of the novel would be that Bradley's personality was too fragile to sustain even the relatively mundane life he had built for himself. That life falls apart before the action of the novel starts: his well-adjusted wife leaves him, he retires from an orderly job at a relatively young age, he feels blocked in his attempts at writing, and he is traumatized over the approaching end of his sex life by a disappointment with a much younger woman. Under the impact of these blows, Bradley's personality cracks, and his new, multiple personality sets about doing what Bradley couldn't: writing.

The novel itself -- the book that you and I read -- is what the psychotic Bradley writes. As a psychotic, he obviously can't interpret the back-story that led to his insanity: he can tell us that he lost his job and wife, etc., but he can't tell us why.

Nonetheless, in his novel he starts sketching his friends and family. With his psyche out of control, however, these personages rapidly fall out of character and start acting out Bradley's conscious and unconscious wishes, sometimes to the embarrassment of this still reserved man.

Nonetheless, Bradley is happier and more in control in his new world -- a world of which he is, after all, the author. So, he ultimately kills off his old self by writing about the murder of his alter ego, Arnold Baffin, a real writer who Bradley envies. (Although the narrative initially portrays Bradley as only having discovered Arnold's body, Bradley subsequently accepts responsibility for the murder when prosecutors show that he is the only logical perpetrator. Perhaps in the back-story to the novel, Bradley actually did kill Arnold as his first act of full schizophrenia.)

Having killed himself off, Bradley then takes up full-time residence in the fictionalized personalities that his writer-self has adapted from real life, and he starts writing commentaries from their points of view on what he has just finished writing as Bradley. He ends his days in the prison of his own mind, and possibly in the real prison he writes about.

The clues that lead to this hypothesis are both external and internal. Externally, there are the absurd, self-incriminating commentaries that end the novel and that provide the Fowles-like multiple perspectives on the narrative facts.

Internally, I couldn't help feeling that all the characters speak with Bradley's voice. His skill as a writer differentiates the characters' external traits, but somehow they all become philosophers using Bradley's own erudite language to unravel the central puzzles of Bradley's own life. Too much revolves around him.

Supposing that something like the above hypothesis is right, then Murdoch's task was, in a way, easy: she just had to put herself in the place of a mad ventriloquist -- Bradley. This should be no great trick for an experienced novelist! Easy or not, she pulled it off, or something much like it.

Just adding to the plethora of reviews and putting in my two or three cents. Dame Iris is said to have possessed a prodigious and heavy intellect. And one can see, in reading her works, that this is very true. She is able to see into all the various emotional responses of myriad characters, and to do so faultlessly. Yes, we say, this is true! This is the way he would think and act (or the way I would think and act.) She is mercilessly honest in her descriptions, whether they be of thoughts or actions. And I found the book very humorous. Our hero, Bradley, is himself a humorous character, so serious and caught up in himself. He is a buffoon who constantly makes the wrong choices, yet intellectualizes everything and rationalizes everything to suit himself. I think this is quite an amazing book. As one reviewer who didn't like the book remarked, it is a farce. And yes, it is a farce. But there are nonetheless deep truths running around in here. Dame Iris had this incredible ability to see through people, to put herself in their places and understand just what they would do in any given circumstance. Her characters are so impeccably drawn that we know them utterly.
To be able to weave a good story is one thing, that makes a good story-teller. To be able to create characters which live and breathe is yet another thing, and many writers base their works on this alone. But to be able to write impeccably precise prose , create living characters, tell a great story, and have a moral imperative is what makes great literature.
The Black Prince is worth a read. This is great literature, and a whole lot easier than all those Russian guys.

The Black Prince is a curious piece of work. It is completely fiction, but it uses this device in that the "publisher" is a friend of the "narrator" who has written most of the book. There are epilogues by other characters in the story and by the publisher himself at the end.

Now about 90% of the book is "written" by the narrator, who obviously is a flawed man. He is immature, pompous, selfish, and probably a little mad. And on top of it, he is a flawed writer as well. He has longwinded asides about everything under the sun, and rationalizes and over-explains all his behaviour to the nth degree. Now come to think of it, I'm sure Iris Murdoch intended this to be so, ie. she intends the reader to figure out that the narrator is a flawed and pompous man and writer. But my question is, does that make a good book? It brings to mind the old one-liner: if a book that teaches failure does badly, is it a success?

If the author makes the narrator a bad person, well and good, but when he is made a bad writer as well, one must howl something is amiss. This is really why the book did not work for me: I thought Murdoch's device, although very original, was snobbish and intellectual. At some point I had to stop putting up with it and say "narrator = writer => Murdoch = pompous + flawed".

Now I felt Murdoch does have mastery over language and characters, so perhaps another book of hers might be really good (this was my first Murdoch). "The Black Prince" though, I thought was all very good in maybe a creative writing classroom, but not out of it.

This is a thoughtful, difficult novel that explores the ambiguities of human character and the complex relationship between art and passion. Dame Iris Murdoch (1919 --1999) was both a philosopher and a prolific novelist. She wrote "The Black Prince" in 1973. A subsequent novel, "The Sea, The Sea" received the Booker Prize.

The book revolves around several complex characters. The hero is an author, and retired tax inspector, Bradley Pearson, age 58 at the time most of the action of the book takes place. He has published only sparingly but prides himself as a serious author. Most of the story is told by Bradley.

Bradley has long been divorced, but his ex-wife Christian is a major character in the book, as she reenters Bradley's life after the death of her second husband. Christian's brother, Francis Marloe, is a failed physician who offers advice and assistance, of a mixed quality, to Bradley during the story. Bradley is a long-term friend of the Baffin family, which includes Arnold, a highly successful writer of fiction, his wife Rachael, and their 20-year old daughter Julian. The story revolves around the 58-year old Bradley's love and passion for the 20-year old Julian. As the story unfolds Bradley's sister, Pricilla, is leaving her husband and comes to Bradley for emotional support and assistance. Bradley is put to the test about how he will respond to his sister.

The other major character in Murdoch's novel is an editor, "P.A. Loxias', who becomes Bradley's friend and the editor of Bradley's manuscript that Bradley wrote recounting his love affair with young Julian. The manuscript forms the body of the book. Bradley wrote the book after the fact, while in prison for a crime he did not commit. Loxias both introduces and closes the book, while Christian, Rachael, and Julian get brief opportunities to write for themselves and to comment upon Bradley's manuscript. This "Penguin Classics" reprint of the book also includes an introduction by the noted philosopher Martha Nussbaum which is unusually detailed and, perhaps, could be read as yet another editorial comment on Bradley's story that might well have been part of Murdoch's text.

The story is full of ambiguity, vacillation in its characters, and violence and thus is almost a retelling of Hamlet -- Shakespeare's play that figures prominently in this book. Another main influence on the book is Plato, particularly his great dialogue "Phaedrus" which explores the relationship between art, erotic love, and rhetoric, as this novel does as well. It is always good to be reminded of and to think about Plato. A third, less obvious influence, I think is Buddhism. The influence of Buddhist thought on Murdoch is explicit in her novel "The Sea, The Sea" but it is here as well. The book can almost be read as an illustration of the three basic traits of existence as developed in Buddhist thought: suffering (dukka), change, and egolessness. Bradley and the other characters struggle to see the world and other people clearly but are prevented from doing so by their own passions and self-concepts.
Bradley achieves a Buddhist-like detachment near the end as he reflects upon his experiences.

In reading the book, I found it helpful to distinguish clearly between the body of the story that Bradley recounts and the time that he wrote it, some years afterwards, while left alone with himself to reflect. Bradley was swept with passion for a relationship that could not have lasted, that he did not fully understand, and that lead to tragedy for many people. Yet this passion helped him, in the final analysis, attain a degree of peace and understanding. He was able to tell the truth in writing his story and to present himself, terrible warts and all. Love lead to great human sorrow for Bradly, but it also lead to his ability to present his experience in the form of art and to reflect upon it dispassionately.

Portions of this book are rather wordy and inner directed. It needs to be read carefully. But I found it an inspiring treatment of the nature of human erotic passion and its force for life. The book will appeal to readers willing to reflect and to explore themselves.

I've read three Iris Murdoch novels and this is hands down the worst. The other two (The Nice and the Good, A Fairly Honourable Defeat) are very good indeed, but this one's tedious, over the top, and thoroughly inconsequential.

If there's meant to be a point, it seems to revolve around an abandoned wife presented as a Christ-like figure, patiently enduring martyrdom and inspiring the adoration of various humble devotees in the Wild Highlands. This works well if you can envision Christ as a simpering sado-masochist, alternating emotional seduction and subsequent betrayal of innocents with trembling submission to uber-abusers. Personally, I have trouble finding a resemblance to Christ in anyone so trifling and so vicious.

The other principal characters are almost equally preposterous. As the story opens, Miss Highland Thang is attended by the New Girl - a gullible companion / servant ripe for the psychological rack & thumbscrews - as well as her immediate predecessor in victimhood, a thoroughly beaten and bedazzled Boy, and the handsome, boy-raping Manservant who varies his recreational menu with the sexual taunting of whatever woman happens to be sublimating in the immediate vicinity. Waiting in the wings are other assorted neighborhood folk in a state of more or less chronic muddleheadedness.

The faintest rumor of the impending return of the demonic, wifebeating Dark Lord from across the deep, deep ocean throws all of these fine people into a Major Tizzy.

The thing runs on and on, and stuff happens, but it's all quite stupid, implausible, and ultimately meaningless. I guess that makes this an example of nihilist literature. It's certainly boring enough to qualify.

Iris Murdoch is very clever. She takes the format of the traditional gothic mystery novel, full of romantic fools and dark sinisister characters and weaves a tale that is as rich as a Renaissance tapestry with hidden spiders.

First, I would like to comment on the style of writing exemplified in this book. Ms. Murdoch is not of the school of minimal writing in which intentions and thoughts are discerned from actions and detail, which is the forte of Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy. Rather, she spends enormous amounts of the book exploring the inner thoughts and emotions of the characters, in particular the thoughts, impressions, and emotions of the young governess, Marian Taylor, and the civil servant, Effingham Cooper. However the book is not entirely devoted to in-depth psychological analysis of the characters. There are very fine passages where Ms. Murdoch describes the ever changing sea and cliffs and landscape in which the human characters interact. The sea is described with every color possible, from golden fire, to silvery smoky blue-grey, to purples and azure. Where sea meets shore she once describes as the swirl of black ink in cream. The finest writing in the novel is the chapter where Effingham Cooper walks into the bog and soon finds himself sinking slowly into the goo with an inability to pull his legs free from the mucky suction.

Ms. Murdoch has also constructed a geometric, classically proportioned plot, reminding me of the carefully constructed relationship structures of the works of Thomas Hardy. There are two grand houses in the remote countryside, that are within sight of each other. In one house there are three jailers who surround the real Hannah Crean-Smith, the beautiful fairy queen red haired alcoholic adulturous murderous pivotal character of the book. She is held captive by an overpowering masculine gay man, Gerald Scottow; his young subservient masochistic lover, Jamesie Evercreech; and Jamesie's vampirish lesbian sister, Violet Evercreech. The Evercreechs are distant cousins of Hannah and thus in line to inherit her wealth, giving them more motivation to be her jailers. This triangle surrounds the real physical Hannah.

In the other country manor lives Dr. Max Lejour, the philosophy professor and expert on Plato, his big-bonned botanist daughter, Alice; and his poet underachiving son, Pip. This triangle of characters tend to respond to an abstract and distant Hannah, on whom they project a range of emotions and thoughts. Pip was her young lover until discovered by Hannah's cousin-husband Peter Crean-Smith. He gazes toward her house with binoculars trying to see her, while spending his time fishing and writing poetry. Max, who has become reclusive to finish his great tome on Plato, sees her solitude and imprisonment through his own choice to become reclusive to a greater force than his own self interests. Alice, a thwarted romantic, suffers the lack of a lover and thus projects her loneliness onto Hannah.

Into this stable structure of 2 triangles, Murdoch inserts a triangle that serves as a catalyst for change. Miss Taylor has been hired to be Hannah's lady companion and she gradually learns the full story of Hannah's imprisonment. Effingham Cooper, an amazing egotist, comes to see himself as in love with Hannah and the prince that will save the sleeping beauty. Denis Nolan is the Celtic elfish man who worships Hannah as if she were the fairly queen and provides the information on which Marian Taylor and Effingham Cooper construct their rescue plot.

Iris Murdoch was a philosophy professior in addition to her outstanding career as a novelist. Philosophy gently emerges in two wonderful passages. In one passage she describes Ate, teh Greek concept regarding the ability of those in power to direct pain downward through the hierarchy or power structure. Another wonderful quote is from Aeschylus, "Zeus, who leads men into the ways of understanding, has established the rule that we must learn by suffering. As sad care, with memories of pain, comes dropping upon the heart in sleep, so even against our will does wisdom come upon us." Like Nietzche, Murdoch expresses the concept that human learning and knowledge do not make wisdom for learning, like mundane human life, is soon washed clean from the memory. Wisdom on the other hand comes only from painful experiences that can not be wiped clean from memory. Knowledge can be sought actively, but wisdom, since it is the product of painful experiences, comes to us involuntarily.

Like any gothic mystery, this one involves nieve characters who begin to put the puzzle pieces together to understand the mystery and then to become actors to resolve the tension or conflict. In this novel however, this traditional device becomes a tool for Murdoch to explore the fragility of human emotions and the ability to understand our own motivations and projections.

In keeping with her geometric structure of human relationships, Murdoch resolves the tensions and the plot with two murders and two suicides and five escapes from the bondage of Hannah's romantic imprisonment. Forthy five years have passed since this novel was first published and it retains the ability to entertain as we read a story of romantic images and archtypes projected upon the other players in the world by knowledgeable but all too fragile and self-absorbed human beings.

I am a newcomer to the works of Iris Murdoch and I find her style enthralling. The title and cover description are misleading; this work is not metaphysical or etherial. It is about relationships and emotion.
Very enjoyable

The Unicorn reads easily, with a plot that the average reader can outline and follow: a young woman is hired as a governess to a remote, mysterious household on the English coastline -- Murdoch did have an enormous fascination with the ocean and the coast -- only to discover that there are no children to teach, but rather she has been secured to keep a young married woman, Hannah, company.

As the story progresses it is clear that Hannah is an extraordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. There are all the elements of a satisfying mystery novel -- deep dark secrets, rain and thunder, nighttime walks through the bog, odd personalities, spooky happenings.

But of course, it's a Murdoch novel, and that means a hefty undercurrent of psychological analysis, the fallibility of humans, the disastrous prognosis of sin, accidents of fate, and all the convoluted personality quirks Murdoch loved to inflict upon her characters. She gives the reader a full course meal of philosophical, theological and psychological food for thought all the while maintaining an entertaining story line and engaging characters.

Iris Murdoch's THE UNICORN is one of her more unusual experiments, an attempt to take the elements of Gothic fiction (including a governess hired to work at a lonely cliffside manor in the middle of nowhere) and add to them a serious philosophical underpinning. Unfortunately, it sounds much better than it reads. There are many terrific elements to this work, including a strikingly unusual setting on the West Coast of Ireland between the Cliffs of Moher and the Morren (here called "the Scarren"), and there is a wonderfully creepy scene when one of the central characters becomes lost at night and begins slowly to sink into a bog, sparking off a marvelous existential crisis. But you get the sense here that Murdoch is not in full control of her story, and far too many events are told to characters by other characters in retrospect, and far too much depends on hatching wild plans not fully fleshed out and on characters acting against their own best interests because they are inexplicably compelled by someone else's personality. Worst of all,one of the characters is a philosopher working on a book on Plato that is painfully relevant to the events of the novel (you feel as if Murdoch doesn't trust you to figure out her philosophical concepts behind the story on your own).

This book is half soap-opera and half occult-murder-mystery. I genuinly enjoyed this book.

But... That's not what this review is really about! This review involves some soap-operatic (is that a word?) mystery of it's own; you are possibly reading this review as part of a wild goose-chase. Perhaps, looking for an electronic address of some kind, eh?

If you concatenate my first name with the name of the animal you are chasing (including no capitalization and no spaces) you will have the address you are seeking.

The host of this address (the part after the "at" symbol) is closely related to a search engine that was named in honor of a very large number. More precisely, the name of the host starts with a "g" and ends with a "mail" (and there's nothing in between).

This book has it all.

John Ducane, a man both nice and good, navigates through a languid swirl of blackmail, love, black magic, and lust, in the course of his investigation of an apparent suicide in a government office. As he goes about this quest, the mundane is juxtaposed against the uncanny, and the reader is delightfully held in thrall.

Murdoch describes a natural world that shimmers with something quite beyond the natural:

"The front door was wide open, framing distant cuckoo calls, while beyond the weedy gravel drive, beyond the clipped descending lawn and the erect hedge of raspberry-and-creamy spiraea, rose up the sea, a silvery blue, too thin and transparent to be called metallic, a texture as of skin-deep silver paper, rising up and merging at some indeterminate point with the pallid glittering blue of the midsummer sky. There was something of evening already in the powdery goldness of the sun and the ethereal thinness of the sea".

Meanwhile an intricate relational dance involving characters at once common and exotic plays itself out as the investigation unfolds. Everyone is captivated by desire, everyone is in need of salvation, and so the dance continues.

In the end redemption comes, perhaps a tad too tidily, with a happy ending in some ways too good to be true. But in every other aspect this is an excellent book, and one that can be enjoyed on many different levels.

Murdoch explores how people's actions are driven by their self-images and personal mythologies. The vanities, fears or ambitions that dominate the way our lives unfold vary all over the place - from the need of the protagonist to "think well of himself," to the craving for love, the desire to serve humbly, or the need to forget something awful. Murdoch lets these motivations play out through her plots, which are really extravagant thought experiments. She focuses in particular on our secrets, the various reasons we have for hiding them, and the ways in which we slip into self indulgence and self-justification.

Some may find this approach a bit artificial and intellectual, but I felt that although the situations might be somewhat contrived, the characters' responses and actions rang true. I found the book very readable, and it met my main criterion for a novel - it taught me something new about why people act the way they do.

I will do by best to convey in words how wonderful is this novel. This is the first work by Iris Murdoch that I have read, and I am fascinated. Her style of writing flows simply and beautifully, like a slow, undulating melody that one never wants to end. I became completely absorbed in the characters and the plot, with its unexpected twists and complex layerings of character relationships. Her character descriptions sometimes border on psychological analyses, but they are not boring nor are they misplaced. In short, I REALLY liked it.

This is my first (and possibly last) Iris Murdoch novel. Although I'm not a fan of the mystery genre, I was looking forward to reading it. The central plot involving the suicide or possible murder of a civil servant involved in black magic is surpisingly uninteresting, the pace plodding and the 'revelation' predictable. The periphary characters are heavy-handed from the all too free-spirited civil servant couple to the all too anguished Dachau survivor. The only sub-plot of interest involves an adolescent crush which also gives the book its rare suspense. The coincidentals of the plot are absurd to the point of being Dickensian and the story ties up altogether too neatly (and happily) although I did enjoy the final irony of the love-sick teenagers. I'll stick to Cormac McCarthy for my debate on good, evil and the nature of man

This is the first time I read a work from Iris Murdoch. Years ago I read one of her earlier books and was not impressed, but after years of living and reading I decided to try her again. Well - I'm hooked.
Murdoch describes her characters in a most detailed way with their human foibles, and their small town gossip The scenes at the sea side are marvellous. This writer knows how to evoke atmosphere, how to create believable characters who are flawed and still so (humanly) endearing.
Her style is simple and without pretense - she introduces all the characters before she even starts her story. I delighted in the narrator `N' who butts in every once in a while and who is just as small-town minded and slightly smug) as his characters. When Murdoch ends the book she ties up the many loose ends and gives credit where credit is due, you discover that most of the characters know `N', which, in a way, makes sense as he/she is, after all, their creator.
My complaint is that the book is too long. Like the previous reviewer I feel it should have been shortened. I simply began to skip the philosophical passages in the last part of the book, but I want to come back to them at a later date, as I enjoyed these passages the most.
[Sorry, I'm not a reviewer at all - simply can offer my feelings about this book.]

If you want to make your life seem much longer, read this book. Murdoch may be a great writer but it's not evident in this book. Remember those writing classes where the prof told you to "show, not tell"? Murdoch must have decided to see if she could write a book using the completely opposite method. There is no reader interaction required here at all - you are supposed to be an open, empty vessel into which Murdoch pours an unending analysis of each character and each action. Nothing at all for your brain to do. This book is great for insomnia.

All the characters in the book are, quite simply, crazy. Not one of them is the least bit believable. They are completely and utterly self centered and about as interesting as a laundry list. If you are interested in philosophy, this book will show you just how irrelevant and silly it can be. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Dame Murdoch convincingly creates a rich world within the fictional English spa village of Ennistone. The sweep of characters and allusions, historical, literary and philosophical, are impressive. In typical Murdoch fashion, the action revolves around an anti-social genius, in this case the philosopher, Rozanov. His famed intellect is more than offset but his petty cruelty and utter alienation from human society. His wretched ex-pupil, George, is his drunken disciple, repeatedly spurned by the "great man." The various sub-plots, involving Quakers, an homo-sexual Anglican priest, half-Gypsy maid-servants, a swimming lap-dog, and Rozanov's absurdly innocent and estranged grand-daughter, all illustrate various human foibles. All of the mere mortals want different things from the philosopher, but he is an empty man. All brain, no heart, except for his incestuous lust for his grand-daughter. I greatly preferred " A Fairly Honourable Defeat," and "The Sea, the Sea," as examples of the author weaving her tapestry of human frailty, self-deception, and morality. And at 700 pages, I wonder if a bit of judicious editing would not have kept things more interesting. A staggering and erudite achievement, nonetheless. Murdoch attempts more in a single paragraph than many authors achieve in a lifetime.

The philosopher's Pupil was the first Murdoch novel I read. It will always stand for me as her best. What a shock! It starts with the best couple argument I've ever read (insight, humor, cruelity, style) and finishes with a perfect ending. You will find here Murdoch at her best: close and opressive ambients sudenly moved by a new and powerful presence, water all over the place, sex as salvation, philophical arguments, high minded personalities, women earth and men demons, victims, wolfes, all her imaginary to create a perfect moral tale about love, family and getting old. It is always a pleasure to read Iris Murdoch, but The philosopher's pupil, for me, outstands her other novels. A jewel between good jobs.

This is a brilliant, consuming, sweeping panorama or a work--that surprisingly seems yet to get its full due, whereas many of Murdoch's earlier, shorter (and lesser) novels enjoy rave reviews, large sales, "classic" status, and theatrical adaptations.

Yet it's a masterpiece on a multiplicity of levels, and as Mahler once said of *his* more "difficult" work, "[Its] time will yet come."

I wouldn't recommend this to someone who has naver read Murdoch--but, if you've read and enjoyed *The Black Prince* or *The Sea, The Sea*, for instance, make this your next selection.

This is the second John Bayley book which centers on his wife's decline from Alzheimer's disease, and the way they managed together through this. The first was a powerful and moving memoir.
The sequel unfortunately is a much more scattered, and uncentered work. In fact the greatest part of it does not have to do with the situation of Iris, but rather with Bayley's own story before he knew Iris. Here we are let down simply because Bayley is not a very interesting or appealing character in himself. He seems to be in some way a very tepid and shy character. The book thus only comes alive in the parts which have to do with Iris. But this relationship was probed in a deeper way in the earlier volume. In fact in the earlier volume Bayley seemed to 'have it all together' in a way he does not here.

John Bayley CBE should be known more as the widower of the late Dame IRis Murdoch. Of course, he was there in the best and worst of times and never complained or criticized. Where do you find a husband like John? John and Iris's relationship could be one of the most unforgettable romances of the last century or ever. John truly loved Iris, there is doubt about that. This book is about him also as well. During Iris' later stages of Alzheimers which robbed him of the woman who wrote complicated, strategic long novels into a childlike stage where she was no longer than exceptional figure of womanhood in real life. She became a woman inflicted with Alzheimers who was unable to write anymore and didn't know her own surroundings. Imagine the smartest woman or man in the world become a lost child. No doubt, John did everything he could for Iris. They only had each other. John wrote that Iris was generous beyond belief and they lived simply in Oxford. They loved to swim together and listen to the Archers, the British Radio Soap, and talk about it afterwards. They never even owned a television set until Iris became ill. John shows us how to cope in a situation by relying on happier memories of his life when things were different or better. I admire John and Iris' relationship, there were no arguments, doubts, and worries about the other's fidelity in the marriage. In my opinion, John and Iris were made for each other and that's where it ended. John writes that sex didn't matter to Iris much before the illness and it didn't matter afterwards so why all this focus on her sexuality. Maybe she experimented with women and she was with men who she loved and lost before she met John. I think once she and John got together, their union was a remarkable one where Iris and JOhn both encouraged each other's talents as writers, literary critics, and philosophers. While Iris was the star, it was John who sat lovingly beside her without complaints. Oh if all marriages were that good.

This is a gentle tale filled with scholarly allusions, about the last months and days Iris Murdoch spent in the care of her devoted husband, John Bayley. Since he was essentially alone, with rather formidable demands placed upon him by her Alzheimer's ailment, he coped by retreating into memories. In this situation, his memories were strikingly vivid, and reminded me of the memory-influenced dreams I had during my pregnancies, when my waking hours were racked by nausea. The memories were not so much a comfort to him, as a reminder of the fullness, the "worth-whileness" of life. I recognize this, having experienced it, as a natural way of getting through a difficult time.

Iris is a strong presence in this memoir, but it tells us more about this thoughtful, intellectual, sensitive, and good man. The deep love the two shared is apparent, yet it is not put on display in the arrogant manner, the "no two people ever loved as we did, no one ever had the adventures we did or knew the famous people we did" attitude of some other authors. The book is sweet, gentle, and not nearly as sad as you might expect.

Memories are the essence of the soul. They define our relationships, explain our actions, and shape our perspectives. They are a part of us, so inextricably bound up with our very selves that it is difficult to contemplate ever losing them. And when we do, it is a sentence more punishing than death.

But that is just the sentence that Iris Murdoch, noted British author of The Green Knight and Jackson's Dilemma and Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, received when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 1994. Her husband, John Bayley, has since written two memoirs about his beloved Iris. The newest, Iris and Her Friends, is Bayley's sequel to Elegy for Iris, which was published in December, 1998.

Elegy for Iris is exactly what its title implies: a book that mourns the premature death of Iris's mind, but it is also a tribute to her and Bayley's enduring love. It is a memoir that spans the history of their marriage, from the days of their courtship to the time of Bayley's writing.

Iris is in the later stages of Alzheimer's by the time of Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire. Here, Bayley uses his own memories to escape the maddening routine of caring for and worrying about his wife. Most of the memories he recounts do not include Iris at all, but are either recollections from Bayley's childhood or remembrances of old flames he knew before he met Iris. The memories, though they seem to have little to do with Iris, in fact flow from Bayley's desire to share them with his wife.

Bayley refers to the small respites from the worst of Alzheimer's as Iris's "friends." Her moments of clarity and the simple pleasures of holding and hugging become more cherished as Iris' condition worsens. The disintegration of Iris' memory is especially poignant; her incoherence and petulance stand in stark contrast to the gifted and articulate individual she once was. Bayley is brutally honest about his frustration with and sometimes irrational hatred for his wife, but his veracity does nothing to lessen the awesome devotion that is so evident in his innate concern for and awareness of her.

The mundane, domestic events of Iris and John's everyday life are interspersed with his vivid recollections. His escapes into memory inject levity into the sometimes desolate and seemingly hopeless atmosphere of the household. At heart, he is a fun-loving, adventuresome, imaginative individual; stories of his escapades as a child and his days in the army all display the same delightful sense of humor.

It is this flexibility and imagination that enable Bayley to survive the tough times of Iris' illness. His optimistic outlook on life ("Bad situations survive on jokes," he writes) and blunt, concise opinions on suicide, euthanasia, and sex make the entire book seem like a one-sided conversation between close friends. Bayley allows the reader to become intimately acquainted with the inner workings of his mind¡Van openness that is at odds with his childhood practice of keeping secret those things he held dear. Bayley's cathartic storytelling therefore seems to be an attempt to fill a void created by Iris' illness, to find a friend in whom he can confide.

The change in the relationship between Bayley and Iris, from marital to almost parental, is accompanied by a change in the way Bayley sees the world. He often escapes to the comforts of memory and fantasy, seemingly more so as Iris' condition worsens and she becomes almost uncommunicative. Bayley reminisces about his childhood, bringing to life the members of his family: his melancholy father, his unaffectionate mother, and his mature, pragmatic older brothers. From the comfort of his home and in the company of Iris, he remembers his summers at a small beachside town called Littlestone-on-the-Sea. He recreates his childhood adventures but scrutinizes them through the lens of adulthood. During these retellings, he re-examines some of the complex events of his pastoral summers: a friendship between a German man and a Jewish family and a husband's desertion of his high society wife.

As Iris' illness advances, so does our progression through Bayley's life. He enlists in the British forces during World War II and revels in the open, affectionate way his fellow soldiers express their feelings. During this time and his subsequent college years, Bayley developed two significant love interests prior to Iris. It seems a bit strange that Bayley would devote such a large amount of page space to his former girlfriends in a memoir about his wife. But instead of detracting from Bayley's devotion to Iris, his accounts of these lukewarm relationships serve to reinforce the intensity and depth of his love for her.

Although Bayley and Murdoch are never physically separated during the course of the narrative, there is a wide gulf created by Iris' illness; immersed in his fantasies, Bayley seems very much alone. It is not until the close of the memoir that the reader gets a more complete sense of what Bayley and Iris are like as a couple, through Bayley's recollections of some of the later days of their marriage. He describes dinners with esteemed authors like Aldous Huxley and a vacation that included a ghostly visitation from Henry James.

Although Bayley finds solace and escape in his countless memories, he cannot imagine life without Iris, and he attributes his windfall of memories to Iris' very existence. His frustrations and impatience are only a tiny part of the huge field of emotions that are born from his love, a love that has been tested by and has endured tragedy.

Overall, Iris and Her Friends is a touching and exceptionally well-written memoir that is grounded and fanciful, optimistic and realistic. Bayley, a famous literary critic in his own right, adds depth and meaning to many of his stories by using multiple references to great works of literature. Unfortunately, this can be slightly confusing for readers unfamiliar with the books he mentions.

While Elegy is a lament for what has been, Iris and Her Friends is a celebration of the importance of life. By the end of the memoir, having been exposed to Bayley's stream of consciousness for nearly three hundred pages, the reader is so attuned to Bayley's heartache, so moved by his devotion, that it is impossible to remain detached and unaffected by Iris' death. We mourn her as if she had been one of our friends.

This comprehensive biography gives you the life and thoughts of Iris Murdoch, her development as a writer and as a person.

Her sex life is included, but her relationships are merely mentioned. This is a completely G-rated book, no descriptions, no scenes. The purpose is as much to say whom she did NOT sleep with as it is to say whom she did. Iris was quite gregarious and preferred one-on-one conversations. She met with and had drinks with many different people. Most of these she did not sleep with. But she lived completely by her inclinations of the moment, so men knew that it was always possible they might end up in bed but that they probably wouldn't. This made Iris far more popular than if she had slept with everyone she met.

Also, Iris never seemed to drop or break up with anyone. She just moved on. She was usually involved with several people at any one time, but didn't talk about it. Like all women, she was susceptible to pretty men, and even though she was no beauty herself, she did get involved with two such men. When they dumped her, she was deeply hurt. Men didn't usually dump her. This led to her holding back in relationships, "never giving all the heart" (as Yeats put it). And this may be one factor that led to her ubiquitous portrayal of distanced relationships in her novels.

The other factor is some of the other men she got involved with, especially Canetti. This individual hated women (p. 349). He was "jealous, paranoiac and a mythomaniac" (p. 355). Women, including Iris, adored him to the point of enslavement. He kept many women going at the same time, but hated if any of his women had more than one man. He was also a sadomasochist (p. 357 ff). After having sex, he would contemplate the woman with "a sort of amused hostility" (p. 358). One among the many things he hated was decent people. The characters in his fiction are as sick as he. In 1981 he was given a Nobel Prize for Literature (which tells you something about the Nobel Prize for Literature). His cynical view of people influenced Iris's portrayal of her characters.

This biography also covers in detail Iris's intellectual development, and here is where most readers will get lost. The biographer presents detailed issues in philosophy that Iris wrestled with and assumes the reader is familiar with them. For professional philosophers, this material is interesting and it is refreshing not to have to wade through a lot of entry-level explanations of what Sartre thought, what this is, what that means, etc. Most readers, however, will find this material unintelligible.

Iris hated analytic philosophy and never seems to have learned much of it. As a result, her own thought bounced around wildly, from Marxism in the `30s, to an interest in existentialism, to Catholicism, to Buddhism, etc. Her philosophical thought and writings are rather muddled, as Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire, among others, were quick to point out when Iris read papers before other professionals. Still, her book on Sartre was one of the first in English and sold well. Sartre was a hot topic in the early 1950s. After Sartre's work was translated into English by Hazel Barnes in the mid-fifties, a better understanding of Sartre began to spread. Even though Iris spent an afternoon in a café talking one-on-one with Sartre, her understanding of his work was limited. Her book should therefore be considered obsolete at this point.

The book is, for the first time, vague about whom she did and didn't sleep with after her marriage to John Bayley. She was 37. He was 30. Iris, never pretty, was definitely showing her age by then. It is tempting to view this marriage as an insurance policy. John was a good-natured, easy-going person. He cooked the meals and generally seems to have behaved as a faithful dog. He was a virgin until she slept with him. Their housekeeping with "beyond bohemian", i.e. nonexistent. For instance, they bought a cheap old country house with no plumbing or heat, but plenty of space. In an abandoned greenhouse they made a small pool. It is an indication of the mentality of both that he hung an electric heater by a string over the pool to provide heat while they were in the pool. He did not read her work in manuscript and sometimes not after publication. Iris did not allow editing of her novels by her editors.

The biographer's preferences about her novels are very much present and are stated as established truths rather than his preferences. Her novels in the 1980s did present more "good" people than previous ones, but there was so much mysticism and so much "metaphysics as a guide to morals" that some readers will be less than thrilled.

Can you write a biography without being in love with your subject? The question isn't really relevant to this work, because I don't see any evidence that Conradi can write at all. There's plenty of evidence for his fawning, puppy-dog adoration of Dame Murdoch. There's plenty of evidence for half of Oxford's fawning, puppy-dog adoration of her, along with about a fourth of the population of London and assorted Americans and Continentals. Conradi could have called his book "Iris Murdoch and All the People Who Went to Bed with Her: Lives" or "Iris Murdoch: She Almost Makes Me Wish I Weren't Gay" or "Iris Murdoch: If You're English, Your Parents Probably Had Sex with Her. Yes, Both of Them." The bulk of the book is a catalog of love affairs and intrigues that would be over-the-top for a high school prom queen, mixed up with feeble stabs at placing Murdoch's intellectual development. What there's little evidence for is any sense of irony or humor on Conradi's part. I personally could not plop down one-sentence references to Simone Weil, the allegory of the cave, or Holocaust survivor guilt like a giant blob of oatmeal in the midst of a candyfloss paragraph giving me details of Murdoch's vast network of flirtation without intending to be funny. Conradi isn't funny. He's just incoherent.

This obsessive focus on Murdoch's status as sweetheart to the philosophical regiment is not only incredibly boring to read, it's offensive in the same way focus on Doris Lessing's motherhood is offensive. Male writers and intellectuals who leave a child in the care of others, as did Lessing, or who lead complicated romantic lives on a Murdochian scale, are not presented to the world by others as if these are the central facts of their existences. Conradi's book communicates that the most important parts of Murdoch's life were her sexual intrigues. This is an unforgivable reduction of an important moral philosopher and it's going to take me all day curled up with "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals" to stop feeling icky at having been exposed to it.

Writer and philosopher Murdoch played a major role in English writing for nearly half a century: Iris Murdoch: A Life provides her first authorized biography, examining her life and work and revealing not only connections between her life and her art, but the moral and social changes she helped introduce to new generations. The depth of coverage is impressive.

This biography proposes to be about a woman who manufactured 26 novels and who knows what else ( plays etc.).How she did that the author never says . Instead we get knowing little talk about the role of Irish protestants in the 20th century,the life of a lesbian with male friends ,and potted biographies of numerous British personalities and celebrities .We never get a handle on the life of a writer who was a brand name for a while in Britain .We never are told whether Iris Murdoch books sold in the hundreds.

An interesting take on the old theme of nuns/soldiers and vicars/tarts, this one. Most of you will know the story, but I shan't spoil it for those who have not yet read it. I am surprised that that girl from Titanic could write something as clever as this.

Whenever I read an Iris Murdoch novel, I am reminded how much I enjoy and appreciate her work. Her books are always a pleasure to read, and a pleasure that I would be sincerely sorry to miss.

At the moment of the death of her husband, Gertrude is reunited with her best friend from University-- Anne. Anne and Gertrude had been separated when Anne had joined the nunnery, and it is this occasion of great loss for both of them (Anne has lost the solace of the nunnery) that brings them together. Nuns and Soldiers questions both the notion of great love and the morality of the expression of love.

My book club was not overly fond of Nuns and Soldiers because they found the character of Gertrude so utterly unsympathetic. I must admit that she is truly atypical for Murdoch-- her feminine passivity and self-centeredness are not normal characteristics for Murdoch characters. However, her traits make her a good fit for the novel, even if she would make a grating person to know in real life.

Like most Murdoch novels, this is one that I would recommend.

"Nuns and Soldiers" was the first Iris Murdoch novel I read. I've since read many others, but it remains one of the most memorable, from the very first scene when an important character is on his deathbed. (A visitor considers whether to mention to the dying man that it's raining, but then reflects on how irrelevant that would be . . . "There would be no more weather for Gerald.") In addition to the side trips into philosphy that are typical in Murdoch's novels, you have memorable characters for whom she's created detailed and interesting pasts -- this really draws you into their lives as they veer from one life-changing crisis to the next. Murdoch's plotting is amazing, as well: masterfully done. She'd be worthy of a college course in writing, for sure. I "held back" a star because the ending was a bit "happily ever after" for my taste, but it's an excellent book.

This is one of three Iris Murdoch books I have read, as a good friend of mine is a big fan. I have yet to see why. I found Nuns and Soldiers silly and overwrought, an extended but inexplicable love story filled with improbable and self conscious conversations. Do people experiencing a coup de foudre really sit around and dissect their feelings? I don't find the philosophical or moral underpinnings of the story to be compelling, either. Social requirements versus individual desire, I guess.

An Accidental man is a delicious read if you enjoy the tongue in cheek writing of Nancy Mitfod and Evelyn Waugh. It is essentially a story of an incestuous upper middle class English family and thier many friends and one imposter, Ludwig, the scholarly American who by way of an accidental birth in Great Britain, is avoiding the draft to the Vietnam war by his parents adopted contry. The dry sharpness of Ms Murdochs portrayal of the characters is as cool as a gin and tonic but Ludwig, who engages himself to Gracie, the much indulged daugter, soon finds his real ideals in question and the apparent tight family bonds are really gossamer thin and superficial. Other characters, Matthew, Mavis, Austin and Dorina play a large part in the story, indeed, Austin, the accidental Man of the title carries with him a series of accidents involving the entrapement and death of two wives, the death of an innocent child and the maiming of a bumbling blackmailer. Matthew sets himself up as the saviour of the accidental brother but there is no salvation for Austin nor any of the gang as thier comfotable world of simple social expectations leads them into a second generation, while Ludwig escapes their prison only to land in a real one back home in America. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys humour with a black edge. It is fairly long and the multitude of characters sometimes makes it a bit confusing but it well worth settling in to and as it is the first of Ms Murdochs books I have read, I will look forward to the next...and the next!

Believe it or not this is a pretty good book.

It is a bit dated since much of it relates to agonizing over Vietnam War draft dodging and there is just the beginning of open writing about gay relationships.

In general there is a lot of agonizing over trivialities among the characters in this book. I dislike books about people who make their lives difficult for no reason and then whine about it (see my review of JUDE THE OBSCURE). In AN ACCIDENTAL MAN many of the characters make their lives difficult for no apparent reason except that they are bored and overpriviledged--but thankfully they don't much whine about it.

There is not much plot although some odd, unexpected and violent events occur. There are obscure passages that reminded me of the worst of Henry James. And many passages could be skipped or skimmed. E.g. there are long series of letters back and forth and extended cocktail party conversation.

But I realized that the happily married couples lived their lives calmly in the background while their unattached siblings and children made themselves and others miserable. A great testament to ordinary middle class life (although I'm not sure that's what Iris intended).

Basically, I liked the book because in spite of the above I cared about the characters, got emotionally involved in their lives, and felt that I had been in touch with something interesting and important. The main difficulty that I had with Iris' writing is that she does not, at least in this novel, make any love relations comprehensible or believable. It's as though Iris does not know what love is or has never loved. Maybe however this an artistic aritfice and part of the "message" of the book. It just ain't true that "all you need is love." Mostly it's phony and unrewarding.

Full of subtle humour, a most enjoyable read. As always, Murdoch's characters, even the minor players, are beautifully drawn.

Murdoch's essays each shine on their own, but collected here you get the full, accumulated brilliance in one volume. She is a needed voice in the post-modernist wilderness --- assuring the careful reader that there are works, though they may be formalist or outmoded or dated, that are worthy of the veneration and study of future generations. And, just as there are works of art that are "good" and that are superior to others, there are also actions and thoughts and moralities that are better than others. Her style is lucid and affecting and is never pedantic --- you are enthralled and rapt while you are being educated. Literature, like the other arts, is a form of communication that never ends. Art speaks to each generation; but some specific works of art transcend time and are contemplated anew by different human minds. Murdoch takes your chin and points your eyes towards these works, and you can see the eternal verities and the truths that shine out from them.

Except for Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, which is disorganized and verges on the incoherent, almost all of Murdoch's explicitly philosophical writing is here. So if you are going to be working on Murdoch's philosophy, this is a resource you need to have. However, if you're new to Murdoch's philosophical writing, you might do better taking a look at The Sovereignty of Good; it's got three of her best four essays, and it's a whole lot shorter and easier to find your way around in.

I'm a beginning meditator in a similar Vipassana discipline that Peter Conradi practices and picked up "Going Buddhist" hoping to find some inspiration for my practice. The best I can say is that I'm apparently not the audience for this book. I found the prose too abstract in tone to engage me and the content often too detailed on tangents (e.g. in discussing Tibetan history). The Iris Murdoch references were altogether lost on me; the author's actual experiences with Buddhism are sparse until the last chapter.

Among all the books I've read on Buddhism/meditation, etc. I found this one refreshingly "straight." The author tests his coming to Buddhism against and with his friend Iris Murdoch's witty, wise philosophy; he sets the journey into a lively Western perspective; and he is immensely helpful to the seeker who feels a bit awed and maybe even timid at the ideas of the Buddhist way. He draws in fine references to history and literature, too. And has some practical advice.