Not all at sea with Iris Murdoch
My experience with Iris Murdoch’s work has not been a happy one. Maybe I just chose the wrong titles but I found her a bit impenetrable. Hence why I have procrastinated for more than three years about reading her Booker winning title The Sea The Sea. I knew I would have to tackle it at some point as part of my Booker project. But every time I picked up this fairly big book (538 pages of very closely typed text) I found an excuse not to get further than page 5.
The reactions of Andy Miller in A Year of Reading Dangerously compounded my feeling this would be a slog and one maybe I should delay getting to for as long as possible. In essence he said it was a long book with a distasteful protagonist, in which nothing much happened but there were many descriptions about meals (inedible concotions often) and the sea. None of which exactly had me racing to the shelf.
But me and Murdoch have finally squared up to each other.
And you know what? It’s nowhere near as bad as I was expecting.
What’s more – I am actually enjoying it.
Yes it does, in Charles Arrowby, have a narrator I would dread finding sat next to me on a long train journey. But Murdoch makes him deliciously awful, a wonderful satire on a totally self-satisfied, pompous and deluded man. Arrowby has left his glittering career as a theatre director to live in seclusion in a creaky, run-down house by the sea. He spends his days swimming, watching out for sea monsters and making rather disgusting meals. In between he deals with past lovers and encounters his first love, Mary Hartley Fitch. He decides she must still be in love with him. Her marriage must be an unhappy one. It must be his duty to rescue her.
As you’d expect from the title, the sea plays a major role in the book. It’s always beautifully described. As are some of the ridiculously comic scenes when Arrowby’s past loves descend on the house.
Iris, I fear I have wronged you.
I was also prepared to be bored by this book for the reasons that you mentioned, but like you, I also enjoyed it. I love this kind of surprise and revelation.
I’m 100 pages from the end and still enjoying it
Hooray! So glad you are enjoying the book! I read it and enjoyed it quite a few years ago. Arrowby is deliciously awful isn’t he?
He’s insufferable – how all these women fawn around him is astonishing. Those meals he relishes are appalling
That’s really interesting as I find a lot of the Booker prize novels impenetrable and the runners up more approachable. To find that an impenetrable authors book is more readable is intriguing. (I have it on my shelf and will get to it in the future at some point.)
Some of them are more impenetrable than others (The Famished Road is the worst so far of the ones I’ve read). But there are plenty of winners that are highly readable. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively is wonderful, Hotel du Lac is another.
So glad you are liking it after all. Sometimes it pays to go in with low expectations!
that would certainly work sometimes but Murdoch’s reputation as an intellectual made me nervous.
This was my first Murdoch and I loved it – I think it’s up there with ‘Brave New World’ as a Tempest adaptation … right up to the extreme weirdness at the end (trying to avoid spoilers)
Im getting the impression of a semi mystical aspect so maybe that becomes the weird part. I have 200 pages yet to go so plenty of time for that to become more evident
I’m glad to hear you are enjoying this one. One of my closest friends is a huge fan of Murdoch, and The Sea The Sea is her personal favourite. For some reason, I’ve always felt a little daunted by the prospect of reading it, but your experience is very encouraging.
Daunting sums it up perfectly. She was such an intellectual that I feared I would drown. Maybe some of the others are more impenetrable than this one but its given me courage to try something by her again in the future
Haha Karen, I know exactly what you mean. My first Murdoch, An unofficial rose, put me off for a decade or more. Like you, I found it impenetrable but then in the late 80s I read The green knight, followed in the 90s and very early 2000s by The bell and The sea, the sea, and I enjoyed all of these with The sea, the sea being my favourite. The bell was in fact earlier than Rose so it’s not simply early versus late. Next I’d like to read The Italian girl, but that may be a while off yet. I think I won’t try Under the net!
Anyhow, glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one!
Reading a little about her it seems that her work varied hugely in quality so it may be just a case of finding the right one. Theres a fascinating biography just realised about her – she was quite a handful..
I haven’t read any Murdoch, but have this one in the 746 so will have to tackle it at some point.
It’s one that gradually draws you in so when you do get around to it, might be one to devote some dedicated time to in the early stages
I struggled with my one attempt at Iris – in fact, I actually tried twice to read “Under the Net” and failed. I have this on the shelves though, and I’m pleased to hear it’s readable! 🙂
Thats one of her ‘comic’ novels – maybe one of the later ones would be more to your taste.
Good to know you are enjoying this. I have a fair number of titles by this author on my shelf.
Have you read anything by her Guy? I tried (but failed) with The Black Prince and The Bell
this is the only one I have read by her and I like it although it is one that takes tim e to get into not read any since
It does take a while to warm up but it didn’t feel unnecessarily slow