Iris Murdoch: Classic or Dud?

I saw that 'Iris' trailer last night. It is indeed very poor.

Not bad, but absolutely nothing to do with Iris Murdoch's writing. But the loss of language is heartbreaking. Short too, goes in, does what it sets out to do and fucks off in an hour and a half.

Known by whom? Why are they more wacko than yours? You think the Go- Betweens were the greatest band of the 80s.

Nick thinks swing out sister were the greatest band of the 80's

The Go Betweens were certainly better than the pinefox's Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Go West and Deacon Blue combined. Actually I think if you combine bands you get an average, or even a lowest common denominator rather than anything any better, so that's not saying much.

Wow...no revive in 14 years.

Anyway, I revived it because I stared at the row of novels at the library, most not checked out since the mid '90s, and wondered where to go after enjoying Bruno's Dream and The Good Apprentice -- The Bell?

I read a batch of her books a couple of years ago, including the Good Apprentice. The Good Apprentice was incredibly long - and I do wonder about her understanding of philosophy and concepts such as 'good'.

The one I enjoyed most was 'A Severed Head'.

A 'Fairly Honourable Defeat' has some of the most ludicrous dialogue I've ever read, including " Give him the treatment, Sid' and 'Want your face smashed, or what? Lend me the chain, Bert.'

A friend of mine gave me a copy of The Bell for xmas and its her favourite.

That's the one I got. Is she still read? In England? Genuinely curious.

Can't speak for UK and never read any of her novels but came to say that I really enjoyed that one book about philosophy.

The trailer for the film is hilarious: "She had a talent for books... BUT HER GREATEST TALENT WAS FOR LIFE!"

the thing is, she's a figure for this sort of claim - I feel like this is particularly embraced in English letters - that a person's work is part of the whole of a beautifully constructed/lived life. which is such an alien idea to me, and sort of assumes a lot about means, etc.

I read The Philosopher's Pupil a while back, and enjoyed it, but it didn't really stick with me. I do remember it feeling very carefully constructed - like something planned meticulously before being undertaken.

Book I am talking about is Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals.

I just realized the other big long novel published in the mid eighties I read was The Philosopher's Pupil, not the one I mentioned earlier.

She seems to break the rules of postwar British/Irish novels and concision, right? Think Spark, Amis, Fitzgerald, Isherwood.

I can't decide whether The Black Prince is a camp minor masterpiece or an epic botch.

A vase? Or two faces in profile?

Just finished The Black Prince and kind of loved it? It's messy and flawed but those are the best kinds of masterpieces imo.

Anyway, this is the first of hers I've read, trying to stop myself from buying a bunch more since my to-read pile is already out of hand.

Hooray. If you do read more I’d pick from The Sea, The Sea (most like The Black Prince), The Bell or Under the Net (lightest after the heaviest of TBP).

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for those.

Curious what mark s thinks of her generally

when my mum was a student she would see IM cycling around north oxford a lot: mum read some of the early novels when she was young and thought the lifestyle all sounded very tiring

i quite like the argment that an author is like a wicked god towards his or her characters bcz they are allowed no choice in how things turn out (but not enough to remember the actual quote): otherwise i have read nothing and have no strong opinion of my own

when she was a bit younger in the car with her dad she also used sometimes to see the aged george bernard shaw up a ladder cutting his hedge (this was near welwyn)

Unsought non-mark s opinion incoming:

Thank heavens there's a much wider and diverse range of novelists available these days. In general, I can't stand the limited social range of the characters with which she populated her novels. And there's sometimes some portentous theme which is often vague and unresolved (as far as I can tell) and - for my tastes - she was long-winded, very repetitive, uninteresting writer.

unsought non-mark s opinion

tbf these are best opinions

Thank heavens there's a much wider and diverse range of novelists available these days.

And in Murdoch's time too,

I kind of recall liking her book about philosophy, never managed to read one of her novels.

(x-post)

I'm having distant flashbacks to impoverished lost afternoons spent in purgatorial public libraries with their displays of Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, Elizabeth Jane Howard (I think Drabble and Howard must have shared the same cover design team at Penguin?) - and perhaps Angela Carter, if they were being particularly edgy.

I've read several of her novels, and they're of a piece with cultural stirrings mid 20th century. Middle-class readers wanted a drizzle of ontology, teleology, etc. in their Book of the Month Club fiction.

The Sea, The Sea (1978), something like her 20th novel out of 27, is a strange book, and is quite 70s-feeling

It is too long and is often boring, but it has a very human premise - that you can’t escape life and the inevitable mess you will make of your relationships with others, no matter how privileged and egotistical and insulated you are.

The sea represents the massive unmoving presence of the natural world, and also of human nature, that ultimately rejects self-satisfaction and requires you to face yourself

from a 2024 WAYR:

Recently finished my first Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green(1965)---study of an Anglo-Irish and Irish extended family, during "the seven or eight days leading up to the doomed Easter Rising in Dublin,1916," as jacket flap says, and I think I hit it lucky: jacket thinks this is "warmer" than previous, though also it's not too effusive/loose/garrulous, as I've seen complaints about re several later novels. This 'un moves adroitly between all the characters, checking in on latest seismic movements and dithering of male interiors, while the women are mostly known by what they say and do, incl. in male gaze.
Sex and money figure, ditto environment---weather, picturesque to appalling cityscapes, incl. poverty--but so what,"You can see a hundred scenes like that all over town every day"--news of the War and British promises for the peace, many points made in arguments and gossip and oratory re: Ireland, with even the mystical terrorist proving capable of second thoughts, for a while.
It's a well-tracked whirl, and I'm reminded of Ta-Nehisi Coates on the US Civil War: "Don't say you know what you would have done. You don't know."

"Pale Horse, Pale Rider" maybe even moreso, with the rugged, rolling clarity of a higher, wider, deeper range of affecting notes, in a few rooms, across a clamorous hick city, still way out West, where the reader is (again?) going around and around with what could well be the same Miranda, as the Great War homefront sails into the Great Influenza Epidemic---only thing: the kind of very orchestrated extended dream sequences that "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" was too dependent on, also show up here---there's a way of measuring out, pacing such thought processes (which Porter melds to implausibly coherent dream epics), as Iris Murdoch does, when checking in with one of her outwardly more inchoate The Red and The Green characters, likewise Richard Wright making the rounds of Bigger Thomas in the uncut Library of America Native Son--but neither of these feature dreams.

it's not too effusive/loose/garrulous, as I've seen complaints about re several later novels

Yeah that's a fair description of The Green Knight. Some lovely bits and I enjoyed the depiction of Moe but the different bits of beautiful architecture didn't add up to a building.

Been working my way through her stuff. The Bell is my favourite so far.

Often think of this detail from The Sandcastle:

Liffey had been their dog, a golden retriever, who was killed two years ago on the main road. This animal had formed the bond between Mor and Nan which their children had been unable to form. Half unconciously, whenever Mor wanted to placate his wife he said something about Liffey.