Photo of Iris Murdoch
Our bookclub decided to read something by Iris Murdoch and I suggested this one since it was relatively short and I remember it as excellent but then I am a great fan of hers so I think pretty much everything she has written is great except her last novel "Jackson's Dilemma" written in 1995 four years before she died. It seems now they've done computer analysis with the language of this novel and it does reveal the Alzheimers that she was later diagnosed with.
Biology News: Iris Murdoch's last book reveals early Alzheimer's
I guess I read this book about 40 years ago. It was her second novel and written in 1958. It's amazing really how forward thinking she was in portraying gay men in positive ways and also how feminist it is. A lot of philosophical questions (she was a philosopher at Oxford) and yet the ideas don't intrude like in so many novels of people trying to put forth ideas of one kind or another. It's still a hell of a
good story with suspense, mystery, character development and all those great things.
After the disappointment with the re-reading of Zen I was relieved that I still thought this was a super book!
