(Iris Murdoch’s novel, pt. 3)
LitCrit General’s Warning continues: This still isn’t going anywhere, but it will get there.”*
Dear
Ted,
Finally – if you’re not going to write
back – finally, here’s where we end up: Two women are dead. Two violent men,
who participated in their deaths, caused their deaths, remain alive. One
is prospering. Or, he’s gone into politics. We’re led to believe both if that
be possible. Gunnar! The other is better off than he has been for some time –
Hilary.
One woman is save after a fashion, Crystal,
if she can be kept far enough away from one of the violent men, her brother.
But another woman is choosing to marry that brother. We can only hope – and truly
hope against hope – that she fails in her quest.
Because Gunnar does survive, and he may
well marry a third time – there’s no reason to believe he’s learned anything in
the course of the story – and the unholy cycle can begin again. That’s my
final, final thought: What then will happen to poor Thomasina?
Here’s the thing about romance novels.
Everyone is always having an epiphany, but nobody learns a damn thing – ever!
Is that why forgiveness is impossible in this world? A forgives B because A and
B both think B will change – and A’s heart will change as well. But neither
will alter one bit. Nobody changes, everyone remains the same, only they are
all that much older. “Older and wiser?” are you asking. Say I concede, “Yes,
older and wiser.” But even wiser, A is doing the same things all over again, B
is doing the same things all over again. We are doing the same things all over
again.
Do write sometime.
Truly,
Trudy
P.S.
Did Murdoch really write a novel called The Sacred and Profane Love Machine?
What could that be about? Note machine! Machine’s don’t grow, they only
eventually run down.
Dear Trudy,
Yes, Murdoch really did write a novel with
that odd and, yes, awful title, yet still one I remember liking very much. I
don’t remember much more about it. I made no marks in “my” copy, perhaps
because it has never belonged to me. It has someone else’s name at the top of
the first page, someone I used to know but don’t anymore. The book is also a
Warner Books paperback with practically no margins. I don’t write small enough
to comment in it. But I haven’t underlined anything either.
I don’t know what I have to add to your
comments on A Word Child. I didn’t find it as engaging as The Bell
or The Nice and the Good, nor as interesting psychologically as The
Black Prince. Then, I don’t find Hilary Burde as sympathetic a character as
Bradley Pearson though they are equally unreliable narrators, one as unable to
distinguish imagination from reality – his imagination – as the other.**
Both, it occurs to me, lie like our former president does, as unsavory a
comparison as that might be: that is, they take their lies, as
soon as they are uttered, to be true, whatever evidence anyone else has to
offer to the contrary. Though how are we much different, most of us, always
ready to believe our own version of events before any other. Others’ opinions
are dismissed. (They are only opinions vs. the true version of events.) This
may speak to forgiveness as well. We can’t be forgiven what we refuse to admit.
But both Bradley and Hilary are violent as well, psychologically and
physically as far as they are able. At the time of their stories, Hilary, the
younger by 17 years, is far more able. How often does he grab hold, say
something like, “I knew I was hurting her, but . . . .”?
I like your characterization of
the novel as Gothic. How much the dark winter weather, and that so much of the
action takes place in half-light or near dark – adds to that. The intensity of
Hilary’s emotional pain, however much of that he whips up himself, has a lot to
do with it as well. Odd that Murdoch doesn’t somehow bring in Heathcliff or
Rochester or . . . who else? Hilary wouldn’t bring up Byron, not just because
Byron is a poet; Hilary lacks Byron’s sense of humor.
Well, I am saying nothing new or
interesting, am I? So I’ll close. Let me know if you have anything to add?
Telly, Ted
02.27.21
* LitCrit General’s Warning – By which the General means: Don’t expect to learn anything about Iris Murdoch or the novel that you didn’t already know. The opinions expressed here are those of the uninformed opinionators. They aren’t going to write in any straightforward fashion either. Add that there’s no good online plot summary that I have found. But, you could read the book!
** Golden days (left): Uncle Albert explaining the unreliable narrator to Wayne Booth. Am I using the term correctly, gentlemen?
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