MURDOCH, Iris
Irish/British novelist and philosopher (1919-1999)
The subject of Murdoch's two dozen novels is personal politics: the ebb and flow of relationships, the way we manipulate others and are ourselves manipulated. The time is now; the people are middle-class, professional, usually from the English Home Counties -- and they are all bizarre, possessed by a demon which blurs reality and dream into a single, mesmeric state. Seduction, mysticism and moral disintegration are favourite themes, and the innocent late adolescent (whose effect on other people's lives is often devastating) is a standard character.
THE BELL (1958) Should we live our lives by the conventions of society or moment by moment, defining ourselves by our own changing moods and enthusiasms? This question perplexes every character in The Bell: all are waiting for a sudden inspiration or discovery which will define their existence, show them how they should behave. The setting is a lay community housed in a former convent, a refuge for an eccentric collection of inmates whose peace is disturbed by the arrival of two amoral innocents', Dora and Toby. The Bell was popular in the hippie 1960s, and still seems to catch the wide-eyed, distracted mood of those times. But its story and characters are fascinating and its images (for example that of the nude, startlingly white-bodied Toby diving, like a fallen angel, into the murky convent lake to investigate a sunken bell) are as disturbing as they are unforgettable.
Murdoch's other novels include The Flight from the Enchanter, The Sandcastle, A Severed Head, The Red and the Green, The Time of the Angels, The Sea, The Sea, The Book and the Brotherhood, The Message to the Planet, The Green Knight and Jackson’s Dilemma.
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The Book and the Brotherhood
The Green Knight
To An Unofficial Rose : see also pathway
Antonia Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden Mary Flanagan, Trust Irene Handl, The Sioux Mary McCarthy, A Charmed Life D.M. Thomas, Birthstone Alice Thomas Ellis, The 27th Kingdom
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