Friday Fiction: Iris Murdoch

--by Hanje Richards
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Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999) was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about political and social questions of good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her novels, in their attention and generosity to the inner lives of individuals, follow the tradition of novelists like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, George Eliot, and Proust, besides showing an abiding love of Shakespeare.
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The Black Prince - In this riveting tale of love and intellectual intrigue, Murdoch gives us a seductive story with ever-mounting action, including suicide, abduction, romantic idylls, murder, and due process of law.
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The Book and the Brotherhood: A Story about Love and Friendship and Marxism - Follows a band of Oxford graduates who in their youth pledged monetary support to fellow student David Crimond to write a book of political philosophy. Now old age is approaching, none of the band has come to much, "the book" has yet to appear, and Crimond has turned out to be a moral and intellectual monster. There are fine set pieces here (a revelrous and finally sodden Oxford lawn party), but the novel's mood is chill. That Murdoch can work from the disaster and deceit at its center to a "new space of peace and freedom" is an inspiring achievement.
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A Fairly Honorable Defeat - In a dark comedy of errors, th is novel follows the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties. As puppet master, Julius artfully plays on the human tendency to embrace drama and intrigue and to prefer the distraction of confrontations to the difficult effort of communicating openly and honestly.
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The Good Apprentice - Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: He has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Edward searches for redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram.
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The Green Knight - Exploring Biblical and medieval themes in a contemporary London setting, the story of two brothers, a murder gone awry, and the outrageous demands of a stranger is filled with symbolism, humor, and suspense.
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Henry and Cato - When old friends Henry and Cato reunite after years apart, they quickly become embroiled in the drama of each other’s lives. Henry, who has just returned to England as the sole heir to his recently deceased brother’s estate, quickly begins to uncover secrets buried long ago. Meanwhile, Cato, a Catholic priest, has fallen in love with the criminal Beautiful Joe, and struggles to reform him despite the thief’s continual efforts to rob him.

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Jackson’s Dilemma – This Dilemma is a romp as well as an homage to that master of convoluted comedy, Shakespeare. Murdoch has adopted a syncopated, slightly mocking tone, and many scenes have a distinctly theatrical air. She has also achieved a disarming sense of timelessness, due in part to the fact that her eccentric characters, a close-knit circle of friends, are extremely well-off and spend their days and nights dashing between their country estates and their London houses. They seem utterly free of responsibilities but quite burdened by tragic pasts and a great deal of remorse. The tale begins on the eve of a wedding. Edward of Hatting Hall is to marry the lovely Marian.
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The Message to the Planet - Three friends -- Jack Shearwater, Alfred Ludens, and Gildas Hearne -- gather to grapple with the problem of Patrick Fenman, who is dying of an unknown disease and to track down Marcus Vallar, the one-time mathematical prodigy whose curse purportedly brought on the illness. Marcus is brought to Patrick's bedside, where he performs a laying-on of hands to amazing effect and becomes the center of a quiet religious movement. In this beautifully patterned work, Vallar is situated as well at the crux of a kaleidoscopic network of relationships. At the chic resort/asylum to which Vallar retreats, Ludens, Gildas, Jack, Jack's wife, Franca, his mistress, Alison, and Vallar's elusive daughter Irina are all drawn together in a whirl of emotions.
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The Red and the Green - An extended Anglo-Irish family living in the vicinity of Dublin on the eve of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 reflects the attitudes and pressures that lead eventually to the cataclysmic events at the Dublin Post Office. As the action unfolds throughout the week leading to the uprising, the family interacts on several levels, revealing their mores, their dreams for the future of Ireland, their occasional tendency to look for religious significance in political destiny, and their personal hopes and failings.