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The Philosopher's Pupil by Iris Murdoch is a long and uneven work by my taste. Murdoch, and Murdoch's narrator, are percise writers, whose percision is wonderful when speaking concerning people and tedious when describes furniture.
George is feral black sheep of a well-respected family. A failed philosopher who is given to fits of violence in way that ends with bruised women, lost jobs, and a deep sympathy among those who are attracted to such lone wolves. In his defense, we all know about those women who fall in love with jail house criminals and their attempts to save them, and truthfully, it's can be a whole lot more fulfilling trying to save a lout than suffering a relationship to a square.
George feels his life was terminally corrupted because one of his philosophy teachers told him that he was too stupid to study philosophy. Now the writer of this review has also been told by a philosophy professor that he is too stupid to study philosophy and such an admonition is no small matter, if for no other reason that philosophy pretends to be about truth, beauty and goodness, and its a sad thing to be on the business end of an informed opinion that one is incompetent regarding truth, beauty and goodness.
The dialogues between George and his professor, some of the highlights of the book, portray George's frustration and his professor marked apathy terrifyingly mimick my nightmare conversations I have in my head with my ex-girlfriend. The book is worth reading for these exchanges alone. To see a man laid bare and prone and fragile be met with such indifference is horrifying, and having a bit of the voyeur in me, I enjoyed every word.
It's as if Murdoch's humorless precise prose allows everyone individuals humors to show themselves in a bold, charming and unforgiving light.
After taking us through a lovely scene during a Society of Friends (Quaker) Meeting(service). One of the members give a short, terse, and stirring confessional about love and innocence. As I have been called short, terse, and stirring in physical form, I appreciate my likeness in prose. Well, everyone at the meeting was duely affected, and the following paragraph proceeded as follows:
quote:The silence continued, ringing now with the echoes of what William had said, and each person present promied himself some amendment of life. Brian thought, what a skunk I am, and how lucky I am to have such a dear good sweet wife and such a marvellous son, I must go and see Alex soon, and bloody stop hating everything and everyone. Gabriel though, dear, dear William, how much I love him, yes, I must stop being so feeble and silly, and I must not think those mean spiteful thoughts about Stella, and I must think differently about George, but how? Adam thought, I must stop imagining those funny things about Rufus and I must be kinder to my father and talk to him and not tease him. Anthea Eastcote thought, I must be frank with Hector and I must be frank with Hector Gaines and I must give up Joey Tanner. Nicky Roach thought, I must work harder and not go to be with girls all of the time (he felt rather sad about this). Mrs. Roach thought, I must stop spending these crazy amounts on clothes, I must be mad! Mrs. Romage thought, I had better stop cooking the books. Ought I to confess to Natan that I've been cooking the books? No. Miss Landon thought, I must prepare my lessons better and, quite simply, stop loathing the chidren. Nesta Wiggins thought, I ought to go to mass now and then to please my father and top being so ridiculously pleased with myself. I'm just a stinking sinner. Well, I am, aren't I! Mrs. Bradstreet had a very serious sin , not unconnected with her late husband, upon her conscience. Sometimes she felt she was damned, sometimes she felt she should tell everything to the police (how much did they know?). She decided that for the present she would follow WIlliam Eascote's adviced and lay it all before God. However, she had done this before to no avail. Emma thought, I must go and see my mother, I must go and seee my singing teacher, and must...just somehow...try to become...less awful. Tom thought, I'm innocent, I'm good, I love everbody. I shall go on being innocent and good and loving everybody, oh I feel so happy. What Zed[the dog] thought is not known, but as his nature was comprised almost entirely of love, he may be imagined to have felt an increase of being.
The brackets and typos are mine. The elipses and paratheses hers. This happens halfway through the book, and most of these people we know in a cusory way. The way she handled Bradstreet and Tom were perfect, as we don't know anything about Bradstreet at all- she was an extra in a previous forgetable scene- and Tom behaves perfectly in character, and in a way that I didn't see coming.
The book turns on violent George and his relationship with his former prof. A Fairly Honorable Defeat is a more charming and powerful story. If you know that you like Iris Murdoch as a writer. I reccommend The Philosopher's Pupil. If you are uninitiated, I'd read A Fairly Honorable Defeat
______ To God Unknown is early, muscular Steinbeck. It's a little so book full of life that almost smells like quickening earth. Joseph Wayne is a young patriarch of a California farm. He adopts a sort of local animism that allows him to worship both God and the land. This animism strikes his brother Burton as heathenism, and Burton acts for the good of Wayne's soul in ways that are both telling and disasterous.
Steinbeck is a wonderful storyteller, but in this book, the characters are too much like archtypes or Greek Gods. A positive consequence of this flat characterization is that, like Greek Gods, laying blame is nearly impossible. We don't dislike Burton or his devout Protestantism. *whew* I spent most of my thunder on the Philosopher's Pupil, so I'm done here. To God Unknown if a fine story. Rough, and over long with descriptions of the vivacious earth, but a fine story.
_ Both novels show me that I don't know the names of many objects. I can describe situations with reasonable clarity, but there are things in the world whose name I don't know. Many things. It's a poverty in my vocabulary that I've been slow to address. I read novel's like the Philosopher's Pupil and I'm shocked by amount of names stuff have. In Murdoch, my igorance comes in domestic form. To me, a chair is a chair. It's not as if she is dropping designer names, it's just that her vocabulary is so percise, and when she describes the setting on the table, it can take a half a page of words, mostly nouns! It's impressive, but a little careless of her because I think it gets in the way of dimmer people like me getting the story about people. In Steinbeck's novel, it's nature. The guy uses too many words, and too much of my precious American time to describe nature. I'm too dim for metaphor, if that's what's going on, I like it straight.
I just started, "The Public Image," by Muriel Spark and I already feel like I'm at home with a friend. I can tell this is going to be a gossipy little book about interesting people. The people being chatted about are uncommon and morally arresting and the style is going to be perfect for me.
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quote: Mrs. Bradstreet had a very serious sin , not unconnected with her late husband, upon her conscience. Sometimes she felt she was damned, sometimes she felt she should tell everything to the police (how much did they know?). She decided that for the present she would follow WIlliam Eascote's adviced and lay it all before God. However, she had done this before to no avail.
Hrm. This is poorly done, IMO. I would have kept her internal monologue consistent with the others'.
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