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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
yikes. This was a slow builder, a generally tough read and filled with characters that had little to offer at first, in terms of likability. However there are reasons why Ms. Murdoch is a three time Booker Prize winner [edit: actually short listed 4 times, only a winner once] and those reasons do shine through as we journey through the more unpleasant sides of the main characters personality flaws and rampant paranoia knocked back with healthy blasts of jealously and chasers of spiteful manipulation as he tries nearly always in vain to control the people he supposedly loves or somewhat cares about shuffling them around in his own little dance macabre of vanity. There is more than ample meat on this book's serving of themes related to life, the human condition, what we are, what defines us both to others and to ourselves, sometimes this is picked up in conversations or long discussions in the narrators head of his motives (such that he understands them or we trust them as told) or it is inferred by the many twist in the plot as we seem to bounce from one escapade, tragedy or love battle to another in rapid almost over exaggerated slap stick style succession.
Sadly though, I'm not sure I'm going to reach for another book by Murdoch, at least any time soon. In fact I may need a nice little crime fiction novel, or maybe the Hunger Games to reset my book mind to a level place again. I gave it 5 stars not because I enjoyed it, but because it deserved it.
Sadly though, I'm not sure I'm going to reach for another book by Murdoch, at least any time soon. In fact I may need a nice little crime fiction novel, or maybe the Hunger Games to reset my book mind to a level place again. I gave it 5 stars not because I enjoyed it, but because it deserved it.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While reading this Booker Prize-winning novel, my first and last by the British grande dame Iris Murdoch, I curiously thought often of the concept of umwelten. Explained in a much-more enjoyable book I was simultaneously reading, An Immense World (by Ed Yong), umwelten is that sensory world that is particular to a particular species of animal, dependent on what senses that animal has to experience the world. Each animal experiences a specific unique slice of the world.
While it might be thrilling and magical to experience the world as other creatures do--think of the hero in T.H. White's The Once and Future King--it might also drive us mad. In novels told in the first person, as The Sea, the Sea is, the reader spends the length of narrative inside the narrator Charles Arrowby's head, or if you will, umwelten, and, in this 495-page account by a misogynist, self-absorbed egotist, that is a maddening place to be.
In fiction a gifted author can do anything, even producing a highly riveting account of a simple cell organism that devoid of all but the most basic of senses experiences the tiniest possible sliver of reality. All to say that my violent objection to this book is not to argue that the documented thoughts of an unrepentant narcissist are not possibly the fodder of good literature. I simply point out that if I perceived that you were about to start this book I would jump forward, tear it from your hands, and unheeding your protests, I would run to throw it off the nearest cliff.
Of course, it is a mystery I do not care to explain that, despite my inner screaming as I read the book, I still finished it.
While it might be thrilling and magical to experience the world as other creatures do--think of the hero in T.H. White's The Once and Future King--it might also drive us mad. In novels told in the first person, as The Sea, the Sea is, the reader spends the length of narrative inside the narrator Charles Arrowby's head, or if you will, umwelten, and, in this 495-page account by a misogynist, self-absorbed egotist, that is a maddening place to be.
In fiction a gifted author can do anything, even producing a highly riveting account of a simple cell organism that devoid of all but the most basic of senses experiences the tiniest possible sliver of reality. All to say that my violent objection to this book is not to argue that the documented thoughts of an unrepentant narcissist are not possibly the fodder of good literature. I simply point out that if I perceived that you were about to start this book I would jump forward, tear it from your hands, and unheeding your protests, I would run to throw it off the nearest cliff.
Of course, it is a mystery I do not care to explain that, despite my inner screaming as I read the book, I still finished it.
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Iris Murdoch does odious characters so well. Started out a little slow but soon got going with the usual cast of insufferable characters doing and saying silly things and reflecting on life. I do love Murdoch’s books.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The rich, uncontained prose of The Sea, The Sea was such a delight to read - it was a shame that it dragged near the end. But as Charles himself said, "life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on" which explains that sluggish end. After all, I was reading a diary, or a memoir of sorts, so to expect such a clean finish, so unlike life, was unfair of me.
When people talk about liking "unlikeable" characters they likely mean: bad boys, jerks, people who don't care about the world. it's shocking to me too, when i say Charles Arrowby is unlikeable (he's narcissistic, vain, pretentious) and i like him. to an extent, of course. Because i see myself in him. The near-unerring Romanticism. The touch of the dramatic. But, I suppose, he takes it too far as characters in fiction are wont.
the way he talks about women (calls them 'girls') repulses me. how he manipulates Lizzie and casts aside Rosina is disgusting. and when the time came when he sees Hartley again, is it any surprise that he acts like a fool? he rhapsodized so much about this lost first love to the point of obscene elevation. it was almost to be expected that he acts unreasonably. Charles drives me nuts because he imposes his will so much but at the same time Lizzie seems so weak the way she carries on. the idea of Charles’ love for Hartley as some kind of innocent heaven, and Arcadia, prelapsarian. he seems really obsessed with this idea as a means of validating the illusion of his love.
also something about how the way the prose is punctuated. it’s not wrong by any means. it uses commas in a minimalistic manner where i tend to use it any chance i get. this makes me hesitate as i read to make sure i understand the meaning. this isn’t a complaint. it means i read more mindfully because i notice the hiccups. it’s as if the prose demands to be tasted rather than simply swallowed.
So much wisdom in such a lengthy book. I'm glad to have read it at this point in my life.
When people talk about liking "unlikeable" characters they likely mean: bad boys, jerks, people who don't care about the world. it's shocking to me too, when i say Charles Arrowby is unlikeable (he's narcissistic, vain, pretentious) and i like him. to an extent, of course. Because i see myself in him. The near-unerring Romanticism. The touch of the dramatic. But, I suppose, he takes it too far as characters in fiction are wont.
the way he talks about women (calls them 'girls') repulses me. how he manipulates Lizzie and casts aside Rosina is disgusting. and when the time came when he sees Hartley again, is it any surprise that he acts like a fool? he rhapsodized so much about this lost first love to the point of obscene elevation. it was almost to be expected that he acts unreasonably. Charles drives me nuts because he imposes his will so much but at the same time Lizzie seems so weak the way she carries on. the idea of Charles’ love for Hartley as some kind of innocent heaven, and Arcadia, prelapsarian. he seems really obsessed with this idea as a means of validating the illusion of his love.
also something about how the way the prose is punctuated. it’s not wrong by any means. it uses commas in a minimalistic manner where i tend to use it any chance i get. this makes me hesitate as i read to make sure i understand the meaning. this isn’t a complaint. it means i read more mindfully because i notice the hiccups. it’s as if the prose demands to be tasted rather than simply swallowed.
So much wisdom in such a lengthy book. I'm glad to have read it at this point in my life.