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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Very interesting. You definitely get inside the main character's head. A little too long. I think it could have been cut 100 pages. A lot of little wisdoms and very real yet so fantastic.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
I have to admit this was a struggle, Charles Arrowby is a selfish, egotistical fool and not a likeable character. I sometimes wonder if the sea is a metaphor for his mental health. I have however finished it and pleased to say I did enjoy it in the end and fortunately he seemed to stop being quite as flaky, although do people really change?
This is obviously a brilliant book. I took away one star because Charles annoyed me so - but that is also a testament to Murdoch’s impeccable writing.
I'm obviously in the minority here but I really struggled to plough through this and resorted to skim reading sections. I had been looking forward to reading the novel after the glowing reviews and a Booker Prize endorsement. I'm usually open-minded about fiction but this was one of the most disappointing reading experiences I have had, possibly because my expectations were so high.
I found the prose to be rambling. Characters were (deliberately?) dislikeable and a procession of unexpected visitors from London to the unspecified location in 'the north' became tedious.
I found no great satisfaction in the plot and was relieved to have finished it.
I accept that it has been very well received by many, many other readers but it wasn't for me.
I found the prose to be rambling. Characters were (deliberately?) dislikeable and a procession of unexpected visitors from London to the unspecified location in 'the north' became tedious.
I found no great satisfaction in the plot and was relieved to have finished it.
I accept that it has been very well received by many, many other readers but it wasn't for me.
“O Mar, o Mar” (1978) é um romance feito de múltiplas camadas concebidas num entrosamento de modos, o explícito, ocupado com as necessidades narrativas de manter a história viva e apelativa ao longo de centenas de páginas, e o implícito, de questionamento reflexivo inerente à veia filosófica da autora. Murdoch foi professora de filosofia na Universidade de Oxford, sendo reconhecida tanto pela sua ficção como pelo seu trabalho filosófico. Dito isto, o livro não é nenhum tratado de filosofia, mas não deixa de ser uma obra imensamente densa, talvez até mais pela profundidade descritiva do que propriamente pelas argumentações. Nesse sentido, a escrita de Murdoch recorda Proust através do modo como descreve cenas interiores, pensamentos e memórias, na sua miríade de detalhes, como avança e recua dentro dos personagens, pondo a nu a diferença liminar entre o real exterior e alegadamente objetivo, e o mundo subjetivo criado na cabeça de cada um de nós.
O protagonista é um encenador de teatro, célebre, que na entrada da idade de reforma se retira de Londres para habitar sozinho, numa casa à beira-mar completamente isolada, sem eletricidade nem água. Apesar de desejar estar sozinho, Charles Arrowby acaba por encontrar muitos dos principais personagens da sua vida, tanto recente, como da sua infância, o que vai provocar enormes tumultos interiores, que tornarão evidente o tipo de pessoa que temos em cena, dando a entender que existe ali pouco que se possa qualificar de boa pessoa, mas no entanto vamos avançando e compreendendo que má pessoa também não é, porque no fundo é apenas um humano. Murdoch penetra pelo pensamento de Arrowby adentro e dá-nos a ver e a sentir o mundo da indecisão, da incerteza, da dúvida, do questionamento e ao mesmo tempo o da certeza, do autoritarismo, do desprezo e da discriminação. A leitura senta-nos no ombro do personagem e deixa-nos ouvir e sentir tudo o que ele pensa, o que acaba por inevitavelmente se colar a nós, às nossas próprias incertezas e desejos. Não admira que Murdoch seja comparada a Dostoiévski ou Tolstói, ou nutra grande amor por Shakespeare.
A escrita apesar de apresentar um vocabulário acessível é bastante densa, mas é exatamente por meio dessa densidade que se produz uma aura reflexiva que nos transporta continuamente para o domínio do pensar. Apesar de toda a ação se passar numa casa junto a uma praia de rochedos em que os personagens podem banhar-se, passamos a maior parte do tempo dentro de ideias, quase desligados da realidade espacial-temporal, com muitas cenas a fazer-nos recordar os mundos-história dos filmes de Ingmar Bergman.
Existem algumas partes que me parecem interessantes reter, nomeadamente o modo como olham para a arte, no caso particular do teatro, mas também como discutem a nossa ilusão de realidade, ou ainda como nos introduz à discussão dos nossos anseios e desejos. Aliás, para mim, todo o livro acaba sendo isso, uma introdução aos problemas da crença no desejo de Ser. Porque passamos vidas inteiras em busca do nosso próprio eu, de uma suposta felicidade, sem considerar que essa mesma busca, ou essa mesma felicidade, pode não corresponder àquilo que verdadeiramente queremos, mas apenas àquilo que nos parece que verdadeiramente desejamos. É daqui que emergem as maiores incertezas sobre nós mesmos, somos alguém, mas não sabemos que alguém é esse que somos, temos intuições, fazemos inferências e lançamos suspeitas, mas ao longo das nossas vidas vamos aprendendo que muito daquilo porque tanto ansiámos e acabámos por conseguir afinal não era assim tão importante...
Sobre o teatro:
“The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal. Art’s relation with its client is here at its closest and most immediate. Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment and imprison the spectator in it. The theatre apes the profound truth that we are extended beings who yet can only exist in the present. It is a factitious present because it lacks the free aura of personal reflection and contains its own secret limits and conclusions. Thus life is comic, but though it may be terrible it is not tragic: tragedy belongs to the cunning of the stage. Of course most theatre is gross ephemeral rot; and only plays by great poets can be read, except as directors’ notes. I say ‘great poets’ but I suppose I really mean Shakespeare. It is a paradox that the most essentially frivolous and rootless of all the serious arts has produced the greatest of all writers.”
Nós e a realidade
“We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value.”
“Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.”
“in a few weeks or a few months you’ll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It’s not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It’s like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish.”
“The worshipper endows the worshipped object with power, real power not imaginary power, that is the sense of the ontological proof, one of the most ambiguous ideas clever men ever thought of. But this power is dreadful stuff. Our lusts and attachments compose our god. And when one attachment is cast off another arrives by way of consolation. We never give up a pleasure absolutely, we only barter it for another.”
Publicado no VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/03/o-mar-o-mar-de-iris-murdoch.html
O protagonista é um encenador de teatro, célebre, que na entrada da idade de reforma se retira de Londres para habitar sozinho, numa casa à beira-mar completamente isolada, sem eletricidade nem água. Apesar de desejar estar sozinho, Charles Arrowby acaba por encontrar muitos dos principais personagens da sua vida, tanto recente, como da sua infância, o que vai provocar enormes tumultos interiores, que tornarão evidente o tipo de pessoa que temos em cena, dando a entender que existe ali pouco que se possa qualificar de boa pessoa, mas no entanto vamos avançando e compreendendo que má pessoa também não é, porque no fundo é apenas um humano. Murdoch penetra pelo pensamento de Arrowby adentro e dá-nos a ver e a sentir o mundo da indecisão, da incerteza, da dúvida, do questionamento e ao mesmo tempo o da certeza, do autoritarismo, do desprezo e da discriminação. A leitura senta-nos no ombro do personagem e deixa-nos ouvir e sentir tudo o que ele pensa, o que acaba por inevitavelmente se colar a nós, às nossas próprias incertezas e desejos. Não admira que Murdoch seja comparada a Dostoiévski ou Tolstói, ou nutra grande amor por Shakespeare.
A escrita apesar de apresentar um vocabulário acessível é bastante densa, mas é exatamente por meio dessa densidade que se produz uma aura reflexiva que nos transporta continuamente para o domínio do pensar. Apesar de toda a ação se passar numa casa junto a uma praia de rochedos em que os personagens podem banhar-se, passamos a maior parte do tempo dentro de ideias, quase desligados da realidade espacial-temporal, com muitas cenas a fazer-nos recordar os mundos-história dos filmes de Ingmar Bergman.
Existem algumas partes que me parecem interessantes reter, nomeadamente o modo como olham para a arte, no caso particular do teatro, mas também como discutem a nossa ilusão de realidade, ou ainda como nos introduz à discussão dos nossos anseios e desejos. Aliás, para mim, todo o livro acaba sendo isso, uma introdução aos problemas da crença no desejo de Ser. Porque passamos vidas inteiras em busca do nosso próprio eu, de uma suposta felicidade, sem considerar que essa mesma busca, ou essa mesma felicidade, pode não corresponder àquilo que verdadeiramente queremos, mas apenas àquilo que nos parece que verdadeiramente desejamos. É daqui que emergem as maiores incertezas sobre nós mesmos, somos alguém, mas não sabemos que alguém é esse que somos, temos intuições, fazemos inferências e lançamos suspeitas, mas ao longo das nossas vidas vamos aprendendo que muito daquilo porque tanto ansiámos e acabámos por conseguir afinal não era assim tão importante...
Sobre o teatro:
“The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal. Art’s relation with its client is here at its closest and most immediate. Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment and imprison the spectator in it. The theatre apes the profound truth that we are extended beings who yet can only exist in the present. It is a factitious present because it lacks the free aura of personal reflection and contains its own secret limits and conclusions. Thus life is comic, but though it may be terrible it is not tragic: tragedy belongs to the cunning of the stage. Of course most theatre is gross ephemeral rot; and only plays by great poets can be read, except as directors’ notes. I say ‘great poets’ but I suppose I really mean Shakespeare. It is a paradox that the most essentially frivolous and rootless of all the serious arts has produced the greatest of all writers.”
Nós e a realidade
“We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value.”
“Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.”
“in a few weeks or a few months you’ll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It’s not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It’s like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish.”
“The worshipper endows the worshipped object with power, real power not imaginary power, that is the sense of the ontological proof, one of the most ambiguous ideas clever men ever thought of. But this power is dreadful stuff. Our lusts and attachments compose our god. And when one attachment is cast off another arrives by way of consolation. We never give up a pleasure absolutely, we only barter it for another.”
Publicado no VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/03/o-mar-o-mar-de-iris-murdoch.html
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oh, I did not enjoy this one bit. Thank god I’ve been in bed sick all day because I would not have finished this before having to return it to my local library otherwise.
There are so many parts of this book that I just didn’t enjoy at all, that I’m wondering whether there’s something wrong with me because so many people seemed to love it?! I know it’s each to their own but damn son!
The only, and for me it is the only, redeeming quality of this book is that in parts the writing is lovely. There are descriptions that were genuinely lovely to read but everything else was just too much. It moved so slowly and with so much repetition, until literally the last 20 pages where more happened in those last few pages than had happened in the entire book.
So yeah, did not enjoy. Will not be re-reading. Sorry.
There are so many parts of this book that I just didn’t enjoy at all, that I’m wondering whether there’s something wrong with me because so many people seemed to love it?! I know it’s each to their own but damn son!
The only, and for me it is the only, redeeming quality of this book is that in parts the writing is lovely. There are descriptions that were genuinely lovely to read but everything else was just too much. It moved so slowly and with so much repetition, until literally the last 20 pages where more happened in those last few pages than had happened in the entire book.
So yeah, did not enjoy. Will not be re-reading. Sorry.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes