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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Dang, this was just one of those "right place, right time" books for me. I can't recommend it to everyone. It took me a REAAAAAAAALLY long time to get through it. Just nickel and dimed, really, but... I kept going back to see what happened next. It was just Charles' development and insanity and process that I really connected with. His relationship to James was interesting. I've read a couple of her books and I'm always startled by how... timeless and worldly? I can't put my finger on it. She's got a style that makes you feel like you're reading something from the 30's, or even the late 1800's, but with such a modern sensibility. I just like her very much. I am compelled by her. She makes me aware of the universality of the basest human emotions. I don't know if that's worded right, but... I wish I'd underlined all the phrases and passages I kept wanting to underline. I don't think I can re-read it again any time soon and I kept being captured by turns of phrase and moments she'd come up with.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
enjoyed but could have been 1/2 the length
this all kind of unraveled at the end...
‘ we enjoyed and craved for each other’s company. what a test that is, more than devotion, admiration, passion. if you longed and long for someone’s company you love them.
sheer hatred can be a commanding form of madness
ever since i first loved you you live in my mind
my love for you exists in a sort of eternal present, it is almost the meaning of time. i don’t protest too much, such love can live with despair with quietness with resignation with ordinariness and tiredness and silence.
your letter had made an aching emptiness and a need and i shall not be the same
she cried before me with wide open eyes not staunching the tears, her tears fell on my sleeve, on my hand like storm rain. and when at last i told her to go she went like a shadow with silent swift obedience
a furious mutual desire for possession dominated the entire affair while it lasted
extreme love must bring terror with it and great terror like some kind of prayer which lean upon the omniscience of the almighty has a vast unlimited all embracing compass
never so pure and gentle never so intense did it come to me after, that absolute and holy yearning of one human body and soul for another
mercifully one forgets ones love affairs as one forgets one’s dreams
it would have to be love between us but love purged of possessive madness, purged of self, disciplined by time and the irrevocability of our fates. we must find out how at last to be absolutes to each other never to lose each other without putting any foot wrong or spilling one drop of some vessel of truth and history that was held up between us
in the teeth of our fates most exquisite cruelty, in the teeth of all the evidence, we belonged to each other
all art disfigures life
some life we might have had together if i had been different, and she has been different. now it was gone, whatever happened next, and the world was changed
and now it’s ended before it even began and i never imagined itwould all be spoiled and broken at the start. and now i’ve got nothing except my love for you, all wakened up again and rejected, all wakened up again for ever and ever
i love you i’ve never forgotten you and when i saw you i felt it all again but it’s something childish, it isn’t part of the real world. there was never any place for our love in the world. if there had been, it would have won and we wouldn’t have parted.
what shall i do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? why did you come back if you could not content me? what can i do now with a great useless machine of my love which has no work to do?
‘ we enjoyed and craved for each other’s company. what a test that is, more than devotion, admiration, passion. if you longed and long for someone’s company you love them.
sheer hatred can be a commanding form of madness
ever since i first loved you you live in my mind
my love for you exists in a sort of eternal present, it is almost the meaning of time. i don’t protest too much, such love can live with despair with quietness with resignation with ordinariness and tiredness and silence.
your letter had made an aching emptiness and a need and i shall not be the same
she cried before me with wide open eyes not staunching the tears, her tears fell on my sleeve, on my hand like storm rain. and when at last i told her to go she went like a shadow with silent swift obedience
a furious mutual desire for possession dominated the entire affair while it lasted
extreme love must bring terror with it and great terror like some kind of prayer which lean upon the omniscience of the almighty has a vast unlimited all embracing compass
never so pure and gentle never so intense did it come to me after, that absolute and holy yearning of one human body and soul for another
mercifully one forgets ones love affairs as one forgets one’s dreams
it would have to be love between us but love purged of possessive madness, purged of self, disciplined by time and the irrevocability of our fates. we must find out how at last to be absolutes to each other never to lose each other without putting any foot wrong or spilling one drop of some vessel of truth and history that was held up between us
in the teeth of our fates most exquisite cruelty, in the teeth of all the evidence, we belonged to each other
all art disfigures life
some life we might have had together if i had been different, and she has been different. now it was gone, whatever happened next, and the world was changed
and now it’s ended before it even began and i never imagined itwould all be spoiled and broken at the start. and now i’ve got nothing except my love for you, all wakened up again and rejected, all wakened up again for ever and ever
i love you i’ve never forgotten you and when i saw you i felt it all again but it’s something childish, it isn’t part of the real world. there was never any place for our love in the world. if there had been, it would have won and we wouldn’t have parted.
what shall i do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? why did you come back if you could not content me? what can i do now with a great useless machine of my love which has no work to do?
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Una obra de gran esfuerzo. La creación de un protagonista masculino, con todo y reflexiones, apegos, y tribulaciones, en donde el mar no solo es el mejor protagonista, sino que es determinante en el tejido de esta historia. La infinidad de estados de ánimo de este mar británico nos permite conocer la mejor filosofía de Iris Murdoch...
Me encantó la forma en que los personajes van formando constantemente esta historia, creando fantasías o realidades y sin alcanzar a preveer ningún desenlace. Algunos de los personajes de este libro me parecieron poco verosímiles, pero solo leyendo hasta el final, creo que es posible entrever el propósito de gran riqueza de esta autora.
Me encantó la forma en que los personajes van formando constantemente esta historia, creando fantasías o realidades y sin alcanzar a preveer ningún desenlace. Algunos de los personajes de este libro me parecieron poco verosímiles, pero solo leyendo hasta el final, creo que es posible entrever el propósito de gran riqueza de esta autora.
Rambling and darkly funny, narrated by one of the most unreliable people ever put to paper. I had a lot of fun with this book! Hartley and Charles are both awful and that’s a huge part of why I really enjoyed the book (would I be wrong to say they deserve each other?) I desperately want to read more of Murdoch’s work!
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
mysterious
reflective
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
This is a nicely written tale, adequately compelling almost till the end. But it is spoiled by a series of weaknesses.
The two main characters are singularly unappealing, though everybody else is interesting and care-aboutable. It is absolutely unbelievable that the male narrator would be obsessively drawn to his pretty high-school sweetheart, encountered at random in old age, ugly, downtrodden, hopeless, fat, to such an extent that he kidnaps her.
The narrator's voice is such that I anticipated from the very beginning an unreliable narrator, revealed at the end with shocking/satisfying conclusion. While it's true his reportage is less than perfectly clear, and at the end he changes his mind about everything and everybody, rather than reading as a twist, it's as if the author was holding all the loose ends in her hands, and rather than tying things up neatly, tosses them on the ground where they squirm around like slugs.
3 or 4 short moments of magic and Buddhism (!) seem to belong to some other book, throwing this one of kilter.
An editor was sorely needed. This book is too long. Edit it yourself by skipping every paragraph that begins with a sentence setting the scene, as the paragraph will be flowery language slowing down the plot and contributing nothing.
The two main characters are singularly unappealing, though everybody else is interesting and care-aboutable. It is absolutely unbelievable that the male narrator would be obsessively drawn to his pretty high-school sweetheart, encountered at random in old age, ugly, downtrodden, hopeless, fat, to such an extent that he kidnaps her.
The narrator's voice is such that I anticipated from the very beginning an unreliable narrator, revealed at the end with shocking/satisfying conclusion. While it's true his reportage is less than perfectly clear, and at the end he changes his mind about everything and everybody, rather than reading as a twist, it's as if the author was holding all the loose ends in her hands, and rather than tying things up neatly, tosses them on the ground where they squirm around like slugs.
3 or 4 short moments of magic and Buddhism (!) seem to belong to some other book, throwing this one of kilter.
An editor was sorely needed. This book is too long. Edit it yourself by skipping every paragraph that begins with a sentence setting the scene, as the paragraph will be flowery language slowing down the plot and contributing nothing.
slow-paced