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jeannemixon 's review for:
The Black Prince
by Iris Murdoch
I was in the library looking for more Murakami after having read Kafka by the Sea and Windup Bird and I saw they had some Iris Murdoch and so I checked out Black Prince and, of course, I loved it because I love Iris Murdoch. This book starts slowly (a little like Murakami). It is about a man who is unable to express or feel emotion or connections to other people. He is a complete egoist. The other people have dramatic (almost hysterical) interactions with each other and him, but he just wants to retreat from the world. There is some gender bending and some confused sexuality. If it hadn't been a library book I would have pulled out a highlighter because there were so many passages I loved and wished I could memorize. The book is alternately laugh out loud funny and horrible and violent and sad. It ends with a sort of Rashomon effect that pulls you completely out of the story in a very jarring way. There were references to Hamlet and to Shakespeare in general, but they were odd. The Black Prince is Hamlet, but I think in the end it was a reference to the artistic urge. Much of the book was about what is art and why do artists feel a need to create and what is worthy and what is not.