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A review by shimmery
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
3.0
This book was for me very hard to get in to. The first hundred or so pages see the narrator, Charles Arrowby, reminisce on his life and former relationships in a way that is quite misogynistic and rarely compelling. A retired actor, Charles writes from a house on the coast which he has recently moved to, and aside from a few odd incidents involving visions of sea creatures and ghostly goings on in the night, nothing much is happening in his life.
However, this section proves to be an assembling of characters which are to appear later in the novel when the real drama begins. By some freak coincidence, Charles comes across his long lost childhood love living in the same village as him, and immediately begins a kind of mission to win her back.
Although the first section of the book took me weeks to complete, once I'd reached this part I finished it in a couple of days. There is something comic about the way the characters from Charles' past call up at his house one after another and something fantastically entertaining about how they all become involved in his latest saga. With spying, breaking and entering, kidnap and attempted murder mixed in with tea parties and sunbathing, there is certainly a lot going on by the end of the book. Though Charles never becomes likeable, his life at least becomes engaging.
If I was judging the book by the later part, I'd give it a higher rating, but the long winded introduction and a little noise around the end leave it on three stars.
However, this section proves to be an assembling of characters which are to appear later in the novel when the real drama begins. By some freak coincidence, Charles comes across his long lost childhood love living in the same village as him, and immediately begins a kind of mission to win her back.
Although the first section of the book took me weeks to complete, once I'd reached this part I finished it in a couple of days. There is something comic about the way the characters from Charles' past call up at his house one after another and something fantastically entertaining about how they all become involved in his latest saga. With spying, breaking and entering, kidnap and attempted murder mixed in with tea parties and sunbathing, there is certainly a lot going on by the end of the book. Though Charles never becomes likeable, his life at least becomes engaging.
If I was judging the book by the later part, I'd give it a higher rating, but the long winded introduction and a little noise around the end leave it on three stars.