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leighnonymous 's review for:
The Black Prince
by Iris Murdoch
I can easily see why this book makes the must-read-before-one-dies lists; it's a layered and complex comment on truth and art in which the reader questions his or her own ideas of truth. By the end of the novel, I'd questioned several times the veracity of what I'd read - from different characters, no less.
Murdoch excels at what I call "intellectual madcap;" she creates situations in which characters are thrown together in odd circumstances and despite the tragic comedy of it all, try to make the best out of it. Hilarity invariably ensues. I love that about Murdoch.
About halfway through, things take a dark and bleak turn as marriages, lives, and sanity quickly disintegrate with the virtual lighter fluid of erotic love. The main character, Bradley, is a pathetic waste of a human being. His narcissism overwhelmed and disgusted me. Then, I realized that's what Murdoch was trying to do to clue the reader in about his unreliability as a narrator. I certainly wouldn't trust a misogynist.
The postscripts at the end of the novel speak volumes about the novel, itself (a work of fiction? a confessional? both?), and each gives it a Sixth Sense type feel. I began to think I hadn't understood the novel at all. But that was another of Murdoch's tricks: make you doubt yourself. So, at the end, I doubted everything Bradley told us and concluded that he was, indeed, the murderer. I wouldn't put it past that prick to have murdered his "friend" just to have something to write about.
What I got out of this book was that Murdoch wanted to make a comment on art and how we'll never know the true intent of the artist and we all experience the art in a different way. There are three sides to every story: his way, her way, and the truth. Well, Murdoch says we'll never know the truth but can certainly try our best to piece it together for ourselves from what *we* know to be true. But always doubt what you know because you can never be certain.
Murdoch excels at what I call "intellectual madcap;" she creates situations in which characters are thrown together in odd circumstances and despite the tragic comedy of it all, try to make the best out of it. Hilarity invariably ensues. I love that about Murdoch.
About halfway through, things take a dark and bleak turn as marriages, lives, and sanity quickly disintegrate with the virtual lighter fluid of erotic love. The main character, Bradley, is a pathetic waste of a human being. His narcissism overwhelmed and disgusted me. Then, I realized that's what Murdoch was trying to do to clue the reader in about his unreliability as a narrator. I certainly wouldn't trust a misogynist.
The postscripts at the end of the novel speak volumes about the novel, itself (a work of fiction? a confessional? both?), and each gives it a Sixth Sense type feel. I began to think I hadn't understood the novel at all. But that was another of Murdoch's tricks: make you doubt yourself. So, at the end, I doubted everything Bradley told us and concluded that he was, indeed, the murderer. I wouldn't put it past that prick to have murdered his "friend" just to have something to write about.
What I got out of this book was that Murdoch wanted to make a comment on art and how we'll never know the true intent of the artist and we all experience the art in a different way. There are three sides to every story: his way, her way, and the truth. Well, Murdoch says we'll never know the truth but can certainly try our best to piece it together for ourselves from what *we* know to be true. But always doubt what you know because you can never be certain.