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A review by amerynth
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
4.0
Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" is the tale of Charles Arrowby, a narcissistic actor/director who retires to Shruff End, a gloomy seaside home to write his memoirs. His peace and quiet is quickly interrupted by a bevy of girlfriends past, including a chance encounter with Mary Hartley Smith, his first love.
Arrowby is at once smitten and obsessed with Hartley and the book becomes a complicated tangle of jealousy, obsession and possibly even madness. The line between reality and fiction (in Arrowby's world) is so blurred that the book really plunges along moving from the ridiculous to the absurd in an entertaining way.
I liked the book a lot, though I won't say that I loved it. (Reading the first 100 or so pages, I thought this might be a five star book for me... but as the story evolved I saw that it wouldn't be.) I adore Murdoch's writing style. However, as the absurdity and egotism of the narrator builds to a crescendo, the overall story lost a little steam as it stretched the bounds of credibility farther and farther. I still give the book a good, solid thumbs up... just not as enthusiastically as I initially thought it would be.
Arrowby is at once smitten and obsessed with Hartley and the book becomes a complicated tangle of jealousy, obsession and possibly even madness. The line between reality and fiction (in Arrowby's world) is so blurred that the book really plunges along moving from the ridiculous to the absurd in an entertaining way.
I liked the book a lot, though I won't say that I loved it. (Reading the first 100 or so pages, I thought this might be a five star book for me... but as the story evolved I saw that it wouldn't be.) I adore Murdoch's writing style. However, as the absurdity and egotism of the narrator builds to a crescendo, the overall story lost a little steam as it stretched the bounds of credibility farther and farther. I still give the book a good, solid thumbs up... just not as enthusiastically as I initially thought it would be.