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A review by kris_mccracken
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
5.0
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The novel's centrepiece – the recently retired doyen of the theatre, Charles Arrowby – is an unlikable sort of chap. Given this, and the fact that the entire 600-plus page novel emerges from the immediate first person of Arrowby, I was amazed how much I enjoyed this behemoth.
Murdoch has done a magnificent job in first rendering our narrator in such unflattering terms, in which the vanities, jealousies and utter lack of compassion comes to the forefront, then slowly work towards finding some (faint) redemptive hope by the end.
Charles recounts events meticulously, filled with comic set-pieces involving a cast of luvvies set adrift on the remote English coast. Unable to recognise the egotism and selfishness of his romantic ideals, he pursues a bewildered old woman who once was his first love many years before.
As the title indicates, the sea (along with a decaying house and grounds) plays a significant role in the book. It's always beautifully described. One might complain that no character beyond Charles has any convincing inner life. For me, this Charles' egotism and failure to conceive of a world outside of his head explain the lack of depth around him.
The story comes from Arrowby, whose unreliability is constantly in the foreground; the book is variously sublime, ridiculous, complex, facile, profound and specious. Charles is at once talented but destructive and ridiculous. The absurdity of his self-importance renders any egocentrism somewhat more plausible.
The dark absurdity of the novel's centre – a 250-page extended nervous breakdown – showcases Charles’s desperate obsession to render his life meaningful through the pursuit of love is bleakly depressing. I’d never have believed that I would soften towards the chap by the story’s end, but I did.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ½
The novel's centrepiece – the recently retired doyen of the theatre, Charles Arrowby – is an unlikable sort of chap. Given this, and the fact that the entire 600-plus page novel emerges from the immediate first person of Arrowby, I was amazed how much I enjoyed this behemoth.
Murdoch has done a magnificent job in first rendering our narrator in such unflattering terms, in which the vanities, jealousies and utter lack of compassion comes to the forefront, then slowly work towards finding some (faint) redemptive hope by the end.
Charles recounts events meticulously, filled with comic set-pieces involving a cast of luvvies set adrift on the remote English coast. Unable to recognise the egotism and selfishness of his romantic ideals, he pursues a bewildered old woman who once was his first love many years before.
As the title indicates, the sea (along with a decaying house and grounds) plays a significant role in the book. It's always beautifully described. One might complain that no character beyond Charles has any convincing inner life. For me, this Charles' egotism and failure to conceive of a world outside of his head explain the lack of depth around him.
The story comes from Arrowby, whose unreliability is constantly in the foreground; the book is variously sublime, ridiculous, complex, facile, profound and specious. Charles is at once talented but destructive and ridiculous. The absurdity of his self-importance renders any egocentrism somewhat more plausible.
The dark absurdity of the novel's centre – a 250-page extended nervous breakdown – showcases Charles’s desperate obsession to render his life meaningful through the pursuit of love is bleakly depressing. I’d never have believed that I would soften towards the chap by the story’s end, but I did.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ½