Book description
Iris Murdoch's first novel is set in a part of London where struggling
writers rub shoulders with successful bookies, and film starlets with
frantic philosophers. Its hero, Jake Donaghue, is a drifting, clever,
likeable young man who makes a living out of translation work and
sponging on his friends. A meeting with Anna, an old flame, leads him
into a series of fantastic adventures. Jake is captivated by a majestic
philosopher, Hugo Belfounder, whose profound and inconclusive
reflections give the book its title - under the net of language. Iris
Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to
Badminton School, Bristol, and read classics at Somerville College,
Oxford. In 1948 she returned to Oxford where she became a fellow of St
Anne's college. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was made a DBE in
the 1987 New Year's Honours List. She died in February 1999.
