Book description
Montague Small, an obsessive writer of detective thrillers, mourns his
lately dead wife, who may or may not have been unfaithful to him. His
attempts at meditation are a failure. He detests his fictional
detective. His interest in his neighbour's difficulties and his
neighbour's wife appear to be his only consolations after all. The
neighbour, Blaise Gavender, is an amateur psychotherapist who has seen
through himself. Has Blaise the courage to change his life and become an
honest man? What is honesty in any case? Blaise's wife Harriet lives for
love, love of her husband, love of her son. She if fond of Monty too.
Emily McHugh is quite another matter. She too lives for love: for love
and justice and revenge, aided and incited by her ambiguous friend
Constance Pinn. Emily's son Luca, a very disturbed child, becomes the
subject of a tug of war between two possessive women. Edgar Demornay, a
distinguished scholar, also blunders into the fray; he adores Monty and
falls in love with Monty's women. A deed of violence finally solves many
problems. This is a story of different loves; and of how a man may need
two women in such a way that he can be happy with neither. Sacred and
profane love are related opposites; the one enjoyed renders the other
necessary, so that the ever unsatisfied heart swings constantly to and
fro. 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.
