I’m so sorry this is a day late – I was basically working or doing yoga or getting laundry on the line all day yesterday and there was no time to put this together. I hope I’m forgiven. At least I got outside, unlike good old Carel …

So today we round up discussions on “The Time of the Angels” so far and then look ahead to “The Nice and the Good”. I’m really excited about this month’s read – this is what I consider a ‘classic’ Murdoch with its group of disparate characters all clustered around one couple and all linked through loves and relationships old and new. We might even need to draw a diagram!

“The Time of the Angels”

We had a really good discussion over on the review for this novel, looking at the writer of the introduction’s assertion that it would have been different if Carel had got out more and examining how frightening it is. I have to say I’m not quite as alarmed by it as when I first read it as a mid-teen, but it’s still very unsettling.

Jo has submitted an excellent, full review on Goodreads and the discussion on my review also gave her some food for thought. Buried in Print has shared a review here. I will share links to any more Goodreads and other blog post reviews here in time.

In cover-sharing, David Mahon contributed this US first edition from Viking Press (1966) which came with a library card in it.

Peter Rivenberg’s 1975 Penguin cover is as disturbing as it should be

Buried in Print contributed a very subdued Penguin version

and Maria Peacock has the Vintage Classic before mine, complete with angel (the detail on the front is from Annunciatory Angel by Fra Angelico) and Maria mentioned that IM might have something to say about the hair!

This has the same blurb as my red-spined one.

If you have comments to make or links to blog posts or Goodreads reviews to post, you can put them here or (better still) on the review.

“The Nice and the Good”

And now we move on to an early favourite of mine (sorry about the terrible photograph, but my first edition is covered in a thin plastic that will not stop picking up lights). Again, I felt terribly sophisticated reading it in my mid-teens: it’s got a thriller aspect, a group of intellectuals and misfits in a sort of commune, a cat and a dog, an exciting scene of peril …

Here’s the blurb from my first edition:

I really like the reference to Midsummer Night’s Dream and mention of the duality of locations and think this sums the book up very well.

My Penguin is the 1986 edition, bought presumably in my first flush of IM discovery, and has this to say:

“No one in the book is good” – hm. One to discuss later. It IS a feast, however – well done, The Guardian.

And my Vintage Classic, well, I don’t think it has much to say about the book, actually, although it does spell out Octavian and John’s relationship.

But a quote from John Betjeman – that was a surprise.

Are you going to be reading or re-reading “The Nice and the Good” along with me? Are you catching up with the others or have you given up)? What’s your favourite so far? Your least favourite?

You will find a page listing all of these blog posts here, updated as I go along.