Here we are at the mid-point of the readalong (oh no!). How have you found it so far? Do you have a favourite and a least favourite so far? What are you looking forward to most in the second half of the project? If you’re joining outside the set months I did this readalong, welcome, and please do contribute your comment or link to your review!

I first read this one in my teens and remember feeling, as with “A Severed Head”, that this was terribly sophisticated, which was obviously rubbing off on me (or not). I’ve read it at least twice since then, and my attitudes to the characters have shifted slightly, though I think I’ve felt the same about the actual story. Talking story – the blurb on my Vintage copy begins with events that occur on p. 404 of 438! What’s that all about?

Iris Murdoch – “A Fairly Honourable Defeat”

(August 2018)

Here we have a comedy of manners, indeed, something referred to as a midsummer’s entertainment. We have a cast of middle-class characters, some conspicuous by their veneer of American sophistication (by association) and some more gentle and doing all the good they can. Beautifully drawn relationships, heterosexual, homosexual and sibling, as well as those among friends, show what can happen when, as arch-would-be-enchanter Julius mentions,

Human beings set each other off so. Put three emotional fairly clever people in a fix and instead of trying quietly to communicate with each other they’ll dream up some piece of communal violence. (p. 419)

Does this not just sum up Murdoch’s novels in general??

We open with the shock of Morgan returning to London after the end of her affair with Julius. She bursts into her older sister, Hilda’s house, where she lives in perfect harmony with husband Rupert. Meanwhile, Morgan’s messy, contingent husband Tallis lives in a decaying house with his ailing father, and Simon and Axel, Rupert’s brother and his partner, fret over decorations and the perfect dinner. There’s a wayward son, Peter, too, for whom I had little sympathy this time around (presumably as I myself grow away from his age). And into this set of situations comes Julius, ready to work some tricks and have some fun. I’ll now look at the usual Murdochian themes and comparisons to the other novels in the oeuvre.

We have plenty of siblings – Hilda and Morgan, Rupert and Simon, and Tallis and his dead twin sister, who still visits him. Rupert and Tallis are both writing books, great unfinished works (Tallis gives up on his and Rupert’s gets destroyed). Pairings and contrasts abound, from Rupert and the hedgehog to Morgan’s comment on her two lovers: “Tallis has no myth. Julius is almost all myth” (p. 52) Quite a few papers are torn apart and scattered and there are two sets of letters – based on two other sets of letters, of course.

We have only a bit of stone action and more water. The stone is the malachite paperweight which Rupert manages to give to both Peter, in childhood, and Morgan, and Rupert holds all his work papers down with stones. The swimming pool holds pivotal scenes and the rain drums down on it with a pivotal thunderstorm, too. Hilda thinks the sea will bring her strength and help her decide what to do, then fails to actually visit it. London is a character as usual, although more benign in its weather. Rupert and Axel are civil servants, and the institution of the museum as well as the civil service and universities, workers’ education and charities all come into things.

It is a funny book in places – not just the savage irony of the plot, but comments such as “Julius might read all your letters if you left him alone in your flat, but he’d be sure to tell you afterwards” (p. 26) and is it only me who finds Tallis’ father’s rants about the revoltingness of being human quite funny at times? Simon’s horror at the sight of a naked Morgan raises a smile, especially the sentence, “He did not find it enjoyable” (p. 154). The teddy bear is funny, especially when poor Simon is trying to get rid of it.

Who is the saint and who the enchanter? Well, Julius is mentioned alongside the word saint on the first page, but is he either? He wants to manipulate, and seeks to control, but then Axel, Simon and Morgan, and poor old Hilda, all do fall under his spell. He’s definitely no saint because he’s busily passing on the pain of his war in a concentration camp by upsetting and hurting people all over the place, for fun.

Tallis is, of course, along with Anne Perronet in “An Unofficial Rose” often mentioned as the classic Murdochian saint. I was actually less annoyed by him than in previous reads, although the descriptions of his kitchen are perhaps best not read over your own meal. Being described as spiritless, a muddler, tired, confused and overborne makes him a classic IM saint. Morgan says of him,

His sanity is depressing, it lowers my vitality … Tallis has got no inner life, no real conception of himself, there’s a sort of emptiness. (p. 52)

Julius points out that he only doubts himself when he considers himself (in this scene, where Julius tidies the kitchen, he does apply attention to Tallis, too, p. 327). He tries to forgive, to help others, even at the cost of himself, to learn about people and to absorb. He seems distracted but has that all-important attention: for example, he’s the only character to spot Julius’ concentration camp tattoo. He has a handcart which feels a bit like a cross, and doesn’t care about appearances or possessions, and has visions of being at one with the world (see p. 199). But for all his meekness, when he needs to act (and Simon has this, too), he slaps the assailant in the Chinese restaurant before anyone can notice he’s moved, and he forces Julius to undo his bad deeds by making him speak to Hilda on the phone. In fact, Morgan is obsessed with him as if he’s an enchanter, but I feel that might be down to Morgan’s character, rather than his, as she is also obsessed with Julius and Rupert …

Is Hilda a sub-saint? She doesn’t pass on suffering and Morgan points out:

Who was always talking about helping people? Rupert. Who was always really helping people? Hilda. Only one failed to notice Hilda’s virtue because she was unaware of it herself. And she treated her good works as jokes. (p. 378)

Julius also seems to respect her in a non-snarky way, saying, “She’s not interested in herself the way the others are. This is what makes her so restful to be with.” (p. 398) I’m not sure I was that aware of Hilda even on the last read. I certainly rate her higher than her sister now: dignified and practical with her help for others.

I love how Axel and Simon’s relationship is treated as entirely normal – in fact described as so – with nothing particular about it actually reminding us they’re gay: it’s just a relationship. This is still quite an early book and I’ve always loved this about this one – and Axel and Simon remain two of my favourite characters in the whole oeuvre. I think they survive because they don’t meddle in other people’s business, and do that consciously, too, talking about it and making a decision, so doing something active there.

In relation to other books, it hadn’t really struck me that Peter was an extension of the Godless young generation that IM discussed in “The Time of the Angels” and will go on to discuss in “The Message to the Planet”. He is described as belonging “to the first generation that’s grown up entirely without God” (p. 12). Tallis’ father seems another version of Bruno, railing against the dying of the light, his illness kept from him, mulling over his life and the grotesequness of age. Hilda and Julius’ conversation at cross purposes (“so you know?“) puts us in mind of similar misunderstandings in “An Unofficial Rose”. Julius’ comments that Hilda will suffer to “spare them suffering” reminds us of poor old Diana being told to step aside and fade into the background in “Bruno’s Dream”. Who is the “philosopher with the funny name that  [Rupert] admires so” (p. 342) – could it be John Robert Rozanov from “The Philosopher’s Pupil”? Axel and Simon and Julius going off to the Continent at the end reminds us of any number of the books, going right back to “The Flight from the Enchanter”.

So, a book with a more attractive premise than “Bruno’s Dream”, perhaps, and a good Shakespearean theme. I feel it’s a more conventional novel, but with so many touches that can only be Murdoch’s. And I still enjoyed it, even though my opinion on the individual characters has shifted once again.

Please either place your review in the comments, discuss mine or others’, or post a link to your review if you’ve posted it on your own blog, Goodreads, etc. I’d love to know how you’ve got on with this book and if you read it having read others of Murdoch’s novels or this was a reread, I’d love to hear your specific thoughts on those aspects, as well as if it’s your first one!

If you’re catching up or looking at the project as a whole, do take a look at the project page, where I list all the blog posts so far.