Well it was going to happen, wasn’t it … I’ve found so much more to like in some of my less-favoured Murdoch novels and then, having been looking forward to this one, I was a bit, not disappointed as sucb, but surprised that I remembered such a horrible central character so fondly!
I’ve been away on my hols, hence the rather odd selection of reading matter in the last two reviews, so here you have an image of what I’d call “Extreme Iris Murdoch reading” – sat in the middle of a lava field in Fuerteventura (that’s my husband heading off to look for some birds).
If you’re doing the readalong or even selected books along with me Or some time afterwards, do share how you’re getting on and which have been your favourites so far.
Iris Murdoch – “A Word Child”
(31 December 2018)
So I remembered Hilary Burde as a gente, slightly shambliing, slight figure, for no discernible reason at all, rather than a big bruiser who keeps bashing women and frightening them. Why, I’m really not sure, as all the information is given to us in the book. We gradually come to realise Hilary is a man who keeps to a strict routine and regime in order to stave off madness, caused partly by his accidental – or not – killing of his friend Gunnar’s wife, with whom he was having an affair. So he has different days for different friends, keeps everything compartmentalised, hates his office-mates, worships his sister, tolerates her suitor Arthur, and puts up with his fey lodger, Christopher. Then a mysterious woman called Biscuit starts following him around and he finds out through office gossip that Gunnar is back … with a new wife.
It is a savagely funny book in that the repetitions and echoings and patterns come with a sort of black irony. The office scenes are brilliant and just right and of course I love Hilary’s circlings of the Circle Line (what a true tragedy it is that the platform bars have long gone and you can’t even go right round on the Circle Line any more!). The theme is set on page 4: “There was nothing here to love” – Hilary has no love in his life and rebuffs any that tries to form. This circles back at the end: “I had almost systematically destroyed his respect and affection and finally driven him away” (p. 387)
Is there an enchanter? Is it Hilary himself, with whom Gunnar and Lady Kitty are obsessed, who he admits three women want him to arrange for them to have children, two with him, and who inspires love? Only Christopher seems to escape him. And surely Christopher is our saint, accepting violence with meekness and being kind (although Jimbo is also an agent of positivity and attention with his taxis and presents. Are we saying the young are going to save the world?). He’s described as being Christ-like at one point. Mr Osmund also gives Hilary his full attention so is perhaps a Saint figure, as is patient and unworldly Arthur Fisch, who absorbs Hilary’s terrible story (although Hilary tries not to pass on his second love to Crystal, she’s still bothered by an atmosphere between them, so it clearly hasn’t worked). Arthur’s is also a “muddler” with a lot of lame ducks, reminding us of Tallis and just as humble: “I think we should just be kind to each other” (p. 87) and, later, “I think one should try to stick to simplicity and truth” (p. 290). Hilary describes him as the perfect IM saint:
Arthur was a little untalented unambitious man, destined to spend his life in a cupboard, but there was in a quite important sense no harm in him. He was kind, guileless, harmless and he had had the wit to love Crystal, to see Crystal, to see her value. (p. 287)
Tommy owns the crowded room full of knick-knacks that has to exist in every book. Clifford has a more refined version with Indian miniatures and tiny bookcases. Hilary gives Biscuit a black pebble which she later flings back at him. For water, we have the endless rain and dripping umbrellas, and of course the Thames as well as the Serpentine and Boating Lake. There’s no pursuit in the dark or standing in gardens looking through into houses, but Hilary does chase Biscuit down the Bayswater Road. In terms of siblings, we have Hilary and Crystal, but Clifford also had a sister, who died. Hair isn’t such a big theme but Laura has an unsuitably flowing grey mane, Biscuit a long black plait Kitty sophisticated brown layers and Crystal a frizzy fuzz last seen in “Sacred and Profane”.
A new theme coming through seems to be the quest, which Hilary talks of on p. 200: “I now had a task. I was like a Knight with a quest. I needed my chastity now; I needed my aloneness”. The feeling of feuds and owing, when Hilary says, “I owe Gunnar a child” reminds me of “The Green Knight” and brings the patterning into sharp relief. There’s one of IM’s horrible prefigurings when Hilary is talking to Kitty on the jetty – “I felt now as if I were plunging around in the mud” (p. 243) and one that could be from “A Severed Head”: “Powers which I had offended were gathering to destroy me” (p. 323).
The humour is there, but savage as I said: “Not to have been born is undoubtedly best, but sound sleep is second best” (p. 16) feels like a good example. IM is funny about Christopher’s happenings and has Hilary be hilariously vile about Tommy’s knitting, which she does because he once said he liked it, but makes him want to vomit.
In echoes with other books, there’s yet another set of telephone entrails (“The Black Prince” and “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” have them and I’m sure there are more in “The Book and the Brotherhood”). The parks of London of course echo several other books, as does the leap into the Thames at the end. Hilary’s three women demanding babies, echo Edgar’s three women planning to visit at he end of “The Sacred and Profane Love Machine”.
What will become of Hilary at the end? Without a set of fake epilogues to contain him, this latest first-person narrator seems to drift away from us in this stranger than I remember book.
Is it shocking that Hilary is only 41? Yes, a bit: this is the first time I’ve been older than quite a few of the characters I’ve always known as being older than me, and maybe this has reduced my tolerance. The sense of place, though, is as I remembered, and eminently traceable. I’ve been noticing bits of running in the books and here we have Hilary in the parks, “I ran, and was cleansed of myself. I was a heart pumping, a body moving. I had cleaned a piece of the world of the filth of my consciousness” (p. 26).
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.
PS I should have added this – this was also read for Reading Ireland Month as IM identified as being of Irish descent and Cathy always lets me include her (read about it at 746 Books here).
Ste J
Mar 20, 2019 @ 01:21:26
Dear Liz, please can you stop making my wish list longer every time I read one of your reviews, it’s long enough as it is!
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Liz Dexter
Mar 27, 2019 @ 13:04:15
Can you just put “The works of Iris Murdoch” on your wish list, then it won’t get longer as such …?
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Ste J
Mar 28, 2019 @ 00:52:20
I see what you did there!
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Michelle Austin
Mar 20, 2019 @ 08:45:46
I didn’t remember ever liking Hilary much just because he’s so controlling. I think his way of trying to compartmentalise his whole life – it’s sort of what very anxious people or socially anxious people do – as if to say “no this is my world and my life and this person goes here and doesn’t interact/interfere with this one here” and he seems really to want to hang onto that. I think he’s just totally bereft and bewildered when it turns out not to work like that. It’s an experience I’ve had at times but not in quite this way.
I don’t know much that I can say about the women other than that they also get compartmentalised. Biscuit fascinates me slightly just because she seems so intent on chasing him. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or not but he wouldn’t be the sort of man I’d go chasing after. I think it’s Crystal I feel most sorry for. The obsession with her sexuality I think is alarming. The way she’s kept cloistered. I think I tried once drawing comparisons with Othello in regard to Hilary’s and Christopher’s reaction to her sleeping with Gunnar. I think there’s something reminiscent of the “he called me a bad name” thing in Othello, because she can’t say whore but they’ve branded her as one. And because it took so little to change their opinion.
I don’t know if I like this one really but I remember reading it first time and thinking it was one of her weirdest.
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Liz Dexter
Mar 27, 2019 @ 13:06:25
I had no memory of the active controlling nature, just of him having his “days”. It’s funny what we remember, isn’t it (I’m sure there’s a study in there somewhere, not one by me though!) as I’ve read all of these at least 3 times (maybe the last ones only twice) but I suppose I do read a lot of other stuff, too. Crystal is so unfortunate and really a tragic story although I suppose she does prevail in the end.
I’ve just remembered that I drew a circular diagram of all the relationships to match the Circle Line last time I read it – I’ll have to dig that out for my round- up post on Sunday!
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heavenali
Mar 20, 2019 @ 11:17:23
Oh how disappointing that you didn’t like this as much as you remembered. I remember really enjoying this one too. I don’t remember bashings either.
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Liz Dexter
Mar 27, 2019 @ 13:06:47
It’s very odd, isn’t it, but one had to fall short after a good few were better than remembered, I suppose.
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kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 20, 2019 @ 11:41:14
Oh dear…. It’s a shame when a re-read changes your perception of a book – c’est la vie I suppose. But that’s a hell of a location to read the book in! 😀
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Liz Dexter
Mar 27, 2019 @ 13:07:31
It’s a good one, isn’t it, location-wise (I did once read quite a lot of “The Philosopher’s Pupil” in a Turkish Hammam but I don’t think I have pictures of that! And it is a shame but also interesting.
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Deborah Brooks
Mar 20, 2019 @ 12:44:21
What an interesting idea to reread books you loved previously to see if you still do. I need to read more!
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Liz Dexter
Mar 21, 2019 @ 08:51:10
I re-read all of Iris Murdoch’s novels in order once a decade, so this is my fourth read of most of them, except for a few of the later ones, and I have read others alone so my fifth for some of them!
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Helen
Mar 20, 2019 @ 21:43:29
This is one of the few Iris Murdoch books I’ve read and I remember really enjoying it. I thought Hilary was an interesting character, but certainly not a very likeable one!
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Liz Dexter
Mar 27, 2019 @ 13:08:01
I’m not sure why I was so keen on him before, enough to remember him so well. Now I think there are other heroes in the book!
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Jo Smith
Mar 28, 2019 @ 22:57:09
I always enjoy reading your reread thoughts Liz but I must admit I’m a bit surprised at how you felt about Hilary initially. I did try and summon up some empathy considering his horrible childhood but it was hard. Although I enjoyed this despite finding Hilary oppressive and the plot line frustrating on occasion, I think the quota of tragedy in Murdoch’s books is increasing as we read through them, I know there was suicide in The Flight from the Enchanter but two suicides and two deaths! Mind you,The Unicorn had a pretty high body count as well I suppose, this just did seem a particularly tragic novel, even at the end, only Arthur seems truly happy- which is nice as I liked Arthur.
Funnily enough I also noticed the hair in this one a lot more, the way Crystal is characterized by her frizzy mop, how Laura alternately puts her hair up and down depending on her mood and then you have the scene where Biscuit is brushing Kitty’s hair and they are both highly sensualised. This could be the difference between reading it for the first time and after multiple readings perhaps.
I found it even harder than usual to write a review without giving plot points away but had a go and it’s listed below. Looking forward to reading more thoughts and your eventual wrap up.
Jo
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2766982321?book_show_action=false
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Liz Dexter
Mar 29, 2019 @ 08:56:37
You and me both, I am amazed I got my reaction to Hilary so wrong the other three (at least!) times. I think I concentrated on his office hoo-hahs and fixed days and not the horrible violence – I’d also forgotten he was a big, powerful man and thought of him as more of a Bradley Pearson wisp. You’re right about the hair of course, I’d forgotten to mention Laura’s up and down and Biscuit’s plait, and of course Christopher has the blond curls: there were no messy low-hanging buns or metallic strips of hair, or furry men, though! I like Arthur, too – he’s a bit of a Tallis figure, isn’t he, messy and always trying to help on the edges of society.
As ever, I love your Goodreads review – particularly your mention of the role London and its mists plays. Thank you for being a stalwart of the discussion and always managing two lots of commentary!
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Peter Rivenberg
Mar 30, 2019 @ 02:00:49
It is so interesting how one’s perceptions of a book change over the years and one’s phase of life, and I think these books are so rich that they invite this kind of reassessment. Like Liz, I may be on my fourth reading of this novel, which I still find immensely compelling. And this time I was struck by Hillary’s vulnerability and pain. I had remembered his violence and his terrible treatment of women but had forgotten how many different sides of himself Hillary exposes in his narration. Like Bradley Pearson in The Black Prince, Hillary goes through moments of self-doubt and doesn’t flinch from lashing himself as well as others. His actions at various times are callous, cruel, provocative, and selfish, but at other times can be generous and insightful.
I had recalled him as a playing the jailer in relation to Crystal, and to a large extent he does play that role; but I was surprised this time to watch his thoughts as he rather quickly opens himself to the idea of her engagement to Arthur and to a different idea of her happiness. (Granted, it is while he is considering marrying Tommy, so his motive is not entirely generous.) Crystal is something of a sleeping princess, like Hannah in The Unicorn, but without the Gothic and mythic trappings and “imprisoned” only by one person instead of a community. And as the community in The Unicorn projected its needs onto Hannah, Hillary projects onto her the figure he needs her to be, only discovering later that she doesn’t conform to his image of her. The awakening of a character to the world beyond his preconceptions is thematic in Murdoch, and Hillary’s is one more journey along that road. It is interesting to watch how the characters in his story begin to move beyond the boundaries of their allotted weekdays as the narrative progresses, moving beyond the time structure Hillary has imposed on them and the roles he has assigned them.
Boundaries are also transgressed in the office, where we find Hillary’s office mates Reggie and Edith, grotesquely comic foils who seem to have descended from the Music Hall stage. Their banter crosses conventional social boundaries, sometimes outrageously, and is reflected in their physical manipulation of the desks within the office space itself. It is appropriate that the office is putting on Peter Pan for the panto because these two characters, like Hillary, seem to be locked in childhood, or at least adolescence. I love these darkly hilarious scenes. This time around I was surprised by Hillary’s passivity at times in relation to this torment. When the tables (or in this case desks) are turned on Reggie and Edith, it is not Hillary who orchestrates the reversal, but Arthur and Skinker (if I’m recalling correctly.).When Hillary is set upon by these monstrous beings, It’s hard not to sympathize.
So I guess, Liz, I’m validating your earlier thoughts about Hillary as well as your current ones. It is true, as Jo points out, that though he has insight into his bad behavior he takes few steps to change it. And I think he is most generous toward others mainly when under the spell of love (or obsession). However, I think he does grow through his ordeal and I find his final conversation with Tommy reminiscent of the end of A Severed Head, where Martin and Honor both must take their chances. I think both endings are ambiguous, they include unanswered questions and can be read in different ways, but in each I feel the relationship has become more equal and there is a glimmer of hope for the evolution of the narrator, as well as the potential for dark clouds on the horizon. But hey, for Tommy and Hillary it’s Christmas Day. How can I not be hopeful?
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Liz Dexter
Mar 31, 2019 @ 11:19:03
Thank you for your comments, Peter, which do seem to pull together my earlier and present readings of the book (thank you!). I love your reading of the office, and yes, you’re right, he is passive there. I like the comparison with the end of A Severed Head – with the Georgie figure maybe having won out this time.
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“A Word Child” round-up and “Henry and Cato” preview #IMReadalong @IrisMurdoch | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Mar 31, 2019 @ 11:15:41
Maria Peacock
Mar 31, 2019 @ 15:47:27
What thoughtful and thought-provoking reviews. I am sorry I have come late to the party again.
t is interesting to hear how going back to a novel read in the past creates a different experience. I am also struck by how I am re-reading the 1970’s novels in such a different way. I think it was quite a brutal decade and this is quite a bleak novel. I liked this the first time round partly because I was working for the Civil Service and there were not many novels which portrayed office life. The description of the seemingly endless hierarchy of who works to whom with two of them described as ‘someone exalted’ is really very funny and a great satire on the English Government Service culture. The antics of Hilary’s office mates are also amusing, and they are like the peasant/ rude mechanical scenes in Shakespeare’s plays. However, with present day sensibilities I detect a culture of bullying. .
I love the interweaving of the London Underground into the Hilary’s world – yes Liz those bars in the stations always sound so much more cosy than the present catering facilities, I was intrigued by the references to the Inner Circle – which apparently referred to the original route linking the main railway stations and there were Middle, Outer and Super Outer routes until the late-nineteenth century, but the term Inner Circle stuck for some time. And now the Circle Line is not a Circle.
Interesting points on the ‘Peter Pan’ motif. It runs through the novel like a thread both the proposed office pantomime with the constantly revised cast list, and the statue in Hyde Park. Peter Pan is so ambivalent – everyone has a view on it `the ‘sinister boy’ and the sadness of their household where only the dog can provide nurturing and Gunnar’s rather pretentious little speech at the Impiatt’s dinner party that Peter Pan symbolises the ‘fragmentation of the spirit’ and that he captures the ‘apotheosis of immature sprituality’, It does mirror how Hilary is trapped in a similar ‘immature spirituality’ and I agree with Peter he is stuck in immaturity and he has also keeping his sister and Tommy in a similar state. Crystal is kept crystallised in her virginity and Tommy is referred to as ‘little Tommy’.
I do not see Hilary as much controlling others as trying to keep some sort of control of the chaos in his life by maintaining his routines and compartmentalising his relationships and days. His ability to use words has taken him out of a desperate and isolated life but he does not take the risk of being creative with them. Because he compartmentalises his relationship he does not see the people as other human beings. Like Jake in Under the Net who needed everything to be necessary and had similar relationships, Because of this Hilary is not receptive to the love others offer and need from him, Like Peter I see Hilary as vulnerable. He reminds me a bit of Jake in Under the Net for whom at the beginning of the novel needed everything to have necessity, but Jake learnt to live with the messiness of life and to understand that other people have lives which are not centred on him. Hilary cannot function without the ‘calming pattern of a routine’ and measures out his days by imposing on his circle of acquaintances without taking into account the suffering they are feeling. He just does not see them and the result is tragic in the case of Mr Osmand, and Clifford, and ultimately Kitty and Gunnar.
I was not sure there is any redemption for him, but there is a glimmer at the end when he lets Crystal go and he also decides not to burden her with the full story of how Kitty died. I agree the ending is reminiscent of A Severed Head in that there may be a meaningful relationship with Tommy – Hilary may be saved by the love of a good woman (and a good sister and brother-in-law). The bells are ringing and Hilary is not in despair one would expect – and acknowledges that ‘ The Christ child, at any rate, had managed to get himself born’. After Clifford’s suicide Hilary anticipated another ‘cycle of misery’ but acknowledges a sort of cleansing and need to survive despite the remorse and grief.
Another point I found interesting was the way Biscuit developed as a character. At the beginning I felt she was written in a typical 1970s post-colonial way objectifying the exotic beautiful young woman whose name had been made into that of a pet. She was given to Lady Kitty as a birthday present and Hilary seems to regard her as someone he can flirt with and kiss. She is another person whom Hilary just does not see as a human being, But she emerges as a young woman who is making her way in the world and she finds independence and love.
It is a complex book and I am not finding these 1970s novels a cheerful read. But the more you think about them and go back to them the richer they are.
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Liz Dexter
Mar 31, 2019 @ 15:59:50
Thank you so much for another thoughtful and profound review. I’m so enjoying our discussions and please don’t worry about dropping in at the end of the month! I’m hoping more people will comment over time and I’m sure everyone else will enjoy that, too.
How wonderful that you saw your office life reflected in this book: there aren’t many, indeed, are there. And your reflections on the different times are spot on. I love your discussion of Peter Pan here, and it’s good you can be a bit more forgiving of Hilary than maybe I was this time. I’ll be interested to see what I make of him NEXT time!
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Peter Rivenberg
Apr 03, 2019 @ 11:38:29
I hadn’t thought of the Georgie analogy, but I like it. It’s a bit like she’s winning out in this one. If you can call it winning.
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Liz Dexter
Apr 03, 2019 @ 11:40:02
Well it’s not the biggest prize although I guess the calendar’s sorted …
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Slán go foil to Reading Ireland Month 19!
Apr 01, 2019 @ 12:48:42
Marion Boomgaard
Apr 04, 2019 @ 15:50:43
I feel so sorry for both Hillary and Crystal as children. I think this is the book of Iris Murdoch that i feel most emotionally involved with and therefore very difficult to read. Though it has its funny moments it’s a very painful and embarrassing tale, and yes, Hillary is very coercive towards his sibling and friends.
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Liz Dexter
Apr 04, 2019 @ 15:52:56
Welcome to my blog! Yes, their story is a horrible one, isn’t it, the worst of all Murdochian childhoods. It’s not as funny or as benign as I remember it, that’s for sure. Just shows you should read your favourite books regularly.
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John P. Houghton
Jun 26, 2019 @ 20:09:13
I love every word of this novel. Like TSAPLM, as nobody calls it, this was a re-read. Unlike TSAPLM, as nobody calls it, I loved the novel on first encounter in the early 2000s and adored it every bit as much on reconnaissance.
Murdoch seems to be at the peak of her powers. Hilary is deep and complex character, but his richness of captured in precisely. Instead of pages of characterisation, Murdoch says so much with these few sentences, spoken by Clifford: “Always the little prize boy who was top in the exam. Always envious, always anxious. You exist by excelling…When there are no more exams and you can’t excel you cease to exist”. Despite his many flaws, failings, and fantasies, Hilary is a profoundly sympathetic character.
The other characters are equally well sketched. So is the minutiae of office life, the rigid hierarchy of the civil service, the London of Gloucester Road and St. James Park. Every detail seems so minutely observed, befitting the story of a man who has destroyed his chance to be something big and obsesses over the frustrated smallness of his life.
I remember reading ‘A Word Child’ the first time in a hotel in Copenhagen. An odd setting, but my friend was speaking at a conference in the city over several days before our holiday started. So I opted to stick with Irish instead of venturing out alone into the perishing cold. The ending didn’t hit me as hard this time, as I knew it was coming, but I was still struck by its audacity.
I will stop there as I could write and write about this book. A final thought as I look at the list: how many authors can point to a sequence of consistent quality and productivity as Murdoch in the 1970s?
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Liz Dexter
Jun 28, 2019 @ 08:44:17
Great notes on this one, thank you. I have to admit I was a bit less forgiving of him this time, however he is a great character. And you’re right about this run of books – what a joy!
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Tim Rawsthorne
May 30, 2020 @ 14:41:50
Dear Liz, Well I have just finished A Word Child, which is my new favourite. It usually happens. Having read this straight after An Accidental Man and The Sandcastle – which I read after you suggested it for my daughter – Hilary is for me perhaps one of the most sympathetic – and easily the funniest – of Iris’s characters. The horrors of his early life, the awful accident and his decades-long self-persecution make his abuse of everyone around him seem understandable. The scenes with Clifford, the boys in his flat, his infuriating colleagues, brought out the best of this spiky protagonist. The trip was hilarious but his lost equation “forgiving equals being forgiven” was the kernel of enlightenment which I always anticipate in Iris’s novels. Such a bitter taste at the end, but a redemptive resolution. Sorry for the sixth-formish analysis – I haven’t written one since then!
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Liz Dexter
Jun 04, 2020 @ 08:38:30
That’s a great analysis, thank you for coming and sharing. That’s a great threesome of books to read together – I always read them in publishing order but there are some nice groupings one can do. What did you think of The Sandcastle and has your daughter started it?
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Tim
Jun 04, 2020 @ 11:40:30
The Sandcastle held an uncomfortable appeal for me, as a middle-aged male teacher with teenage children and a domineering partner (ha ha!) I loved the set pieces and the descriptions of the art were so satisfying. I found the end depressing though. Mor was so feckless – I much preferred Hilary Burde. My 14-year-old Iris hasn’t started it yet; I have to be cunning because if I recommend anything directly, her reflex is to reject it! I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Liz Dexter
Jun 04, 2020 @ 11:46:32
Ah, that could be tricky! A friend just read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha while having a 10 year old son and got a bit beaten down by it! I guess you will have to ban IM and see if that works …
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Andy
Jan 15, 2021 @ 23:51:16
I don’t really understand what you’re saying. You no longer thought the book as good as you did before because of your re-evaluation of Hilary? Has it lost it’s power, it’s meaning for you because Hilary is irredeemably damaged?
The second chapter is the key for me. He was destroyed as a child; he may have always had destructive urges, a bad temper, been a bit of a shit, but as it was he had nobody to love & cherish him. I’m convinced – & I’m convinced Murdoch was convinced – that really loving a child, really giving it your ATTENTION, will save nearly any child. He didn’t stand a chance.
The interactions between all the events & characters are almost as complex as those in reality (in fact I often feel I am entering a world more real, even more complex than this one when I read her books) but, perhaps more than in other of her books, she shows the way that lovelessness towards children deforms them as adults & so drives much of the chaos & misery in the world.
Iris was simply the best. The most emotionally intelligent writer I’ve ever read. A World Child demonstrates this (to me anyway) in Spades; she never had the slightest desire to have children herself but understood the fundamental need to love our children. Else we’re all off to Hell in a Handcart.
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Liz Dexter
Jan 16, 2021 @ 07:58:21
Thank you for your comment. First of all, of course Hilary is irredeemably damaged by his childhood and I can see from my review that I didn’t make overt my understanding of that (it was at least my fourth reading of this book and I suppose I took that for granted; if I’d included everything I’d ever thought about the books my reviews would have been terribly long!). And of course he’s therefore to be pitied and understood.
I did this re-reading with an eye ON the re-reading aspect of it, and was interested to note – not with judgement but just really noting – that my remembering of HIlary himself in the timeline of the book was very different to the reality of Hilary as presented in the timeline of the book. I have had less tolerance of (as in ability to read about, deal with rather than judgement) of violence as I have got older, and he was a much more violent character than I’d remembered.
But of course IM is the best – that’s why I have read all her novels at least four times – and is a great realist – and you’re right, almost hyper-realist – writer.
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Andy
Jan 16, 2021 @ 10:46:50
Thank you for your reply. I still don’t understand your remark about the book that “one had to fall short”, that’s all. Honestly hope that doesn’t happen too often for you with her other books!
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Liz Dexter
Jan 16, 2021 @ 11:03:52
This read was part of a chronological re-read of all of IM’s novels, for the third time in my life. As I do this and as I change as a person and reader (who subscribes to reception theory and likes to interrogate this in my re-reading) some of the books rise and some fall in my kind of arrangement. For example, Bruno’s Dream comes up the list each time I revisit it. This did not fall to the bottom of the pile by any means.
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Carol Ciliberti
Feb 12, 2021 @ 03:08:44
I just finished reading A Word Child for the first time, having re-read many of Iris’ other books several times (The Sea, The Sea, The Black Prince, for example). I found this book to be one that I actually could not put down, held to it by a sort of morbid fascination (and horror). In the end I almost couldn’t bring myself to finish it, as I felt deeply disgusted by his having caused another death. Unless he was not really the cause, but was caught in the machinery of a frustrated, spoiled woman (Kitty). I wondered a lot about her – what was her motivation, beyond her claim to want to help Gunnar? Was she just so frustrated by Gunnar’s not being able to get over Anne’s death that she tried to bring all three of them down? I found it incredible that she would claim to feel love for Hillary anyway – maybe because I really disliked his character. In the end I was overjoyed that Crystal was marrying Arthur (saint like Arthur!) and getting away from her awful brother, but dismayed that Thomas gave up Kim in order to be with Hillary after all – when he had just realized that she had told Gunnar about the meetings with Kitty. If only Hillary had taken Kitty somewhere else! If only he’d had any common sense, or any concept of the world in which he was not the miserable, dark center of it.
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Liz Dexter
Feb 13, 2021 @ 12:08:53
Interesting thoughts, thank you. Are we not all the miserable dark centres of our own worlds?
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