Gosh, it becomes hard sometimes to review these books, so well-known, even Booker Prize winners in this case. The writer of the introduction doesn’t help in this case, having drawn out the thread of the poet Milarepa, mentioned by James Arrowby in his ‘confession’. I am trying to just write about my reactions, the themes, the connections to other books and my feelings as I re-read – quite complicated and different feelings again in this book’s case. I’m so honoured that so many folk are still along for the ride with me and look forward to your comments and links as ever.

If you’re doing the readalong or even selected books along with me, or of course some time afterwards, do share how you’re getting on and which have been your favourites so far.

Iris Murdoch – “The Sea, The Sea”

(31 December 2018)

I think this book has the best CLOSING paragraph in Murdoch, doesn’t it?

My God, that bloody casket has fallen on the floor! Some people were hammering in the next flat and it fell of its bracket. The lid has come off and whatever was inside it has certainly got out. Upon the demon-ridden pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder? (p. 538)

And really, even though the last section seems disjointed and jerky, messy and contingent, the whole book does seem to have been leading up to this point. Will Charles have learned any truths as he approaches whatever comes next?

My main and abiding thought about this book this time round (well, there are two: the other will come later) is that, as we read the ‘diaries’ and ‘notes’ of a retired theatre director who has come to the sea for peace and quiet, away from the theatre and its people, comes across his first love, tries and fails to rescue her and almost slips into oblivion, rescued by his cousin and his Tibetan ‘tricks’, it’s an amazing tour de force of getting inside one person’s head and detailing in fine and precise lines the exact way in which he fools himself, slips away from reality and bends everything he senses round to the theories he holds in his mind. Time and again, he will see something perfectly obvious and think and think over it until he’s bent it out of all recognition and convinced himself that his interpretation is correct, from the lack of post over a couple of days to the matter of who pushed him into the sea.

The other impression I have is of how horrible marriage is constantly, wearingly, described as being. No marriage is happy (even the ‘perfect’ one collapses) and the only way to be happy appears to be to shack up with someone you can never have more than a friendship relationship with, due to different orientations. This hadn’t struck me quite so forcefully before (but it’s there in a lot of the novels, isn’t it?) and this is presumably part of my long-running and rather frustrating problem with reading about marriage breakups and unhappinesses since I myself got married (which is five years ago now: come on, brain!). The worst thing that happens, though, is when Charles listens to Hartley and Ben arguing and then tells Hartley. Who of us who are paired would want someone to base their whole opinion of our marriage on some private bickering?! I really feel her pain when she finds out.

Anyway, there is also a lot more in this book. You want water themes, you’ve got water themes, with the ever-changing sea, its attendant monsters and cauldrons, its monsters and forgiving seals (what do you think the monster is? Expanded worm or acid flash-back, or just his psyche come to haunt him?). I know I don’t like to relate the author to the work too much but IM’s love of wild swimming does inform the descriptions. There’s not only the sea of course but all sorts of mists and rains going on, adding to the atmosphere in that special Murdochian way.

Stones are another theme throughout. Charles is collecting them from the start and gives important ones to Hartley (who abandons hers) and James (who keeps his, having asked for it). Charles puts them round the edge of the lawn, James creates a complex mandala which gets trampled (life getting in the way of a higher consciousness?). Hair is suitably fuzzy, frizzy and hyacinthine.  Rosina has a hairdo that comes out as “a rounded segmented composition which looked both complex and casual” (p. 335-6) which is so Murdochian you’d recognise it as such anywhere, wouldn’t you?

Talking of appearances, I note again that IM is very cruel to the ageing woman, or is so through her narrator, with everyone coming in for it, from Lizzie (“She is still quite good-looking, though she has allowed herself to become untidy and out of condition” (p. 45) through Clement’s death mask and Rosina’s ageing to Hartley, the “bearded lady” with her messy lipstick, and a face that’s “haggard and curiously soft and dry” (p. 122).

Of course we have to have someone in a garden, peering through the curtains, and Charles gives us that scene, even adding the farce of sitting on a rose bush. He also spies on his own house and James is found outside in his garden. We don’t have many siblings, but we do have the dual couples of Charles and James and their respective parents as a centrepiece, and there is doubling and echoing around them, even to the fact that both cause deaths specifically out of vanity.

Portents come throughout the book – the chimneypiece at Shruff End is full of demons and can’t be dusted, and the sea is pretty well always dangerous, so we know it’s going to get somebody (the locals act as a mournful chorus in that respect). When he’s got Hartley in the house (later in the book than I remembered), “I had wakened some sleeping demon, set going some deadly machine; and what would be would be” (p. 334). Buddhism is a big theme for James and his jade animals make it through to the end, always a sign of someone of interest.

But there’s humour too, in Charles’ dealings with the locals (“‘Dog kennel?’ I said to the Post Office lady” (p. 43), his meals, as mentioned, and the good-humoured fun poked at those who like to sing. There are asides, too: “as I could hwardly suppose that Rosina had arranged for me to be haunted by a sea monster I decided not to mention it” (p. 112). “Si biscuitus disintegrat … that’s the way the cookie crumbles” (p. 365) is small enough to forget then be cheered by every read. There’s also the shock of the phone ringing, and of the phone engineer arriving, and the laundry man.

The food is a special theme of this book, although unpleasant meals have been had before – they add a good note of humour to the book and there is in fact a cook book based on them. I love how the shop woman chases Charles down the street with news of fresh apricots late in the narrative.

Who is the saint and who the enchanter? Charles, director and serial marriage wrecker appears to be the enchanter of the piece, and is described as a demon. Gilbert even says, “You’ve always been a magnet to me” (p. 259). There are two contenders for saint in his father and James. His father has the advantage in saints of being less fortunate than his brother, and maybe James has sought to counteract that as he seems to have worked on his own enlightenment and makes more of an effort in his goodness than his uncle Adam. He’s learned Tibetan ‘tricks’ and makes an effort to tell the truth at all times, whereas Adam has retreated from the world and been mild, although he is described as having “… a positive moral quality of gentleness” (p. 30) and being “something quite else, something special” (p. 64). I actually found James a more attractive character this time round, perhaps because of his failings, especially in his friendship with Lizzie, and with his loss of his servant. Of course Charles in his desperate jealousy thinks of James as an enchanter: “James, who seemed to be a centre of magnetic attraction to the other three” (p. 353). I think they’re drawn to him in a different way, however (although he does exert fascination over people AND has a very tidy house …). But he does get in a “muddle” over Lizzie, which disappoints Charles greatly: “… this sort of squalid muddle. It’s a kind of ordinary sly human stupidity which I was foolish enough to imagine you didn’t suffer from” (p. 440). But James prevails with his slightly drunken sermon:

Goodness is giving up power and acting upon the world negatively. The good are unimaginable. (p. 478)

In addition to this stuff of demons and saints, there’s a strong theme around passing on or absorbing pain, the idea of ‘Ate’ which comes through in so much of IM’s work. Charles is the only person Hartley can inflict her ruined life on (therefore making her not the saint, just someone who is treated extraordinarily horribly). James talks persuasively about “Letting the poor ghost go” and not inflicting himself on Hartley any more (p. 379). Charles clearly states that while he believed it was Ben who attacked him, “Ben had carried my guilt” over Titus (p. 431). But then Titus carries away Hartley’s guilt: “Titus was the redeemer, he had vanished, taking her guilt with him” (p. 461). One important point here is made by Ben, and seems to pop the balloon of the entire book: “‘It’s no use talking,’ said Ben. ‘Like in the war, Something happens, you go on. You got to, eh?'” (p. 452)

As well as the saints and demons there is a strong thread about happiness running through the book:

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats. (p. 9)

I love the small nods to other books found in this one. Will and Adelaide Boase from “Bruno’s Dream” are mentioned early on and then near the end, too. Rosina is said to have never been able to play Honor Klein, a nod to the play of “A Severed Head”. And then, one point I hadn’t noticed before, there’s an actor called Erasmus Blick. Could he be Calvin’s son? Given the names, it seems plausible. As my husband said, she does like to leave “Easter Eggs” for the discerning and careful reader! Peregrine’s step-daughter Angela is a near-copy of Julian from “The Black Prince” and makes a big effort to become Charles’ version of Julian – to his credit he does resist this. James has left the army under a cloud, which is a little theme which does crop up a good few times, if not in every book, harking back to other slightly ambiguous figures. The telephone engineer may have been reassigned from London, where he bothered Hilary Burde! When James is fussing over returning to London and doesn’t get round to phoning James or the taxi man and considers getting the later train, we’re back with Bradley Pearson, stuck in his flat out of indecision in “The Black Prince”.

I think a big point of why this narrator, unreliable and horrible as he is, comes out better than Bradley from “The Black Prince” might be this fact that he tries to resist the temptation of Angela and has actually learned and changed by the end of the book, hasn’t he? In History Chapter 4 he even addresses the fact that we might see him as an unreliable narrator, not something I recall Bradley doing: “(though, as James would say, what indeed are facts?)” (p. 257).  Looking back at my re-reading of this book, it’s more horrible than I remembered, but James is a more satisfying character, so I think it balances out, and it’s certainly a worthy and understandable Booker-winner.

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.