What a wonderful essay about that special delight in discovering an author whose morality is different , whose ideas take you into new ways of seeing life. You make me want to read her books.
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I love her books - but oddly I have never thoroughly searched for and read every one of them. She is not always an easy writer...
Like Beethoven going deaf it has always seems that succumbing to dementia must have been a special kind of hell for someone whose life was a celebration of words in their natural habitat.
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I agree; Iris Murdoch's novels are magnificent. I started with The Green Knight and I still love it the most.
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I was led to Murdoch through Zadie Smith— I believe it was in On Beauty that the family dog was named Murdoch. The Sea, the Sea was the only book of hers in the used bookshop I frequent, and I took it with me on my post-college trip abroad. I was reading it in Paris while contemplating sending a letter to someone I admired romantically but didn’t know very well, but I was wary of being like the main character: someone who thinks he means so much to others and interjects himself into their lives (to great humor and secondhand embarrassment, but still!). Thankfully I did send the letter and my affections are returned. Life is strange! Thank you, Ms. Murdoch, for giving me some permission to be a little bit crazy if only to connect.
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I still mourn the loss of Iris Murdoch, and remember so sharply the horrible irony of that brilliant mind taken down by Alzheimer’s. Her diagnosis was the one that made me realize that no one is exempt from the threat of the disease. I too read Murdoch during my adolescence and early adulthood. This wonderful commentary has inspired me to go back to Ms. Murdoch’s magic. Thank you!
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Read Murdoch, as Merrell did, in the late 60s and returned this summer to read another 5-6 of her novels. She is absolutely the most engaging, dangerous, funny, and moving writer I know and you won't be sorry if you dip in, I can promise.
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Since I've never read anything by Ms. Murdoch, any comments coming from me are "out of order." (As a sometime colleague used to say.) BUT--
--here goes.
(1) I have read (of C. S. Lewis) that, for him, there could never be a cup of tea too big or a book too long. And I gather (from the article) that Ms. Merrell is an insatiable reader.
I don't think that wise. I think one can read too much.
Remember James Boswell, taking an affectionate leave of Dr. Johnson. Who advised his young friend (after reeling off a catalogue of books and writers), "to read diligently in the great book of mankind."
The venerable Doctor says the same thing in his own "Life of Milton." "He looked at life through the medium of books." His writings (he went on) lack the "raciness" of ordinary life as lived by ordinary people.
Just a thought.
(2) "Every artist is an unhappy lover," said Iris Murdoch. "And unhappy lovers want to tell their story."
Goodness (if you will excuse a personal remark)--she certainly did not LOOK like a very happy person.
Except--perhaps--at the very end. When she was overtaken by dementia.
And spent the long days at the TV--
--watching Tella Tubbies--
--and my heart goes out to her. What a sad close to the life of this brilliant woman!
I think I may check out one of her books.
"A Severed Head" maybe.
Or maybe not. We'll see.
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Perhaps a little known Iris Murdoch book, that I read with enormous appreciation many years ago is: Jean Paul Sartre: Romantic Rationalist. Very short, but enormously intelligent in explaining existentialism as developed by Sartre. If the subject interests you, spare yourself the endless tedium of Being and Nothingness and read this one!
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A terrific essay and inspiring piece on an author not touted enough. I hope this brings Murdoch to the front of the line for readers who want a little more spice in their prose. And I trust the author's family will by now not be embarrassed by the choice in her reading.
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I have read every one of Iris Murdoch fiction books; she has also written a few on philosophy. An absolutely wonderful wordsmith and definitely not summer beach reading but rich thoughtful text about the messiness of lives but always with a hope that the best in her characters will finally emerge. Thank you for the article about one of the best writers of the later part of the twentieth century.
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Thank so much for this. I read "The Sea, The Sea" years ago and was captivated much as Ms. Merrell was. I will now look for the other titles she suggests as "I have nothing to read"...
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Thank you for your remembrance of your discovery of Iris Murdoch. I discovered her in 1969 too and read several of her novels which always swept me away into another world. Your article reminded of the joy Ms. Murdoch's writing gave me and has galvanized me to return to her novels 50 years later. I wonder how I will react.
2
Oh my God I love Iris Murdoch's books! I've read so many books in my life and I've come to question the value of that. And I've read some great ones, believe me.
But her books are a whole familiar messy world I somehow want to wallow in. Like this writer is saying. The same characters come up over and over in different guises but you would never get tired of them. The books all needed a really good edit--but I wouldn't want a word to be taken away.
I think I'll start re-reading the books all once again right now....
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Murdoch was a first rate philosopher, starting with a study of existentialisma and moving on to ethics. To be ethical, for Murdoch, was to pay attention, something the characters in her novels often failed to do. There are several good books about her last tragic years. Thanks to the NYT for bringing her back again.
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