books by Iris Murdoch     books:       The Green Knight8 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1995 Fascinating late Murdoch Iris Murdoch's compelling next-to-last novel does show some evidence of the Alzheimer's disease that would soon destroy her mental faculties (and would also, if what I've read is right, become considerably more evident in her final novel, "Jackson's Dilemma"). The opening pages are rather strange; she seems to have given up on introducing the characters one or two at a time. It's rather ...             The Bell (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)16 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin Classics, 2001 An Exploration of Darkness and Light The Bell is an exceptional book. It resonates with spirituality. It reverberates with sensuality. It probes our identity and reveals a broad spectrum of darkness and light. In The Bell things are not as they seem. Murdoch creates a world in which nothing is mundane. See for instance how she describes the transforming magic of the evening sun: "They came quite suddenly out of the wood onto ...             The Sea, The Sea (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)43 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin Classics, 2001 A must-read Murdoch The Sea, The Sea is my favorite Iris Murdoch novel. I read it first 20+ years ago, laughed out loud, grimaced and cringed, and re-read it this spring with just as fresh a response as the first time. Murdoch tells her story from the point of view of a retired London theater personality, Charles Arrowby, who moves from London to a place of solitude by the coastline. He soon discovers he is not ...             Bruno's Dream6 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1976 simply the best Of all the whimsical, fictional worlds created by Iris Murdoch, this one is the most haunting and compelling. Her gift for "reading" the human condition is a given; her ability to find consistently some light in the darkest human soul is a gift. The novel's humor notwithstanding, this is a story of desperate people who, unbeknownst to them, live under the watchful, sheltering love of a strange, ...             A Fairly Honourable Defeat (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)16 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin Classics, 2001 A more than fairly satisfying read Brilliant! This novel has everything I look for in a truly great book: complex characters, deft plotting, luminous prose, and profound insight into the human condition. Iris Murdoch knew what it was to be human. She understood our aspirations and longings, our blind spots, our frailties, and our capacities for love and betrayal. She's the only writer I know of who can hold her reader's rapt ...             The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)19 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin Classics, 2003 And Funny, Too. Just adding to the plethora of reviews and putting in my two or three cents. Dame Iris is said to have possessed a prodigious and heavy intellect. And one can see, in reading her works, that this is very true. She is able to see into all the various emotional responses of myriad characters, and to do so faultlessly. Yes, we say, this is true! This is the way he would think and act (or the way I ...             Under the Net26 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1977 Under the net of language lies the truth In his early period (specifically, in "Tractatus"), the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the "net" of language both separates us from and connects us to the world: it simultaneously impedes and determines our understanding of life. He furthermore concluded that anyone who finally comprehended the meaning behind the language of "Tractatus" would realize that its ...             The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (Penguin Books)3 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1984 Ruthless, perhaps evil, this is a pornography of the soul No sex, no violence, but pornography in the highest artistic sense: it is about the irredeemable. The worthless, the evil, the basest and most foul, while simulteneously exalting the pure aspects of love, even as it denigrates them. If you can keep yourself from shuddering while Pinn speaks to Monty in his bedroom, then you need serious mental attention.             The Sovereignty of Good (Routledge Classics)2 reviews Iris Murdoch Routledge, 2001 Lucid and brilliant Murdoch's clarity and keenness as a thinker are everywhere evident in the three essays that comprise this short book. It is at once a kind of paean to common sense and an intricate philosophical working-through of fundamental human dillemmas. In the subject of moral philosophy, Murdoch clearly comes down on the side of what many might feel to be a kind of Anglican conservatism, though a ...             A Severed Head22 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1976 Depth, Wit, and Language After completing this read, I retrospectively notice three primary functions that make it worthy of five stars. First, the language flows together to construct a cohesive work that captures the reader and doesn't let go. Second, a sprinkling of wit can be found throughout the book, enlivening it and complimenting the language. Most importantly, these two facets enhance a certain intangible depth. ...             The Italian Girl3 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1979 A masterpiece Edmund Narraway, an engraver, is the narrator in this stunning novel by Iris Murdoch. One day he returns to his family house in northern England for the funeral of his recently deceased mother Lydia. Otto, Edmund's brother, a stone mason, still lives in the house with his wife Isabel and daughter Flora, along with Maria Magistrelli - Maggie - the nurse whom both Otto and Edmund consider as their ...             An Unofficial Rose Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1987 Christopher Cazenove, one of England's finest actors, has starred on stage and TV in the US and Great Britain. He most recently starred in A Knight's Tale, Eye of the Needle and Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill. His reading of An Unofficial Rose brings the comedic tone to life. Iris Murdoch's novel deploys her gift of high comedy in a new field. she directs her wit, her irony, and her dazzling, often disturbing insights upon the complex ...             A Word Child9 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1987 The Best of the Best Oh, Iris, how I miss you. I first began reading Iris Murdoch in college, for a Philosophy in Lit. class, and was immediately captivated by "A Severed Head", which remains high on my list of favorites. But it is "A Word Child" to which I return most often. Iris Murdoch's breathtakingly simple and yet piercing prose is at its best in this novel. Her theme is obsession, as always, and while we ...             The Sandcastle2 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1978 Not her best, but still interesting I've always liked this novel, though it isn't what I would call Murdoch's best. I found it to be much gentler than her other novels: there isn't any of the astounding weirdness of The Good Apprentice or The Severed Head: no incest, no murder, no wife-swapping. As a result, it is an interesting novel to read for the change of pace it offers in the body of her work. It offers perhaps a subtler ...             Jackson's Dilemma6 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1997 Puck and Ariel are hard at work. A perfectly Shakespearian comedy. Three, practically four, weddings like in As You Like It (four) or A Midsummer Night's Dream (three). The threads are so entangled that everyone is about to marry the wrong matches. Luckily some Puck-like Jackson appears in the picture and sets things right, with the help of a twelve-year-old boy. Iris Mirdoch is quite apt at organizing sentimental suspense, ...             The Unicorn14 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1987 a very readable Murdoch novel The Unicorn reads easily, with a plot that the average reader can outline and follow: a young woman is hired as a governess to a remote, mysterious household on the English coastline -- Murdoch did have an enormous fascination with the ocean and the coast -- only to discover that there are no children to teach, but rather she has been secured to keep a young married woman, Hannah, company. As ...             The Red and the Green2 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1988 "What will Home Rule do for a woman begging in the streets?" An extended Anglo-Irish family living in the vicinity of Dublin on the eve of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 reflects the attitudes and pressures that lead eventually to the cataclysmic events at the Dublin Post Office. Andrew Chase-White, a young officer in the British Cavalry, has been assigned to Dublin, where he has often spent holidays with his extended family and where he has an ...             The Flight from the Enchanter: A Story of Love and Power Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1987             The Book and the Brotherhood: A Story about Love and Friendship and Marxism (Penguin Fiction)7 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1989 A Chorus-line of Snails Iris Murdoch's "The Book and the Brotherhood" is a marvelously droll novel of manners that has the audacity to explore the philosophical and moral issues that have effectively paralyzed a group of `60s-era Oxford graduates. The novel opens, appropriately enough, at Oxford, where, in the shadow of their former classmates and professors, the friends have gathered some 25 years later for a Ball. ...             Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature2 reviews Iris Murdoch Penguin (Non-Classics), 1999 Almost all of Murdoch's philosophizing in a single package Except for Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, which is disorganized and verges on the incoherent, almost all of Murdoch's explicitly philosophical writing is here. So if you are going to be working on Murdoch's philosophy, this is a resource you need to have. However, if you're new to Murdoch's philosophical writing, you might do better taking a look at The Sovereignty of Good; it's got three ...              search for books brotherhood, century, classics, defeat, dilemma, enchanter, existentialists, fairly, fiction, flight, friendship, honourable, italian, jackson, literature, machine, marxism, mystics, penguin, philosophy, profane, routledge, sandcastle, severed, sovereignty, twentieth, twentieth-century, unicorn, unofficial, writings books:    Kindle - Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device This is the future of book reading. I have used it and love it! randomly chosen DVD: Mad Love we recommend simply the best leave a comment home  impressum - about us