This was my second immersion in the Murdoch universe and, while not as gratifying as the first (The Book and the Brotherhood), it was still a great pleasure: the same quality, the same intelligence.

The difference between the two experiences, I believe, lies in the fact that the story of this one interested me less or, perhaps, that Murdoch stretched it too much.

Once again, everything here revolves around the figure of a man who is as unpleasant as he is interesting, with an attractiveness and a power over women that only another woman can describe without being buried under thousands of insults from a misunderstood feminism. Here, too, the possibility of getting to know ourselves and, even more so, of getting to know others is questioned.

\\n  “As we know ourselves, we are false objects, impostures, bouquets of illusions” \\n

And since this is an insurmountable impossibility, the image, always distorted to a greater or lesser extent, that we construct of ourselves and others, as well as the subjective idea we form of the personal relationships we maintain with them and that others maintain among themselves, it is advisable to exercise the greatest prudence in the face of possible interferences in other people's lives.

\\n   “Judgments about people are never decisive, they arise from summaries that immediately make one think of the need for reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing more than loose ends and hazy calculations, regardless of anything that art may pretend to console us” \\n

When I first embarked on this book, a thought crossed my mind:

I have been to Charles Arowby’s party, not in a literal sense, of course, but rather figuratively.

I have encountered men like Charles Arowby, who manage to draw people into their drama while simultaneously protesting their presence.

I have a vivid recollection of a party hosted by a man who was similar to Charles.

I remember thinking: “Oh my god, I have to get out of here.”

And, like every good introvert, I followed that thought with - and read a good book.

The Sea, The Sea is not a feel-good book. It doesn't offer the kind of easy comfort and warmth that some books do.

However, it remains an honest book. It delves deep into the human psyche, exploring the complex emotions and desires that drive us.

It forces us to confront the less pleasant aspects of ourselves and our relationships.

Despite its lack of feel-good factor, it has a certain charm and appeal that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

It is a book that makes you think, that challenges your preconceptions, and that leaves a lasting impression.

From 2013 — Murdoch clearly had no intention of making her main protagonist likable. Or anyone else in the novel for that matter. Of course, that's kind of beside the point. For one thing, I don't think this is a concern for Murdoch in any of her novels. Besides, I can think of many novels that pulled me in even if the characters were unpleasant. Take for example, the only other Murdoch novel I'd read before this one, A Severed Head, which I found hilarious. But with this one, as brilliant as it is, I never really felt I could enter into it. Maybe it's because Charles Arrowby is writing a cross between a journal, diary, and novel. As he does so, he reminisces about his life, which somehow brings up all kinds of unpleasant memories of my own failed relationships with family, friends, and ex-lovers.

Arrowby, a famous ex-theatre actor/director, is now retired to a house without electricity next to a cliff by the sea. He has plenty of time to observe the changing colors of the sea and sky and reflect on his past. He has never forgotten his first chaste love, who dumped him without explanation, even though they had promised to marry when they were of age. He calls her Hartley (but her real name is the more commonplace 'Mary'). He's always imagined that she was what kept him from falling in love and marrying any of his mistresses over the years. So when he finds out that Hartley, now married for a long time, is inexplicably living in the same small village, he becomes obsessively convinced that he will somehow manage to convince her to leave what he assumes is an unhappy marriage and come live with him, even if by force. The fact that Hartley is now quite an old woman and every description he gives of her makes her completely unattractive both physically and in terms of character (dull, dim, and depressed come to mind), and that he convinces himself he's even more in love with her because of and not in spite of her lack of graces, gives us ample evidence of just how far gone he is and how deliberate he is about honoring his own delusions. It's all quite funny in the way Shakespearean tragedies can be funny sometimes, which is a deliberate comparison since Arrowby is a great lover of Shakespeare and Murdoch sought to make many parallels with The Tempest in this novel. I'm glad I read it, and there will definitely be more Murdoch in my future. But it was by no means an easy read and was even quite painful in parts. Still, it's a novel I will likely revisit in the future.

**"The Sea, The Sea" by Iris Murdoch: A Complex Exploration of Human Relationships**

Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" is a novel that defies easy categorization. It is a work that challenges our preconceived notions and prejudices about literature.

When writing a review of this novel, I confess that I don't know where to start. Firstly, because Murdoch has shattered all my previous ideas about what her books might be like. I have learned a valuable lesson from reading her: no matter how much literary knowledge we have or how much we have read, we must always be prepared for the unexpected. An author like Iris Murdoch can truly surprise us.

Secondly, this novel is so dense and complex, functioning on multiple levels. At times, I wasn't sure if it was a comedy, a horror novel, a psychological thriller, or a philosophical exploration of life. What I do know is that Iris Murdoch is a great author, and "The Sea, The Sea" is a novel that will benefit from multiple readings. I imagine that with each rereading, it will reveal more layers and become a different novel.

The story's plot is difficult to explain because it doesn't have a defined narrative. Instead, it is a novel about human relationships. Perhaps that's why I chose the quote about establishing relationships to start this review. I initially thought that the main theme of the story was marriage, but in the end, I concluded that Murdoch tells the story of the different stages of human relationships better than anyone: friendship, romantic relationships, family relationships, and above all, the relationship one has with oneself.

The main protagonist of the novel is Charles Arrowby, a renowned theater director and actor who decides to retire early and move to Shruff End, a house on the wild coast. Iris Murdoch has created a masterful character in Charles Arrowby. He is full of nuances, and the story is told from his perspective as a narrator in the form of a diary or an autobiographical novel. Charles is an ambiguous and toxic character, especially in his relationships with women. He is egocentric and selfish, and it is difficult to find a passage where he treats someone well without ulterior motives. However, as the story progresses, we gradually discover that Charles is not what he seems, and Iris Murdoch leads the reader to detect his true nature.

Shruff End is a strange, damp, and dark house, almost a character in its own right. When the novel begins, Charles is alone in the house, but as the story unfolds and we learn about his obsession with Hartley, his adolescent love, we begin to understand him better. Charles's memory of Hartley is completely idealized, and when she reappears in his life, he becomes obsessed with possessing her.

Although the style of the novel is not theatrical, Iris Murdoch constructs it like a great work of theater, with Charles's house as the central stage. The characters enter and exit like in a vaudeville, and at times, there are so many characters on the stage that it's hard to believe. Murdoch creates an atmosphere of comedy and suspense, keeping the reader engaged from beginning to end.

What I found most fascinating about this novel was the atmosphere that Iris Murdoch creates around the house when Charles is alone in it. The dark rooms, the lack of electricity, and the howling wind all contribute to a sense of unease. It's as if the house represents Charles's mental state. The house goes through different stages, just like Charles's mental state, especially when Hartley appears on the scene. Charles is a ridiculous and toxic character at times, but above all, he is a man who is unable to empathize with others. However, Iris Murdoch's ability to allow the reader to analyze him freely is what makes this novel a masterpiece.

"The Sea, The Sea" is a novel that explores the complexity of human relationships and the power of memory. It is a work that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it.

For those who love the sea and understand its allure: read this book!

The title is striking. Why "The Sea, the Sea" and not just "The Sea"?

Well, that exclamation expresses a joyous anticipation.

Just "The Sea" as a title would convey little feeling.

It could even be a theoretical work.

(The exclamation "The Sea! The Sea!" also seems to refer to the cry of a Greek mercenary upon seeing the Black Sea. "Thalatta! Thalatta!" (401 BC).)

The story:

A 61-year-old man retires from the theater world. He has bought a secluded house on a desolate piece of land, on a rock, by the sea.

Every morning he dives from the rock and swims in the sea.

As a reader, you are immediately drawn into the story.

The descriptions of the sea and the rocky environment are beautiful.

All peace for Charles, after a busy career, you might think.

But Charles doesn't stay alone on his rock for long.

One by one, friends and former lovers drop by.

He even meets, quite by chance, in the tiny village, his "first love", Hartley.

For him, she was his only true love, he claims. What Hartley herself thinks about that, we don't find out.

And then the story becomes a real page-turner.

Iris Murdoch can hold your attention extremely well.

Every time you think: now this will happen, or now he will react like this, it always goes a little differently.

Surprising twists, but all somehow logical and believable.

In the middle of the story, I began to wonder if the narrator, the first-person, is such a reliable narrator...

What about his psyche. Is he a rational thinker?

The story begins with a prologue, in which you get to know the characters (from Charles' point of view, of course).

Then several long chapters, all titled "drama".

And finally the epilogue.

The story is exciting, full of action, and also full of musings.

And the descriptions of the sea, which are definitely worth rereading.

Quote:

"The sun was already high and the sea was a clear green close to the rocks, further away a glistening azure that shifted and flickered as if there were large white patches floating on the surface. The horizon was a golden streak. A swell was coming towards me of fairly large, mirror-smooth, slow waves that burst apart with a hissing foam between the rocks; there was a silent threat from the graceful, but mechanical power of their strong, regular movements."

Charles Arrowby, a self-centered theatre director, retreats to a dilapidated cottage by the sea to pen his memoirs. Just like James Caan's character in the movie Misery, he renounces all modern conveniences and gets down to writing. However, unlike that character, he is a misogynistic and overbearing individual - someone you might enjoy eavesdropping on for amusement but would not want to be trapped with at a cocktail party.

So, Charles, reeking of Ebenezer Scrooge, lives in desolate solitude until he is visited by a series of past lovers, theatre enthusiasts, and one mysterious cousin - the ghosts of his excessive past. And, as was the case with Scrooge, Charles has no one to blame for his mismanaged life but himself.

It is不言而喻 that Iris Murdoch was a highly skilled writer. Here, she flawlessly captures the caprices of human weaknesses with beautiful prose, crafting an intimate story of one man's obsessions and delusions. Arrowby is masterfully portrayed as both Machiavellian and vulnerable - no easy feat.

There are numerous harebrained schemes, and much of the story has the feel of a stage production as each character overacts before exiting stage left.

I adored the willful absurdity of it all. The author must have had a great deal of fun deliberately combining farce and improbability with high culture.

While Charles loses his senses and continues to tilt at windmills, the antagonistic sea mocks him, just as Moby Dick taunted Captain Ahab. It serves as an ever-present literary device, immortal and ghostly, haunting him - even endangering him.

Was the book sometimes difficult to read?

To be honest, yes.

But Murdoch's writing is too excellent to overlook, and here she creates a philosophical masterpiece with a diverse cast designed to cover all aspects. And she even throws in a few unexpected surprises for good measure!

There are fewer fish in the sea than there are adjectives needed to define this enigmatic read, so it earns a well-deserved five stars from me!

This is an incredibly wonderful novel. It tells the story of a playwright who is engaged in composing his memoirs. He attempts to flee to a certain remote outpost by the sea, hoping to find peace and solitude. However, his former life keeps finding him again and again in the most hilarious, spectral, and at times tragic manners.

The narrator in this novel is highly unreliable. He is so full of his own vanity, believing that he is the center of the universe. And yet, it is also obvious that he is frail and needy deep down inside. Despite my doubts and the feeling that he must be hallucinating at times, I was still willing to follow him on his journey.

It is truly a remarkable narrative feat. The author has managed to create a world that is both captivating and filled with unexpected twists and turns. The characters are vividly drawn, and the story unfolds in a way that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. Overall, this is a novel that is well worth reading.

The introductory 95-page “pre-history” of the book consists of various elements. There is a description of the sea, but the protagonist fails to swim satisfactorily in it. This leads to reminiscing about the mistreatment of a woman and making not-too-subtle allusions to The Tempest. The interactions with the locals are awkward, and there is a worry about a poltergeist. The protagonist also eats a quirky meal accompanied by strong culinary opinions and alcohol, and this pattern repeats.

The next four hundred or so pages add to these shaky foundations a series of increasingly unwelcome coincidences, ever more overstrained theatrical allusions, and progressively more absurd emotional entanglements. The rather ludicrous plot of this 1978 Booker winner is nicely captured in The Guardian’s digested read. Galley Beggar’s Sam Jordison, reviewing the book for The Guardian Book Club 10 years ago, commented that Murdoch is a writer likely to divide opinion. Some consider her one of the greatest of her generation, while others think her later books exemplify a peculiarly 1970s strain of overwrought prose, remembered about as fondly as prog rock yodelling solos. I felt that the prog rock comparison was extremely apposite. The book clearly demonstrates outstanding technical ability, such as the wonderful descriptions of the sea. It gives the sense that we are in the hands of someone in clear command of a complex artistic undertaking. However, this is offset by the sheer length and ridiculousness of the end product, and a sense of indulgence, as if the artist is more interested in their creation than in the reader. The style is best described as of its time, attracting fierce loyalty from those who grew up with it, but this devotion can seem rather baffling to those who didn't.

This 1978 Booker winner, "The Sea, the Sea" by Iris Murdoch, manages to feel both completely contrived and compulsively readable.

With the protagonist Charles Arrowby, a famous theatre director, playwright, and actor who retires to live at the seaside, Murdoch creates a fascinating, self-centered, narcissistic character. He is completely caught up in his own perceptions and way of thinking. Narrated from Arrowby's point of view in a memoir-like style, we experience his ruthless, funny, and self-righteous actions and justifications. He becomes the center of gravity and pretty much the only factor in the whole story that feels real.

In the course of the story, he is visited by numerous of his artist frenemies, former lovers, and his cousin James. Each of them mainly functions as a mirror to reflect Arrowby and as a means to dive deeper into his past and his psyche. The most important person he re-encounters is his first love Hartley. Meeting her sets in motion a whole chain of events, rooted in Arrowby's conviction that they have always been destined to be together. However, the reader is constantly aware that Arrowby's love is mainly defined by an egotistical, manic streak.

The whole effect of all those meetings is like a house of mirrors. The reasons for and sequence of visits, as well as the workings of chance encounters, feel absolutely contrived. Everything and everybody revolves around Arrowby. At some point, I started to wonder whether these other characters actually existed or whether Arrowby was simply haunted by ghosts. There are also some potentially super-natural events that take place in the course of the story. Is it Arrowby's subconsciousness, his guilt, or the alcohol? Who knows! There is only one other character that operates with the same fierceness as Arrowby himself: The sea.

So as a whole, this book works very well as a character study. And not although, but because Arrowby is a terrible person, it is great fun to follow him through the story. Nevertheless, the novel felt a little lengthy for me, and I am also not sure whether I got enough diverse thoughts and ideas out of it compared to other Booker winners.

“O Mar, o Mar” (1978) is a multi-layered novel crafted in an intertwined manner. There is the explicit aspect, concerned with the narrative necessities to keep the story alive and appealing over hundreds of pages. And then there is the implicit aspect, of reflexive questioning inherent to the author's philosophical vein. Murdoch was a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford, recognized for both her fiction and philosophical work. However, the book is not a philosophical treatise. Instead, it is an immensely dense work, perhaps even more so due to the descriptive depth rather than the arguments themselves. In this sense, Murdoch's writing recalls Proust in the way she describes interior scenes, thoughts, and memories, in their myriad of details, as she advances and retreats within the characters, laying bare the liminal difference between the external and allegedly objective real world and the subjective world created in each of our heads.

The protagonist is a famous theater director who, upon reaching middle age, retires from London to live alone in a completely isolated house by the sea, without electricity or water. Although he desires solitude, Charles Arrowby ends up encountering many of the main characters from his life, both recent and from his childhood. This causes enormous internal turmoil, making evident the type of person he is. We come to understand that there is little in him that can be qualified as good, but at the same time, we also realize that he is not entirely bad either, because ultimately he is just a human. Murdoch delves into Arrowby's thoughts and shows us and makes us feel the world of indecision, uncertainty, doubt, and questioning, while also presenting the world of certainty, authoritarianism, contempt, and discrimination. The reading sits on the character's shoulder and allows us to hear and feel everything he thinks, which inevitably sticks to us, to our own uncertainties and desires. It is no wonder that Murdoch is compared to Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, or has a great love for Shakespeare.

The writing, although presenting an accessible vocabulary, is quite dense. But it is precisely through this density that a reflexive aura is produced, continuously transporting us to the realm of thinking. Although all the action takes place in a house by a rocky beach where the characters can bathe, we spend most of the time within ideas, almost disconnected from the spatio-temporal reality, with many scenes reminding us of the historical worlds of Ingmar Bergman's films.

There are some parts that I find interesting to retain, namely the way they look at art, in the particular case of the theater, but also how they discuss our illusion of reality, or how they introduce us to the discussion of our longings and desires. In fact, for me, the entire book is an introduction to the problems of belief in the desire to Be. Because we spend our entire lives in search of our own self, of a supposed happiness, without considering that this same search or this same happiness may not correspond to what we truly want, but only to what we think we truly desire. It is from here that the greatest uncertainties about ourselves emerge. We are someone, but we don't know who that someone is. We have intuitions, make inferences, and raise suspicions, but throughout our lives, we learn that much of what we longed for and finally achieved was not so important after all...

Regarding the theater:
“The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal. Art’s relation with its client is here at its closest and most immediate. Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment and imprison the spectator in it. The theatre apes the profound truth that we are extended beings who yet can only exist in the present. It is a factitious present because it lacks the free aura of personal reflection and contains its own secret limits and conclusions. Thus life is comic, but though it may be terrible it is not tragic: tragedy belongs to the cunning of the stage. Of course most theatre is gross ephemeral rot; and only plays by great poets can be read, except as directors’ notes. I say ‘great poets’ but I suppose I really mean Shakespeare. It is a paradox that the most essentially frivolous and rootless of all the serious arts has produced the greatest of all writers.”

We and reality:
“We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value.”
“Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.”
“in a few weeks or a few months you’ll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It’s not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It’s like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish.”
“The worshipper endows the worshipped object with power, real power not imaginary power, that is the sense of the ontological proof, one of the most ambiguous ideas clever men ever thought of. But this power is dreadful stuff. Our lusts and attachments compose our god. And when one attachment is cast off another arrives by way of consolation. We never give up a pleasure absolutely, we only barter it for another.”

Published in VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

Dublin is a kind of fertile literary womb that has produced great geniuses of world literature. Among some of the brightest writers born in this city, we could mention from Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) to the magnificent James Joyce (1882 - 1941), passing through Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), George B. Shaw (1856 - 1950), W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939), Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989) and undoubtedly many more that I omit due to ignorance and space. Without any hesitation, I would allow myself to include along with this group of writers Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999), the author of this novel that has kept me captivated throughout its more than 700 pages.

Iris Murdoch, among other awards, won the Booker Prize in 1978 for this novel and had an intense life both intellectually and sentimentally. Elias Canetti and Ludwig Wittgenstein are among the great figures of her time with whom she lived in one way or another, having taken traits of their personality to create some of her male characters. In this particular novel, the writer shows herself as a great connoisseur of male personality and psychology.

One doesn't have to struggle much for the novel in question to immediately attract us and take possession of all our senses. I wouldn't be able to precisely specify where its great charm lies, perhaps it is in everything: in its dynamism, in its theme, in the rhythm of the narration, in the characters, in the simplicity of the prose, in the handling of memories and illusions, in the evocation of feelings, in the sense of humor, in the fascinating settings…

I want to expand a bit on the setting. Both Shruff End, which is the name of the house inhabited by the protagonist and narrator called Charles Arrowby located on a promontory above the sea, as well as the magical landscape described in detail composed of the sea with its incessant movements and multiple colors, the distant horizon where the sky merges with the ocean, the stars and various celestial bodies that populate the celestial vault, the sunrises and sunsets with their increasing and decreasing lights and other natural beauties, place us in an almost dreamlike atmosphere that accompanies the action and this environment is an important factor for the protagonist to let his memories fly, call on his nostalgias, release his ghosts from the past and his consciousness flow towards his deepest being.

This strange and sometimes desolate house inhabited by Charles Arrowby, who is a single and sixty-something theater director, retired from his activities and from society, is an allegory of the withdrawal from the world, of the tranquility sought for years and of the encounter with nature. Shruff End is a refuge from an existence so full of contradictions and vicissitudes, but it is also a center of attraction to relive his past existence. Its cave, as he himself calls it, is also a kind of theatrical stage where new dramas unfold and where some new characters appear, but above all characters belonging to his troubled past full of experiences, now they have become a kind of ghosts that have come to remind him of his sins, his omissions and his egoism.

The house and its surroundings are so wonderfully described that one ends up imagining them, even desiring to know that atmosphere. The constant evocations of the landscape made me mentally strive to give the house a more or less concrete form, as well as to give an image to the panoramic views obtained from it. I didn't have to strive too much since almost immediately I found several paintings of this house that located me even more vividly in the novel: a house on a promontory from which an immense sea of various shades, a spectral and luminous sky and clouds full of nuances are dominated.

The novel is of a dramatic nature and unfolds in the love experience of Charles. It contains many dialogues and can become addictive due to the author's ability to construct its plot. This novel takes the form of a diary, elaborated from the moment Charles decides to inhabit the house by the sea, in which he constantly and meticulously records the events that happen to him during that stay away from the city, such as his walks in nature, his visits to the village, the extraordinary views of the surroundings, his meals and his brief encounters with the villagers (all in a simple, pleasant and with a good sense of humor way). The book also functions as a kind of memoirs of the life of Arrowby, who updates it as his solitary existence in those places unfolds.

The main characters are, among others, Charles' parents, where the mother (Marian) has a repressive character and his father (Adam) is only a timid and kind man; his obscurely admired and envied cousin James and his parents Abel and Estelle who are the successful and appreciated paternal uncles. An important part of the characters are made up of his past sentimental relationships with Lizzie, with Clement, with Rosina and especially with Hartley.

Ben (Hartley's current husband), Peregrine Arbelow (an old friend of Charles), Titus, Gilbert and some other secondary characters also play their role during the novel. I think that Iris Murdoch, in addition to being a virtuoso in the development of plots and setting, is also so in the creation of characters both in character and in physical appearance and in their psychology.

Towards the second part of the story, the dominant axis of the narration is constituted by the relationships derived from the encounter between a hysterical and cornered Hartley (who was Charles' first love 40 years ago) and an eccentric and selfish Charles, in an oppressive, talkative and scenically beautiful emotional environment. These relationships are desperately sought by Charles, turning all the action into a foolish struggle to recover that Hartley of 40 years ago and that blindness leads him to incur in a series of absurd and complex situations that reveal the traits of Charles' personality: vanity, jealousy, revenge, frustration and nostalgia for lost love and youth, as well as a marked egocentrism.

The novel never flags despite the long and cumbersome tangles in which the narration gets involved, a product of Charles' musings and attempts to get closer and appropriate Hartley. These musings and attempts become an obsessive fantasy that exposes the psychological games in which we often fall when an emotional episode overwhelms us.

It is worth mentioning that Iris Murdoch was also a prominent philosopher who leaned towards literature since she thought that this activity allowed her to better analyze and represent the relationships between individuals, which works wonders and particularly the balance of her prose, her philosophical reflections and her thematic and dramatic content have allowed me to connect with the author in a very familiar way.

Her novels become a dramatic space to tackle the human intentions and moral values of our era and in this sense they are extremely stimulating for our intellect and an open and forceful demonstration of the value of literature. Iris Murdoch, great among the greats.

Both the introduction by Álvaro Pombo and the translation by Marta Guastavino have allowed me to enjoy this great work of the 20th century even more.

**"A Great Book: A Tale of Charles Arrowby"**

I truly believe there's an amazing story within these pages. Charles Arrowby has achieved such a high level of fame that he can no longer retire anonymously in a small cottage by the seaside. What's more, when he sees his childhood sweetheart, a longing for something from the past suddenly consumes him.

One starts to question if he might be suffering from dementia or a similar condition. He isn't content with the numerous visits that his life as an actor and director in the theatre seems to bring.

This is an outstanding book. In fact, I discovered it in a disused warehouse slated for demolition. Amidst the other books scattered on the floor, this one truly stood out. It's not often that I come across a book that I haven't paid for, except those from the library. I'm going to read it again as a challenge. I constantly tell myself that I will read her other books, but I have such an extensive TBR list, both digital and paperback.