A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Really 9781473575134.

Another Booker listed book that I simply didn't take to.

Right from the very beginning, when Hilda and Rupert were engaged in a discussion about everyone, aiming to make you aware of who was who, their conversation was truly unbelievable, unnatural, and cringeworthy. It was so bad that I just gave up. It even seemed pretentious. Moreover, it was very philosophical in the sense of delving into the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. However, I switched off listening as the ins and outs of it bored me to death.

P.s. How about Hilda as a character's name then? This surely gives the book an aged feel. It makes one wonder if the name was chosen deliberately to evoke a certain era or if it's just a coincidence that it has such an old-fashioned ring to it. Nevertheless, it does add to the overall impression that the book might be a bit out of touch with the present times.

Oh, Iris!

What a wide and diverse cast of characters we have here! Each one is unique and will soon start to come together into their own complex and relatable wholes.

I found myself, at different times, completely mystified by their actions and motives. Yet, there were also moments when they charmed me with their personalities and quirks.

Julius, in particular, is like the devil incarnate. His evil schemes are truly despicable. But then there's Tallis, the benevolent counterpoint, who is unfortunately misguided in his attempts to oppose Julius.

Morgan's ability to deceive herself is truly mindblowing. She turns on a dime, believing one thing one moment and something completely different the next.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this story. It's full of intrigue, drama, and complex characters that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Moralists today seem overly cautious. They are constantly trying to appease various groups such as logical positivists, psychologists, sociologists, computerologists, and who knows who else. As a result, their writings are filled with apologies, and they speak in everyone else's language rather than their own.

She poured out a little whisky and took a sip. Instantly, she felt a false sense of comfort. The whisky was oblivious to her troubles.

Cynicism? Why use such a harsh word? Let's call it a sensible acceptance of the second rate.

* * * * *

This is an ingeniously clever book that explores, in the form of a highly engaging novel, Murdoch's preoccupation with how to be good without God, assuming we can even define what "good" is. In this book, she plays the Devil's Advocate against herself. She allows a character who is writing what is clearly her own Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals to be mercilessly mocked and derided as a deceitful, self-deluded liar. A relevant passage between Rupert Foster, an industrious but unimaginative civil servant aspiring to be a moralist, and Julius King, an enigmatic figure who retired from something related to biological warfare not for ethical reasons but out of boredom with an American college campus, is worth quoting at length.

"All right, we are without guarantees, but we do know some things are certain," Rupert asserts.

"Such as what?"

"That Tintoretto is a better painter than Puvis de Chavannes."

"Touché! You know my weakness for the Venetian masters. But we really talk a lot of nonsense about art. What we actually experience is intimate and ambiguous compared to the long story we tell ourselves about it."

"I agree up to a point, but …."

"No buts, my dear fellow. Kant showed us conclusively that we cannot really know reality – yet we stubbornly continue to imagine that we can."

"Kant thought we had inklings. That was indeed the point."

"Kant was stupidly Christian. So are you, though you deny it. Christianity is one of the most glorious and glittering illusions the human race has ever invented."

"Surely, Julius, you don't take the old-fashioned view that it is merely a tissue of fabrications? Isn't it, in its own way, a vehicle of the spirit?"

"Possibly. But what is that? Nothing could be more ambiguous."

"Spirit may be ambiguous. But goodness isn't. And if we …."

"As for evil being dreary, that's an old story too. Have you ever noticed how small children naturally accept the doctrine of the Trinity, which is one of the most peculiar of all human conceptual inventions? Grown men show an equal facility for making completely absurd metaphysical assumptions that they instinctively feel are comforting – for example, the assumption that good is bright and beautiful and evil is shabby, dreary, or at least dark. In fact, experience completely contradicts this assumption. Good is dull. What novelist has ever succeeded in making a good man interesting? It is characteristic of this planet that the path of virtue is so incredibly depressing that it can be guaranteed to break the spirit and quench the vision of anyone who consistently attempts to follow it. Evil, on the other hand, is exciting, fascinating, and alive. It is also much more mysterious than good. Good can be seen through. Evil is opaque."

"I would like to say exactly the opposite."

"That is because you imagine something to be present that is not present at all except as a shadowy dream. What passes for human goodness is actually a tiny phenomenon, messy, limited, truncated, and as I said, dull. Whereas evil (though I would prefer a less emotive name for it) reaches far into the depths of the human spirit and is connected to the springs of human vitality."

"I am interested that you want to change the word! I imagine that you will soon want to substitute some more neutral terms, such as 'life-force' or some such nonsense, only I won't let you."

"Life-force! Really, Rupert, I've moved beyond that stage."

"All right, evil has depths, though I don't think these days they are all that unfathomable, but why not admit that good has heights? I don't even mind if you reverse the metaphor, as long as you allow the distance."

"The distance is precisely what I won't allow. Let's keep your up and down structure; it's convenient and traditional. My point is that the top of the structure is completely empty. The thing is truncated. Human beings have often dreamed of extending goodness beyond the pitiful level at which they muddle along, but it is precisely a dream and a completely vague one at that. It's not just that human nature precludes goodness; it's that goodness, in that extended sense, is not even a coherent concept. It's unimaginable, like certain things in physics."

"There have been saints …."

"Come now, Rupert. Of course, people have sacrificed themselves, but that has nothing to do with goodness. Most so-called saints interest us because they are really artists, or because they have been portrayed by artists, or else because they are men of power."

"But you admit there is goodness, even though it is limited and dull?"

"There is helping other people and allowing oneself to be imposed upon. That isn't very interesting, and as you know, it can stem from all sorts of motives."

"On your view, it seems far from clear why human beings ever conceived of the idea of goodness or thought it important at all!"

"My dear Rupert, you know as well as I do that there are hundreds of reasons for that. Ask any Marxist …….."

Etc

Dejected, Rupert looks at his accumulated notebooks and wonders if he should just burn them all. Murdoch herself admitted in one or two despairing moments that she wasn't a very good philosopher. (Some critics may have agreed with her, perhaps out of jealousy. Indeed, it could be said that she excels as a metaphysician, whatever that is precisely, and it is more akin to Oriental thought than to classical Western philosophy since Plato.) But Julius is also prone to mischief-making for his own entertainment in more ordinary circumstances. Rupert's sister-in-law, a highly neurotic would-be intellectual very interested in 'life-force' and the free expression of her inner soul, has been dismissed from an affair with Julius on the grounds that she has become tedious but is convinced that he "still loves her really." After forcing her way into his flat and failing with all other female tricks, she takes off all her clothes, mistakenly expecting that the sight of her charms will disarm him. Glancing at her scrawny body with distaste, Julius picks up a pair of scissors, carefully cuts every garment into shreds, hustles her out of the bedroom, locks the door, picks up a suitcase, announces that he's going away indefinitely, and leaves. At first, she is thrilled by this display of what she still interprets as highly original passion, but soon she starts to feel cold, and the room in which she is confined, being devoid of any fabric except a small dishcloth, begins to alarm her. She can leave as the front door remains unlocked, but wearing only a dishcloth in one of the smarter parts of town, her 'life-force' wilts. She is rescued by the unexpected arrival of Rupert's younger brother on a secret mission of his own. He is flutteringly homosexual and lives with another extremely dry, puritanical, and fiercely possessive man. She borrows his clothes, leaving him naked when Julius makes an unexpected return. The boyfriend is not happy when suspicions of this unseemly episode quickly reach his ears. Delighted, Julius makes a wager that he can break up their cozy household in a matter of days and proceeds to do so. He lures the younger one behind a false wall in an obscure room in a museum where, through a spy-hole, they can observe a clandestine meeting between his 'happily married' brother and his wife's sister. She has already been flirting with her new admirer's son while having a "little talk" with the silly boy about the subterfuges and deceptions of monogamy. By now, everyone is in tears except himself, even if slightly chastened by the results of his mischievous efforts, which he calls "a little lesson in orderliness." It's much easier to start a novel than to finish one - it's much like life placed within an artificially confining frame like a picture - and sometimes Murdoch almost seems to have lost interest by that time, but here she achieves it with remarkable skill. There has to be some sort of resolution because life has to go on, but Rupert meets "death by misadventure," and everything else is irreparably damaged and altered, and the survivors have to stumble on as best they can, whether they are older and wiser or not.

If Murdoch ever resorted to sarcasm, there would be a very subtly biting satire here on the affectations and hypocrisies of the affluent chattering classes who drink champagne by the crate, maliciously gossip about each other under the guise of 'concern,' and personally manage all the world's wrongs without really knowing anything about them. These are the people who, in these more anxiety-ridden days, would be holding up signs saying "Immigrants Welcome" while taking every precaution never to come into contact with one. That's at a superficial level. At a much deeper level, there is a morality tale about the importance of telling the truth, thus triumphantly defeating the Devil's Advocate and affirming the Platonic tripartite equation: truth equals beauty equals goodness. It's also extremely funny, though perhaps not for readers whose own secret consciences are uneasy.

* * * * *

"How can one live properly when the beginnings of one's actions seem so inevitable and justified while the ends are so completely unpredictable and unexpected?"

Cynical intellectual, Julius, is the mastermind behind a real life drama that unfolds among friends, siblings, lovers, and spouses. His aim is to illustrate his firm beliefs. He believes in the ease with which people fall in and out of love, as if it were the simplest of things. He also contends that people are unable to communicate openly and honestly due to their own inflated egos. Additionally, he argues that man has a fundamental misunderstanding of goodness and evil. His insensitive manipulation of people's emotions has far-reaching and profound implications.

Murdoch has masterfully woven philosophical elements into this dark comedy. She does so with great skill, highlighting human frailties with a combination of empathy and pathos. It is as if she is peeling back the layers of the human psyche to reveal its true nature.

Personally, I found this a painful and troubling read. My heart ached for the characters, who seemed to be caught in a web of their own making. I had great difficulty seeing the 'humorous side' of the novel, as the themes were so沉重 and thought-provoking. It made me question my own beliefs and the way I interact with others.

What an amazing classic!

Murdock was indeed a brilliant woman, and her writing and philosophizing serve as undeniable proof of that.

This book offers an astonishing perspective on dialogue and character development, achieved almost entirely through dialogue.

Having been engrossed in numerous modern books lately, it was truly a delight to return to a classic.

The characters in this book may not necessarily deserve our admiration or sympathy. However, I found myself truly reluctant to see the "Iago" character wreak havoc and destroy everyone.

I can clearly understand how she is credited with breathing new life into the novel. It is a masterpiece of pure character development, captivating readers and making them engage deeply with the complex and flawed personalities within the story.

This is the first Iris Murdoch novel that I have had the pleasure of reading, and it has been a truly eye-opening experience. Published 50 years ago, it still shines with remarkable wit, erudition, and energy.

The world it portrays may feel firmly rooted in its time, and the characters are unashamedly middle class. However, Murdoch's ingenious plot sweeps the reader along on a thrilling wave. The central conceit, in which the Machiavellian Julius King plots to expose the fallacies of love by breaking couples apart, unfolds inexorably towards its climax.

Murdoch is particularly adept at illuminating the conflicts and insecurities that people experience in social situations. At the same time, she is also incredibly funny, injecting humor into the story in unexpected ways.

One of the novel's strengths is its portrayal of a gay relationship without resorting to prurience or sensationalism. This is especially astonishing considering the time in which it was written, just a few years after homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain.

Murdoch is unafraid to tackle big ideas, and although Julius is a malignant character, he delivers some of the best lines in the book. His cynical remarks, such as "Few people just want other people to be happy, dear Rupert. Most of us prefer our friends in tears," and "The human race is incurably stupid," add a touch of dark humor to the story.

The last quote, "What novelist ever succeeded in making a good man interesting?" is, of course, an allusion to Julius himself. He is a truly grotesque character, yet he is utterly compelling, much like the novel itself. I have no doubt that this will not be the last Iris Murdoch novel that I read.

This is the second Murdoch that I have read, and I truly enjoyed it to a great extent.

There are numerous symbols scattered throughout the story, making it seem more like a fable at times.

I must admit that I felt the first half of the book was a little sluggish in its pace. However, things took a turn for the better in the second half, which, in my opinion, was like Acts 2 and 3.

Some of the writing in this novel is simply brilliant. The description of the jumbled fragments of letters was, without a doubt, the best part for me. It added a unique and captivating element to the story.

After reading this, I am now more than determined to pick up another one of her novels. I can't wait to explore the different worlds and stories that she has to offer.

I believe that each of her works will have its own charm and depth, and I'm excited to embark on this literary journey.

Murdoch's writing has truly left a lasting impression on me, and I look forward to reading more of her masterpieces in the future.

I absolutely loved it!

It was an experience that truly touched my heart.

The moment I encountered it, I was immediately drawn in by its charm.

At 17.35, this wonderful thing happened.

It was like a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day.

The details, the emotions, everything about it was just perfect.

I couldn't help but be filled with joy and excitement.

It made my day and left a lasting impression on me.

I will always remember this moment and cherish the feeling it gave me.

It was truly a remarkable and unforgettable experience.