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This is truly a remarkable book. It is a wonderful, strange, and at times, claustrophobic piece of literature that also manages to feel expansive. It is like a modern-day Shakespearean tragedy, filled with complex characters and intense emotions. The atmosphere of the place described in the book is incredibly powerful. It could be Cornwall, with its rugged coastline and wild moors. Or perhaps it is the wild parts of Scotland or Ireland, with their misty mountains and deep valleys. But the real territory that all the characters inhabit is the hollow void within Hannah. Reading this book is like walking across a bog at night. It requires effort and concentration, but it is well worth it. The story will draw you in and keep you engaged until the very end. It is a book that will stay with you long after you have turned the final page.

Although I fell in love with Iris Murdoch's writing from the very first line, I can't say that I liked the story.

It is overly intense and convoluted, and the ending is almost like that of a soap opera.

I think I will continue with her works because I know she has better ones and, in any case, she is a great writer.

Her prose is so captivating that it draws you in and makes you want to keep reading, even when the plot takes some rather unexpected turns.

Perhaps with her other novels, I will have a more satisfying reading experience and be able to fully appreciate her literary genius.

Despite my reservations about this particular story, I am still eager to explore more of her works and see what else she has to offer.

Y no supo discernir si el mundo donde ella había vivido era un mundo de bondad o de maldad; un mundo donde el sufrimiento poseía significado o un mundo que no era más que una travesura del diablo, una pesadilla violenta.

En su momento hice una reseña bastante completa de esta novela. Pero como soy muy lista y espabilada, he terminado por borrarla de mi perfil de goodreads. Así que esto que estás leyendo es una recreación hecha como buenamente he podido de esta primera reseña. Suerte que de muchas cosas me acordaba de bastantes cosas y que aún tenia bastante fresca la opinión que me dejo, porque esta novela ha sido una de mis mejores lecturas en los que llevamos de 2021.

Esta lectura es mi primera incursión en la prosa de Iris Murdock. Antes de leer "El Unicornio", no tenía el gusto de conocer a esta autora. Según lo que he leído en otras reseñas, "El Unicornio" es quizás su trabajo más inclasificable y diferente al resto. Espero pronto poder descubrir la verdad en esto. Lo que si tengo claro es que ha sido una lectura que me ha sorprendido gratamente. Hay muchos elementos muy bien llevados. Quizás lo más desconcertante sea que muchas cosas quedan en el aire. El lector debe entrelazar los diversos elementos que la autora ofrece para crear su propia composición del terreno a leer. Esto al principio me molestó un poco, hasta que una amiga me explicó que las novelas de Murdock son así. Cada lector tiene la libertad de leer lo que tiene delante como mejor sepa o crea conveniente, convirtiéndose así en participante de la lectura, no en un mero espectador. Esa es la magia de esta escritora y uno de los puntos que han hecho tan fascinante esta lectura.

A medio camino entre la novela gótica y el cuento de hadas en su versión más oscura, "El Unicornio" empieza con la llegada de Marian, una profesora de escuela, a una mansión perdida en la agreste y hermosa costa irlandesa. En este entorno, Marian se incorpora al hogar de Hannah, una misteriosa y rica mujer, como una especie de profesora, lectora y dama de compañía. Hannah está envuelta en una neblinosa aura. Vive totalmente alejada del mundo, sin salir de su casa y de sus tierras, rodeada por una pequeña corte de familiares y sirvientes que han convertido sus propias existencias en satélites que orbitan alrededor de la de su señora. Un aura opresiva y de princesa de cuento de hadas, amplificada por un misterioso suceso que tuvo lugar hace años, motivo por el que la mujer ya no sale de sus posesiones. A todo esto hay que sumar la leyenda local que dice que a los siete años del suceso, una gran tragedia va a acontecer en el lugar.

En general, todo lo que he leído en estas páginas me ha gustado. Murdoch es una narradora soberbia. No hay nada en ella que no tenga desperdicio. Todos los elementos a su disposición están muy bien medidos y ella los usa con soberbia y habilidad. La prosa de la autora es intimista, pulcra y rica en detalles. El ritmo narrativo está muy bien llevado, intercalando momentos de aparente y engañosa calma absoluta con otros turbulentos. Los diálogos son ágiles e interesantes, importantes para hacer avanzar la trama, conocer la psique de los personajes y dar sentido a elementos esenciales para la trama. El estilo narrativo es bello y poderoso, logrando transportar al lector a una atmósfera oscura y gótica, llena de impasses, misterios y espejismos.

Cuando se coge por primera vez una obra de Iris Murdoch, se descubre que la autora fue profesora de filosofía. Esta materia es parte de las raíces de su bibliografía. A partir de los trabajos de diversos filósofos, como Platón, la obra trata temas muy variados sobre la humanidad, como el bien y el mal, el amor, la salvación y el pecado, el perdón, o la individualidad. En "El Unicornio", todo esto es patente incluso en el título. El unicornio, animal mitológico, representa a jesucristo, aquel que murió para redimir los pecados de los humanos. En este caso, Hannah, la princesa maldita de esta historia, es el objeto de deseo y obsesión de todos los personajes que la rodean. Es el centro de una red de relaciones que no sería descabellado definir como masoquistas e insanas. Todo ello da a la historia una patina de irrealidad que afianza el aire de misterio e irrealidad de este oscuro cuento de hadas que es la novela.

Si hay algo que me ha gustado especialmente, ha sido la ambientación. Murdoch recrea la costa irlandesa con toda su belleza y toda su crudeza, logrando transportar al lector al lugar sin excederse en las descripciones. El Castillo Gaze es una cárcel viviente que oprime y engaña cruelmente a sus habitantes, y con ellos al lector mientras lee. En definitiva, "El Unicornio" ha sido una lectura laberíntica y compleja, que me hizo sufrir y me tuvo en vilo de principio a fin. No es la típica novela gótica, sino una gran metáfora sobre la humanidad, el pasado y la dependencia emocional. Esta obra me ha encantado y ha sido una de las mejores lecturas de lo que llevo de año. Quizás no sea un libro para todos los públicos, pero merece la pena darle una oportunidad.

In clear imitation or homage to the Gothic literary aesthetic, Iris Murdoch weaves an exciting plot of mystery and intrigue. She mixes, and it's not yet clear if with success or misstep, various supernatural or fabulous elements that revolve around a chilling Victorian mansion and its indescribable inhabitants.

To this property, located in a desolate landscape full of steep rocks, cliffs, swamps covered with deadly vegetation, and megalithic monuments of a gloomy aspect, comes Marian Taylor. A woman on the verge of turning thirty and recently out of a tumultuous romance, who, answering an advertisement in the newspaper, hopes to serve there as a governess. However, upon arrival, she discovers that her expectations do not quite match the reality. Instead of children, the one she will be in charge of teaching various disciplines is the owner of the castle, Hannah, a woman of a tormented and somewhat esoteric appearance, under whom hangs an unsettling climate of fatality.

As Marian becomes familiar with the oppressive and threatening environment of the castle, we will also get to know the different members of the staff, beings as fascinating as they are caricatured, who will gradually reveal the terrible history of the place (including infidelities and attempts at assassination), as well as its devastating consequences. Dominated by the palpitating fascination that the owner of the house exercises on her, Marian will soon find herself pushed to devise a crazy plan to free Hannah from her confinement and relieve her of the sorrows that haunt her for her past mistakes. From that moment on, the novel plunges into a spiral of events marked by violent passions and outbursts of an unusual fierceness.

Never losing control of the threads that interweave the plot, Iris Murdoch transforms her characters into elements of a moral and philosophical epic where concepts such as love, good and evil, desire, guilt, repentance, and expiation are subjected to the judicious examination of various interpretations, fundamentally the Christian and the Platonic. Far from inducing boredom (her handling of narrative tension is almost enviable), Murdoch incites both reflection and perplexity, leading her characters on a downward path towards the absolute surrender of reason, in which Hannah, that luminous and terrifying unicorn who bears the sins of all humanity, plays the central role.

The atmospheric, enveloping, and at times mystical prose of Murdoch contributes essentially to the success of a story that in the hands of a less experienced writer would undoubtedly collapse due to its excesses, implausibilities, and narrative paroxysms. Fortunately, this is not the case with The Unicorn, a novel that stands out for its captivating yet peculiar personality. It is by no means an easy, ordinary, or univocal novel, but quite the opposite: an exceptional work that must be understood as what its own name indicates. The rare, hypnotic, and radiant legendary creature of Iris Murdoch.

Tempting as it is to describe this in the way Iris Murdoch does folk horror, with its dolmens, washed-away villages, and whispers of fairy blood. The young protagonist, Marian, is lured to a remote house to be a governess only to discover that the house has no children. But perhaps we've just gotten a bit carried away by calling everything folk horror since the nation began to descend into it, just as everything was psychogeographical back when New Labour was busily trying to make us shiny and new. I suspect the models Murdoch had in mind were more like Jane Eyre and Rebecca. In fact, the bookmark I randomly grabbed for this was a postcard of the former. And beneath and behind those, the legacy of fairytale on which they draw isn't far beneath the surface, as seen in the title. While the unicorn naturally exemplifies purity, this book's imprisoned damsel, Hannah Crean-Smith, has a more earned purity, following that familiar Murdoch trajectory where even without a god to whom it might be pledged, something very like a religious calling to submission and surrender can still be a good in itself, worth far more than fripperies like liberty and happiness.

That's not the only box you can check off on your Iris Murdoch bingo card. There are the names. We start with a journey from Greytown Junction to Gaze Castle, the latter even short-circuiting my usual mocking "do you see?" The first two men mentioned are Geoffrey and Gerald, which is confusing but at least vaguely plausible. Would that one could say the same of the deeply Murdoch-esque names like Effingham Cooper, Pip Lejour, and Jamesie Evercreech. True, there's also Denis Nolan, a perfectly sensible name, but people keep calling him by repeating his first name, with inevitable Blondie earworm consequences. Even compared to 21st century London, a remarkable proportion of the cast are complicatedly bisexual, despite their remote rural location, which I initially thought might be Northumbria or perhaps Cornwall, but is apparently the west of Ireland - something I then thought it shared with The Sea, The Sea, though it turns out that what I remembered as Ireland was actually Northern England. Still, its title is prefigured here, and there are further overlaps, not least in the oddly blasé approach of the middle classes to kidnapping.

So yes, it can be hard to keep a straight face when confronted with exchanges like this: "I suspect you of being a crypto-Platonist." "Not even crypto, Effingham. I believe in Good. So do you." But at the same time, there's something intoxicating about Murdoch's own deep seriousness. Not always; the only novel of hers I read in the past decade was The Black Prince, which with its old fool of a protagonist and proximity to farce, tipped a little too far into the wrong kind of silliness for me. Here, though, something transcendent thrums just beneath the surface in that fascination with the things humans will dare or accept just to feel a sense of purpose. Not to mention, on the surface, those unobtrusive sentences and paragraphs that perfectly capture something often felt but hitherto unnamed: a room with "the slightly menacing personal silence of a very inhabited place"; a frustrating sense of not getting as much done in a day as one had hoped because the time has somehow already been used before it reaches you.

The thing Murdoch really gets, though, through and underneath it all, the core that needs all those improbable relationships and too-neat demises to shine, is the dynamics that exist between people when enough of the shields are down, the way they layer and twist, and the tragedy or maybe the mercy of the fact that, one way or another, they never last. Oh, plenty of novelists can do the usual set, the couples old and new, maybe an affair for spice - they make whole careers from pulling them out of the cupboard and holding them up to the light again. Murdoch, though, for all the daft names, she's one of the few who knew how that cupboard was just the merest corner of a vast and awesome mansion, and was hungry to see what was in all the other rooms.

I had no prior knowledge about this novel when I embarked on reading it, and it was truly uncanny in multiple aspects.

It commences in a delightfully cozy Gothic style, which I have a great penchant for, and then proceeds to describe the setting, the harsh symbolic landscape, in minute detail.

It was only when I flipped through the introduction that I became aware that Murdoch was actually描绘 the place where I reside.

I suspect that not many readers will have the opportunity to read about a landscape they are extremely familiar with becoming wordlessly alienating and desolate - at least, not without being cognizant of the book being set in their hometown before reading.

I read at a rapid pace, gliding on the surface of the novel like a pond skater. I'm not entirely certain what to make of the plot, the philosophy expounded upon, or the symbolism ingrained within.

However, that doesn't matter. I felt that Murdoch rephrased the unconscious thoughts regarding the image of my surroundings, and there was some empathetic resonance within me. I relished that aspect very much.

It was a unique and engaging reading experience that left a lasting impression on me.

UN LIBRO ELEGANTE:

There isn't much to say about this novel as it can only be discovered by reading it.

Just like what happens to me with Murakami, there is no moment of boredom. Even if you don't like what it is narrating to you, it is the pleasure of reading for the sake of reading. Everything is very well written and translated. The charismatic characters. The gothic atmosphere. And love unites everything.

If there is something I reproach, it is that ending that is so unbelievable or extremely "easy". This novel takes the reader on a journey filled with mystery and intrigue. The writing style is captivating, making it difficult to put the book down. The characters are vividly portrayed, each with their own unique charm. The gothic setting adds an extra layer of spookiness and allure. However, the ending does leave something to be desired. It feels a bit rushed and lacks the depth and complexity that the rest of the novel has. Nevertheless, it is still a great read and one that I would recommend to others.

The first two thirds of the book are truly intriguing. There is precisely the minimum amount of action and revelations that manage to just about keep you interested.

This section can pass as an interesting read, and that is the reason why I have given it 2 stars.

However, as you progress, you are left with a sense that something momentous is on the verge of happening. In reality, though, very little actually occurs. We are left with a plethora of unanswered questions and a profound sense of disappointment.

The book attempts to make the reader contemplate morality and other aspects of philosophy. Nevertheless, on the whole, it is a dreadfully dull and unsatisfactory read.

I simply cannot recommend this book to anyone. It truly merits only 3 out of 10.

This is the third novel of Murdoch that I have read.

Perhaps the characters are not as memorable as in the previous ones due to their ambiguity. The fact of knowing what new secret they are hiding blurs their images.

I think what is most remarkable hovers over the plot, the oppression, the places, the unwritten rules....

The story seems to be set in a complex and somewhat suffocating world. The characters' actions and relationships are influenced by various factors that are not always clearly stated.

The ambiguity of the characters adds an element of mystery and makes it difficult for the reader to fully understand their motives and desires.

However, this also makes the reading experience more engaging as one tries to解开 the谜团 and figure out what is really going on.

Overall, despite the challenges presented by the ambiguous characters, the novel still manages to draw the reader in with its interesting plot and the unique atmosphere it creates.

It makes one think about the hidden aspects of human nature and the power of unspoken rules and social pressures.

Following on Jamaica Inn, I inadvertently chose another neo-Gothic novel. As is typical for Murdoch, The Unicorn is more of an inner drama about God, love, and death. It still features the classic desolate landscape with plenty of moors. It also contains elements of the classic country house story. Whether it be the absurd inhabitants of Wodehouse or the secretive suspects of Agatha Christie: the adulterous woman, the ingenue, the imposing housekeeper, the lover, etc.

\\"The unicorn\\" refers to Hannah, a woman who is semi-voluntarily imprisoned in an isolated country house after a violent fight with her now-estranged husband. Hannah is surrounded by a group of devotees who fetishize her willingness to renounce the world. Each of them reads his or her own meaning into the situation. We are introduced to the story through the eyes of Marian, a young woman who takes a job as Hannah's companion. At first, she is incredulous, but soon she is sucked into the drama. At the same time, outside elements are chipping away at this insular world and threatening to break it apart.

The unreality of Hannah's world gives the novel a mythological or allegorical feel. Hannah and her followers might be God with Adam and Eve, or Jesus with his Disciples, or something even more buried in the human psyche. It would be hard to settle on one clear interpretation of the novel. But it definitely gets at the way that people looking for meaning can create a god or an idol out of someone, stripping away that person's own individuality in the process.

This is such an interesting metaphysical study on literature.

It is kind of like Great Gatsby in that it employs elaborate and entertaining rich people drama and noir mystery on the surface.

Subtly, it examines profound ideas of death, love, and free will beneath the surface.

Moreover, from a psychological perspective, it's such a fun read.

We begin like the protagonist, a newcomer, and soon not only learn more and more about the people on the isolated castle on the cliffs along the coast of the sea.

But also start to conform and perceive it all as normal.

The story unfolds in a captivating manner, drawing the reader into a world filled with mystery and hidden meanings.

The rich people's drama adds an element of excitement, while the examination of deeper themes gives the work a sense of depth and significance.

Overall, it is a unique and engaging piece of literature that offers both entertainment and food for thought.

BORING !!

This is by far the most boring novel I have ever read up till now.

All the philosophical views that are supposed to reflect modernism are introduced in a very poor manner.

I failed to grasp any of the moral values that the author seemingly attempted to convey. The simple reason for this is that she didn't actually convey them effectively.

I was not only bored but also confused throughout the reading process.

To make matters worse, I hated every single character in the book.

They all seemed one-dimensional and lacked any real depth or charm.

Therefore, I would highly recommend that you don't waste your precious time on this novel.

It is simply not worth it.

There are so many other great books out there waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

Don't let this one deter you from exploring the wonderful world of literature.