Today, I completed this 365-page novel, a work filled with rich poetic language and vivid, memorable characters.

I spent 9 days with its tortured souls, experiencing every emotion: lust, pity, curiosity, envy, and bewilderment.

At times, I elevated the book to lofty heights, regarding it as a spiritual prescription, a form of inexpensive enlightenment. I gleaned moral intuitions from the character monologues.

The characters are undoubtedly multidimensional, skillfully crafted by Iris Murdoch. Her technical prowess is unrivaled.

In Monty, I witnessed a tired solitude, an unattractive and unromantic loneliness hidden behind posturing. To me, he is a shriveled husk spouting impressive half-truths. Yet, I like Monty.

In Blaise, I saw selfishness and a fate derailed by innocent self-interest. I observed a certain listlessness that accompanies life, the familiar agitations of a human being. I saw a sinner, a human being, and myself.

Of course, I felt a nauseating envy at David's effortless beauty, youthful vitality, and erudition.

The standout for me was Pinn - that mischievous agent of chaos who effortlessly seduces David from his teenage angst. Pinn is an aimless and cynical romantic mystagogue. I like Pinn.

"No other woman will ever speak to you like this and there will never be another moment in your life like this one."

With these words, Pinn betrayed a knowingness that stems from a wealth of lived experience, a sedimentation of life.

I sought solidarity in Edgar's musings on unrequited love. I watched in mild horror as Harriet was torn from a placid and blissful domestic routine into a hellish existence.

I cannot articulate and consolidate the wordless intuitions I learned from this book. These elusive abstractions - redemption, devotion, austerity, and Beauty - will, however, continue to simmer in the dark recesses of my brain. And I just know that Life, in its sprawling essence, was captured on the page.

Dear reader, you will have to settle for this nebulous review while I go in search of innocent, frivolous, and unimportant happiness.

I have a deep admiration for the way Murdoch delves into the inner thoughts and emotions of each character. Her writing is astoundingly clear, whether she is handling their complex emotions or charting the progression of various situations.

Her examinations of relationships are razor-sharp and incisive. At times, I even feel it's a bit excessive, but it never comes across as artificial. Instead, it seems as if her characters have dedicated an inordinate amount of time to self-reflection and analyzing their own states, which might seem improbable for such ordinary individuals.

She portrays sentiment and emotion with such beauty that in this tragicomedy, there are moments when I find myself on the verge of tears, sharing Harriet's anguish, Blaise's blase attitudes and his desperation. There are also times when I myself despise Emily for disrupting the harmony of Harriet's seemingly blissful marriage.

Murdoch doesn't just explore the states of the central characters; she also gives a voice to the trio's friends and children. Through this, she creates a more comprehensive, descriptive, and complete picture of the chaos and its impact on everyone involved. I'm confident that I will never forget the gradual and tender closeness between Harriet and Luca: it's so heartwarming, sweet, and special, and yet, ultimately, so tragic.

Sometimes I fancy that I have the ability to write, but then I read works like this one and immediately abandon that thought completely.

When people tell me they find Iris Murdoch hard going, I can see their point with this book.

It is very dense, with long, long pages dedicated to the inner thoughts of the characters and comparatively little actual action or plot.

But to me, therein lies her genius.

This is about normal people, inflicting damage on each other in the ways that normal people do - through marriage, infidelity, conflicts of maternal love, jealousies, and so on.

Murdoch, I think, deliberately sets this story in a very ordinary suburban setting.

There are no gothic mansions or crumbling churches, and the characters are not from exotic places this time.

She focuses on the everyday lives and emotions of ordinary individuals, delving deep into their psyches and揭示 the complex web of relationships and emotions that exist within.

By doing so, she makes us realize that the dramas and tragedies that unfold in our own lives are no less significant than those in more extraordinary settings.

Her writing forces us to look closely at ourselves and the people around us, and to understand the profound impact that our actions and decisions can have on others.

In this way, Murdoch's work is both challenging and rewarding, inviting us to engage with the human condition on a deeper level.

Dull is the word that comes to mind when I think of this book. There isn't a single likable character to be found within its pages.

The prose, on the other hand, is lively and engaging. It has a certain charm that keeps the reader turning the pages.

However, despite the lively prose, it wasn't enough to make me care about anyone or anything in the book. The characters felt flat and one-dimensional, lacking in depth and personality.

I found myself not really invested in their stories or what happened to them. It was as if I was just going through the motions, reading the words but not really connecting with the book on an emotional level.

In the end, I was left feeling disappointed and unfulfilled. While the prose was enjoyable, the lack of likable characters made it a forgettable read for me.

This was my 20th of Murdoch's 26 novels, and truly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find much that can distinctively set it apart from the rest of her remarkable ouevre.

This particular novel centres on a married psychotherapist named Blaise Gavender. He has complex relationships with two women. One is his loyal and trusting wife, Harriet, with whom he has a son. The other is his mistress of nine years, Emily, who has also given him a son. These two relationships represent the so-called sacred and profane loves as per the title.

The other main character in the story is their neighbour, Monty Small. He is a recently widowed writer of spy thrillers. Monty plays an interesting role as he helps Blaise concoct alibis for his frequent visits to Emily.

As always, Murdoch treats her characters with a certain capriciousness and mischief, as if she were a God overseeing their lives. The writing style is truly very enjoyable and often manages to bring a smile to the reader's face with its humorous undertones. It makes for a captivating read that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

Solid Murdoch has crafted a story with more intricate plotlines than usual.

She is truly the best in the history of fiction when it comes to delving into the study of human morals and behavior.

In this captivating tale, an adulterous psychologist's secret love child is revealed, shining a spotlight on how each person in his life copes with the situation.

His neighbor, a renowned writer who has assisted him in his web of deception, now faces a moral dilemma.

His son, filled with resentment, despises the new addition to the family.

His mistress, who once held some leverage, now finds herself in a vulnerable position.

And his wife, determined to handle the situation with goodness yet maintain control, struggles to find the right balance.

The story unfolds, exploring the complex emotions and decisions of each character, making it a must-read for those interested in the depths of human nature.

You know what. You've killed me and sent me to hell, and you must descend to the underworld to find me and make me live again. If you don't come for me, I'll become a demon and drag you down into the dark. This powerful statement by Iris Murdoch in The Sacred and Profane Love Machine sets the tone for a captivating read. As soon as I started reading, I knew I was going to love it. The characters are a deliciously dysfunctional group, interacting in a marvellous way. There is no clear protagonist, yet each character has their moment to shine. The novel is brutally honest, capturing the essence of real life with all its betrayals and uncertainties. The opening with Blaise and Harriet is interesting, but it soon becomes clear that there is much more going on beneath the surface. Blaise's mistress and the hidden family add to the complexity of the story. The characters are stripped down to their core, making them very human, despite their flaws. The novel is full of twists and turns, with each character having a secret within a secret. It's not about secrets though, but rather the exploration of the best and worst in ourselves. Life is madness, but humans are strong and will survive. This novel is a joy to read, intelligent, crazy, and full of irony. Thank you, Iris.

\\n   “La vida es absurda y en su mayor parte, cómica” \\n

The machine of sacred and profane love is called Blaise Gavender. This machine is supposed to maintain a balance between his happiness and that of Harriet, his wife and sacred love, and Emily, his mistress and profane love. However, it doesn't work as well as Blaise would like, and someone always ends up suffering.

\\n   “Qué parcialmente formado está todo ser humano. ¿Cómo no íbamos a ser una fatalidad los unos para los otros?” \\n

Blaise's love for his two women is rather dubious. Or, if it exists, it is much inferior to the love he feels for himself. Harriet suffers from an excess of love, "like having too much milk in the breasts." Emily... well, Emily is one of those women who would cry with joy when buying a tablecloth for a home where Blaise wouldn't have to leave all the time.

\\n   “El amor lo es todo en la existencia de una mujer. Tal era ciertamente su caso, y qué aterrador resultaba” \\n

Iris Murdoch is an author I greatly admire. But I imagine it would be a torture to be under her critical eye and end up portrayed, with such detail, such meticulousness, such unmasking, in one of her novels. And yet, what a guilty pleasure, the best of pleasures, I experience with the diabolical sarcasm of the portraits she constructs of those poor people who, as really happens to all of us, believe themselves to be endowed with certain gifts and a maturity that they are far from possessing.

As is often the case in Murdoch's works, in addition to love, the great theme of the author, sex also has its own cog in this machine. I would even say that it is a fundamental piece in its functioning. To escape from his own peculiarities, Blaise married Harriet, and it was those same peculiarities that he was finally able to freely and satisfactorily deploy with Emily. So blinded was he by his newly conquered sexual freedom that it was not difficult for him to convince himself of his right conduct towards both women. For Murdoch, sex only confuses us, leads us to self-deception, because this pleasure, when it truly becomes intoxicating, "can only cast a burning light of justification on its own scene, a light that can leave the rest of the world in darkness."

And it's not that love is always a cause of happiness. Often, love is accompanied by torments and jealousy. Just ask Montague (Monty) Small. Monty is a successful writer thanks to the creation of the "ironic, disenchanted, diminished man of power" Milo Fane, a character who perfectly combined his demonism and his intellectualism and allowed him to give free rein to his darkest fantasies.

\\n   “La ironía de un autor a menudo oculta su gozo. Esa máscara es posiblemente la principal función de la ironía.” \\n

But since his wife, Sophie, died, he doesn't know how to live with himself. Sophie was constantly invading his mind with the same discussions they had when she was alive, a ghost that refuses to leave and free him from those jealousies that caused him so much suffering. A pain that Sophie, uncultured and muddled, more than compensated for in life with "her brilliant energy" and "her crazy joy," but that now, with her dead in rather unpleasant circumstances, leaves him alone with his pain.

\\n   “La bondad es hallar satisfacción en los actos nobles“\\n

Only the problems of his neighbors Harriet and Blaise, or the bad news on the TV, freed him from himself. Harriet produces a strange fascination in him with her behavior in the face of her husband's infidelity, with her kindness, with her dedication and sacrifice, as if that were the answer.

\\n   “Me parece como si el mismo dolor me diera fuerzas para soportarlo… es como si me estuviera mirando a mí misma todo el tiempo, y admirándome por resistirlo… es raro, pero me siento tan llena de poder… siempre he dependido de otras personas… de pronto, ahora me parece que… todo el mundo depende de mí… descubrí lo mucho que era capaz de dar” \\n

But there are no answers in Murdoch's novels, only many questions. In addition to, in this one now, a few dogs, two tormented children, unrequited loves, fatal girls and women, many dreams and philosophy with the always slow, intelligent, malicious, simple in form and complex in essence, prose of Mrs. Iris Murdoch.

\\n   “La filosofía, la ansiosa conexión de una cosa con otra, la satánica proliferación de programas de dominio conceptual, la duplicación de un mundo ya duplicado, él lo consideraba desde hacía mucho como el inútil peregrinaje de los insectos“\\n

P.S. In reality, it would be three and a half stars.

As with all of Iris Murdoch's fiction, this novel is a truly remarkable psychological study. It is filled with an array of fascinating characters who come to life on the pages.

However, I must admit that I find it somewhat less successful than some of her other works such as The Black Prince and The Sea, The Sea. The main reason for this is that by the end of the novel, the author's philosophical point - that good things don't necessarily always happen to good people - seems a bit too heavy-handed. It feels as if it is being overly emphasized, perhaps detracting slightly from the overall impact of the story.

Nevertheless, what is immensely exhilarating about this novel is how uninhibited Murdoch's prose feels, despite its inherent English formality. This is especially evident in the long sections of riveting dialogue. The conversations between the characters are so engaging and vivid that they draw the reader in and keep them hooked until the very end. It is a testament to Murdoch's skill as a writer that she can create such captivating and believable exchanges.

Overall, while this novel may not be without its flaws, it still offers a great deal to the reader in terms of its psychological depth and engaging prose.

I picked up a book with great anticipation, hoping to be completely immersed in its story. I started reading and managed to get through a hundred pages. As I read, I couldn't help but admire the beautiful writing. The author had a way with words that made the sentences flow smoothly and painted vivid pictures in my mind.

However, as I delved deeper into the story, I realized that something was missing. I just couldn't seem to care enough about the characters. I found myself not really invested in their lives, their struggles, or their emotions. It was as if they were just names on a page, lacking that certain spark that would make me truly connect with them.

Despite the wonderful writing, this lack of connection with the characters was enough to make me stop reading. I knew that in order to truly enjoy a book, I needed to care about the people within its pages. So, with a sense of disappointment, I put the book aside, hoping to find another one that would capture my heart and imagination.

A truly brilliant book. Murdoch masterfully allows us to step inside the minds of first one character and then another, presenting long stretches of often anguished inner monologue. Meanwhile, the so-called "plot", if we can even term it as such, slowly unfolds its inevitable path, much like a Greek tragedy. But here's the question: how can this be considered a comedy? Perhaps it's what they call a "dark comedy"? I'm not entirely sure. However, I found it to be superbly funny, yet at the same time, it was heart-wrenching and filled with profound insights. It's a unique blend of emotions and experiences that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish. The characters' inner turmoil and the unfolding events create a captivating narrative that leaves a lasting impression.

El tema absoluto (Reseña, 2022)

Los libros cuyo tema es el amor pueden dividirse en dos categorías. La primera es formada por aquellos escritos por Iris Murdoch, y la segunda comprende todos los demás. Aunque esta clasificación pueda parecer caprichosa, en realidad no lo es. Podría expresarse de manera más diplomática, por ejemplo, diferenciando aquellos libros donde el amor es de verdad el tema central, y aquellos donde el amor es un pretexto para hablar de otra cosa, como el romance. También podría reformularse en términos poéticos, considerando aquellos en los que el amor es el tema absoluto, y aquellos en los que el amor es uno de los temas principales. Pero en mi opinión personal, sin rodeos, es simplemente Iris Murdoch por un lado, y el resto por el otro.

En las obras de Murdoch, el amor es verdaderamente el tema absoluto. Esto lo he comprobado nuevamente con La máquina del amor sagrado y profano, la última traducción de su obra que Impedimenta publicó en las librerías. En cuanto a la trama, se trata de la historia de un esposo, una esposa y una amante. Podría parecer que se trata de un triángulo amoroso convencional, con sus tensiones y consecuencias, donde los celos y la infidelidad son claves. Sin embargo, en esta novela, lo importante no son los celos ni la infidelidad, sino el amor.

En las novelas de Murdoch, el amor nunca sirve de excusa para plantear otro tema. No es un vehículo para derivar en otras reflexiones o abordar problemáticas del ser humano. Al contrario, en su obra todo parece ser una excusa para hablar del amor. El amor se presenta de manera concreta y abstracta, se analiza psicológica y sociológicamente, se sublima en las experiencias místicas y religiosas, se ve desde diferentes perspectivas de género, raza, clase y edad. Y siempre, en todo momento, se recuerda que lo esencial es elaborar una prosa que permita confesar ese gesto con el cual un corazón se abre para contener a otro, y para contener al mundo.

El triángulo amoroso de Blaise, Harriet y Emily se nos presenta sin omitir ninguna de las escenas que lo convierten en un melodrama. Pero además, está potenciado con toda la belleza que una narradora capaz puede aportar, comprendiendo que en esos problemas domésticos e inofensivos está en juego y en escena lo más valioso que la experiencia humana llega a intuir: la posibilidad de un amor que nos eleve más allá de la nada y el absurdo que llenan el vacío de la existencia.

Y hay muchísimos elementos secundarios en la novela, como perros (uno se llama Áyax), gatos, flores en un bolsillo, citas de autores griegos, un colegio con una pileta, teteras, cuadros y una estación de tren. Porque, claro, si vamos a hablar de amor, necesitamos que haya una estación de tren.

Lean a Murdoch. Amen. Lo demás...