Extraordinarily funny, lean novel that manages to be completely cynical while still believing in love's possibility.

The plot is insanely hurtling as Martin Lynch-Gibbon and the 5 most important people in his life form an improbable love-hexagon with countless Freudian complications.

The protagonist knows the least, which is always entertaining. Though his behavior is repellent, Murdoch makes him likable through his parodist stiff-upper-lip approach to the breakdown of his marriage, affair, family, crush, and (marvelously concealed) gay crush.

The writing is often amazing and generous. Martin's wine-selling co-workers, unimportant to the plot, are vividly described.

For example, Mytten is a Roman Catholic, sybarite, and ass, but loyal and a good wine judge, popular with snobbish clients. The secretaries, with Martin for years, are a happy Lesbian couple.

Tall Miss Hernshaw, long courted by Mytten, is moist-eyed and ready to hold Martin's hand. Short dark Miss Seelhaft frowns with concern as she polishes her spectacles, darting brisk commiserating glances at him.

This is pyrotechnic craft, Murdoch indulging herself for a deep understanding of why we read her. These characters bring the book alive.

The novel also has small experimental flourishes like a wonderful sequence of unsent letters and a great line break during a fight between Martin and his mistress.

It's hard to discuss the book without spoiling it as the plot is nuts beyond the writing. 6 characters are treated generously. Honor Klein, especially, is a wild card with a memorable mystic dance scene.

Some negative reviews on Goodreads don't surprise me as the novel falls into the book-club trap of assessing characters as real people. Martin is a shiftless, lying, dumb cad who commits violence against women, not a typical lead in 2017. But Murdoch is a master, creating something more real than our expectations.

A SEVERED HEAD reminds me of Magic Mountain as each character has a personal philosophy they'll follow to oblivion. The ending is beautiful, with an amazing last paragraph.

My only complaints are too many light descriptions and uses of the word "golden", but I can live with that.

Well, what a convoluted little love pentangle that was.

I procrastinated reading this book for a while. To be honest, I'm a coward. Was I scared of the weighty prose? The taut wit? The scathing analogies of the middle classes on the verge of a sexual revolution?

No, actually. I was just a bit intimidated by the front cover. The sinister-looking serial killer lady brandishing a samurai sword or some kind of sabre. It simply freaked me out, and I can't quite explain it. My friend Dana will attest to this irrational fear of book covers because she was scared of my copy of The Master and Margherita for ages. When we were working together, she always had to turn the book over so she couldn't see the cover with the picture of the big scary cat in the dinner jacket. See, I'm not alone in this.

If you enjoy despising the characters in your reads, then this is the book for you. The delightful (and I use that term sarcastically) Martin Lynch-Gibbons is a man who proudly wears his "I'm an alpha male" hat. I would say it's a baseball cap, but he's so middle class it's probably a fedora. After starting an affair with a much younger woman, he's then scandalized when his wife beats him to the punch and leaves him for her therapist. Oh, the nerve! Then he falls for someone else, but they don't really fall for him. Before you know it, it's all a bit like Friends, but it's the episode where they all put their keys in a bowl. And it's not as funny, and there's no Joey character.

I didn't really have any sympathy for any of the characters, except for Georgie Hands, the original paramour of the loathsome Lynch-Gibbons. She seemed to be passed around like a pet, a trophy, or a bargaining tool, depending on whose emotional clutches she was in at the time. I didn't observe any actual castration in the novel, despite what it says in the blurb on the back (at one point, I was wondering where the samurai sword might swing). But I suspect the castration is the implied mental castration of some of the characters, especially Martin, who is largely responsible for creating a number of emotionally stunted situations. With each twist and affair, he becomes less and less powerful.

In conclusion, an unlikeable cast and no actual castration, but an excellent short novella that is much less scary than the cover.

I read Murdoch’s debut novel over 20 years ago and did not enjoy it. However, I believe that age and reading experience have likely influenced my perspective in the intervening decades. Because I truly relished A Severed Head.

It brought to mind Evelyn Waugh’s caustic comic novels. The main character and narrator, Martin, is rather despicable and extremely obtuse. Nevertheless, as a reader, I found myself feeling sorry for him.

When the book commences, he is departing from the apartment of his much younger mistress, Georgie, to rendezvous with his wife, Antonia. He has no intention of leaving Antonia, despite what he tells Georgie. Martin is quite content with the status quo.

But when Antonia falls in love with her psychoanalyst, who just so happens to also be Martin’s best friend, Martin’s comfortable double life begins to crumble around him.

‘A Severed Head’ encompasses various themes like adultery, incest, betrayal, and suicide. However, right from the very beginning, it truly gave the impression that it was something I might have eagerly devoured in the 1960s or 1970s. But now, I find myself feeling rather indifferent towards it. I continuously kept wondering why she thought this was an engaging story to pen. It seemed like a modern-day bourgeois extravaganza, complete with crates of wine for refreshments. The combination of these themes might have been more captivating during a different era, but in the present context, it fails to hold my attention. Perhaps it's a reflection of how our sensibilities and interests have evolved over time. Despite the potentially provocative nature of the themes, they don't seem to resonate with me in the same way they might have in the past.

There must be countless fantasy stories out there that are more believable than A Severed Head. Whether this is a criticism or a compliment depends entirely on your tolerance for the implausible. Is this book funny? Or is it ridiculous? Perhaps it's both. It undeniably has an almost charming individuality. Heavy and serious topics such as adultery, abortion, incest, and suicide are somehow smoothed over by the implausible reactions and attitudes of the characters, making them seem like actors in a satirical play. The lack of credibility actually leaves room for humor, and behaviors like cheating almost benefit from it. There is so much cheating going on, and the characters' reactions are so emotionless and borderline apathetic that everything takes on an amusing quality.

Although most of the situations are written with the intention of eliciting laughs, they don't always achieve the desired effect. One prime example is as follows: in an overly exaggerated scene, a man becomes violent towards a woman, manhandles her, and hits her repeatedly. Afterwards, he feels very little remorse and recalls the incident with "a certain satisfaction". When he meets her again, this exchange occurs:

I said, "When did you know I loved you?" It was a lover's question.
"When you attacked me in the cellar."

This would have been the perfect opportunity for some semblance of feminine self-esteem to emerge, but guess what? THEY END UP TOGETHER. For crying out loud. Just because they are both rather despicable people, it doesn't mean that this is okay or funny. This type of attitude is always repulsive, even in the context of satire. Men who justify abuse towards women as a manifestation of "love" and women who accept it as a genuine display of affection are both in the wrong. It's just as idiotic as when parents teach little girls that boys are mean to them because they "like" them. As if this excuses their mean behavior. As if this is the kind of "like" that we should encourage and give a stamp of social acceptability to.

On the whole, it was a fun and unusual book, and the diagram of romantic relationships was rather neat, but that's about it. If there was a more serious side to this story, it was buried so incredibly deep beneath a surface that was so flashy and outrageous that it felt completely inconsequential.

Six rather middle-class central characters engage in the rather wild game of bedroom twister. The question that looms large is whether loving many people truly means loving no one at all. This query is highly appropriate for this rather fickle and chaotic schoolyard-like setting. Martin has a deep adoration for his wife, yet also loves his mistress. He even has homosexual fantasies about his friend Palmer while simultaneously longing for Palmer's sister, Honor. Interestingly, he seems to have a fixation on hair, as both his wife and mistress have long, Rapunzel-like hair. Martin's brother, Alexander, is also part of this complex mix. And if it all starts to sound a bit incestuous, be prepared, as Murdoch handles the genuine article in a deliciously understated way, without resorting to sensationalism. After all, this book reeks of the author's love of myth, with 'The Golden Bough' being name-checked. And it's truly a lot of fun!

The 60s Penguin edition that I own adds an extra layer of enjoyment. Its cover has a certain premonition of Tracey Emin camping it up, perhaps in a scene from 'Kill Bill'? It gives the impression that Honor Klein, the rather ambiguous and potentially demonic figure, is about to decapitate everyone she has ever slept with, all for the sake of art! In reality, Honor Klein is the is-she-isn't-she character who first repels the narrator and then draws him in. She is bolder than his mistress and less of a drama queen than his wife.

As adults, we have a choice. We can attempt to live life by utilizing the best characteristics of childhood, such as being friendly, open, inclusive, and looking at the world around us with wonder. Or, we can choose the worst, like taking the one-way system to the egocentric city center in Bratsville. Murdoch tended to write about people who firmly belonged to the second camp, to the extent that her characters are often very hard to love. Nevertheless, this is my favorite Murdoch so far. It eerily captures the fine line between having an excess of emotion and having a lack thereof.

I have absolutely no clue as to what the purpose of this book was.

It is a jumble of intrigues, promiscuous behavior, and psychological manipulation, lacking any emotional drive whatsoever.

After finishing it, I spent twenty minutes attempting to convince myself to have a reaction, any reaction, towards it.

In the end, I simply went and had a bowl of cereal.

Moreover, I am one of those individuals who love with such intensity (and, I must admit, perhaps unhealthily) that when faced with people who cheat on their partners in real life, I am almost always filled with complete disgust and the mindless urge to slap those cheaters senseless.

The last thing I desire is a whole book filled with remorseless, almost sociopathic adulterers, which I should have taken into account when picking it up from the donations shelf.

I suppose I should be grateful, if only for the sake of my sanity, that the utter dullness of this book left no chance for it to fill me with rage.

I had not delved into the works of Iris Murdoch for a significant number of years. However, I recently came to the realization that it was high time I revisited this remarkable writer.

This particular book, which is relatively concise, is one of her earlier offerings, penned in 1961. I have an absolute passion for her writing style. She possesses an almost supernatural talent for creating characters that spring to life almost instantaneously. Her characters are exquisitely developed, and throughout the course of the story, they maintain their individuality. They act in a consistent and honest manner, precisely as one would anticipate in every given situation.

Her descriptions are nothing short of flawless and entirely appropriate. It is effortless to envision each scene as it unfolds. It is precisely for her outstanding writing that I award this book 4 stars. Reading Murdoch's works is always a source of great pleasure.

And yet, this particular volume is so vastly different from anything else I have ever read by her. I suppose it could be regarded as a farce, or perhaps a commentary on the society of that era? Despite not having a central focus on sex, this story is all about sexual pairings. Every character adamantly insists that they are in love and not merely driven by lust. Martin loves Georgie, Antonia, and ultimately Honor. Antonia loves Martin, Palmer, and Alexander, and at some point, they all have feelings for Georgie. Palmer seems to be attracted to whoever is available, while Honor appears to be incapable of loving anyone. In the end, I truly do not believe that anyone genuinely loves anyone else, and I am certain that these characters are far from finished when it comes to switching partners. Confusing and rather odd, yes. But still, it makes for a great read solely because of Murdoch's brilliant writing.

I was truly astonished by how much I seemed to like this.

I use the term "apparently" because as I delved into the reading, I found myself disliking nearly every character. I even ranted to my husband about the dreadful characters and the terrible love triangles in this seemingly awful book.

However, once I had finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about it for several days. It wasn't that the writing was poor; on the contrary, it was actually very good. The issue was that almost all the characters and their behaviors were despicable.

Nonetheless, I'm awarding it 4 stars because it managed to capture my imagination to such an extent that I continued to think about it long after I had put the book down.

Currently editing the review with additional observations from my second reading, this December 2020.

\\n  From June 2012\\n

Martin is in a rather enviable position, or so he thinks. He has a beautiful wife, Antonia, whom he loves deeply, and a much younger mistress, Georgie, who adds an extra layer of excitement to his life and makes him feel like a "real" man. However, his perfect world comes crashing down when Antonia announces that she is leaving him for her psychoanalyst, Palmer Anderson, who just so happens to be Martin's friend. As if that weren't enough, things quickly spiral out of control as both Antonia and Palmer seem determined to keep Martin in their lives, whether he wants to be there or not. What follows is a hilarious and absurd comedy of errors, with Martin finding himself in increasingly ridiculous situations. Despite it all, he remains the most level-headed and least deviant character in the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be reading more of Murdoch's work. The audiobook, narrated by the talented Derek Jacobi, was an added bonus. His voices and delivery brought the characters to life and made the listening experience even more enjoyable. Since then, I've read a couple more of Murdoch's novels and have become a confirmed fan.

I truly liked this book. Iris Murdock's writing has a light and delicate touch, along with a beautiful style that instantly reminds me of Virginia Woolf. Her characters seem to be almost made of air, being ethereal, rootless, and disembodied spirits. Perhaps this is precisely why one can't take the infidelities and adulteries in the story too seriously.

For example, when comparing this book to Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, that book is seething with torment and seems to hinge on a knife-edge. In contrast, this book contains many similar behaviors, yet it lacks the agony, the weight of evil, and the real consequences. It's like a lovely pastry - sweet, delicious, full of sinful delight, yet so light that you don't even realize how sinful it has been.

This novel also lacks a distinct sense of gender. The men and women sound alike. Even so, A Severed Head, like other Murdock novels, is rich with an engaging plot, interesting arguments, and profound philosophy. It moves along briskly. Murdoch seems to be dancing with the themes of love and loyalty rather than deeply exploring them. For this reason, I don't often return to her novels. Ultimately, I feel that while they are highly diverting, they lack true profundity.

So many different events are going on