Shivering. This is precisely what I mean when I assert that I have an intense desire to devour a book. However, perhaps in this particular instance, it was the book that did more of the devouring. As I sat there, with my hand firmly placed over my mouth, gasping in astonishment, and furiously underlining passages, I felt completely consumed by the words on the page. The story seemed to have a life of its own, pulling me in and refusing to let go. I was completely engrossed, unable to tear my eyes away. Each turn of the page brought new surprises and revelations, leaving me on the edge of my seat. It was a truly immersive experience, one that I will not soon forget.

From BBC Radio 4 - 15 Minute Drama:
When Martin Lynch-Gibbon's wife deserts him, running off with both her analyst and his best friend, Palmer Anderson, the situation is far from ordinary. The three characters initially strive to maintain a civilised demeanor. However, there are complicating factors. Martin has his own mistress, Georgie, and Palmer's sister, Honor Klein, is determined to pass judgment on Martin's behavior. In Episode 2, Martin's wife may have left him for his friend and her analyst, but they are resolved to remain on civilised terms. But what are Martin's true feelings about Georgie now? And why is Honor Klein so insistent on judging Martin? Murdoch's story is a witty satire on analysis and amorality. In Episode 3, Martin is compelled to justify his adultery to his adulterous wife and her lover, and his civilised front begins to crumble in an unforeseen way. Episode 4 sees Martin increasingly captivated by the Goddess-like qualities of Honor Klein, leading him into a world with practices that seem almost mythological and would shock modern society. Finally, in Episode 5, the chaotic merry-go-round of partner swapping screeches to a halt. But the question remains: who will end up with whom? There are shocks and surprises right until the very end of Murdoch's blackly comic satire.

For more information, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b066v39v.

I suffered her embrace.

This was an extremely entertaining and exquisitely crafted book. It presented a love triangle that expanded in a manner similar to a fractal. The adults in the story were highly unlikeable, behaving with the amorality and selfishness of toddlers. It is truly not recommended for those who need to "like" the book characters (whatever that might imply).

The biggest error here would be to read this book as a reflection of reality. On the contrary, it is a construction above reality. This is affirmed by the farcical way in which the love triangle explodes to involve almost everyone (reminding me of old-school romantic theater farce). This leads me to the conclusion that the entire construction and the accompanying irony are merely tools to showcase the human condition, the need for other people, and the pain of loneliness. All these elements are themselves endless moving fractals that drive humans along the same emotional paths time and time again. The book presents emotional despair as a pre-existing and prerequisite condition for us to even be able to call ourselves human.

"To lose somebody is to lose not only their person but all those modes and manifestations into which their person has flowed outwards: so that in losing a beloved one may find so many things, pictures, poems, melodies, places lost too: Dante, Avignon, a song of Shakespeare's, the Cornish sea."

I truly thought it was funny, and the humor was derived not from the situations but from the narrator's voice. This could be the smartest choice of the narrator's voice ever. Style and purpose outweighed content. I keep thinking that the same content could be treated like a Harlequin romance story by a clueless writer, and it is surely a comment on the genre by Mrs Murdoch.

Oh my goodness! This book has been absolutely everything to me. It is the naughtiest book I have ever read. It's a super enjoyable read in my opinion. It has made me think of two things. First, how good it is that I don't have siblings. Second, you have no idea how Taylor Swift would love this book and make an entire album of songs about it. I have no doubt about that.

I love Paula and Jesus. Thank you for giving it to me!

**Who's Afraid of Iris Murdoch?**

Well, I was for one! I purchased this novel in 1980 and only managed to get around to reading it now.

I think I was rather apprehensive about her formidable intellect. I wondered whether the book might be overly earnest or a real chore to read. However, it was anything but! It takes you on an extraordinary journey that seamlessly transitions from psychological realism to Freudian satire and finally to outrageous farce.

**Female Author, Male Narrator**
The narrator is Martin Lynch-Gibbon, the son of a wine merchant and now the proprietor of the family business.

Murdoch uses a male character to define the perspective on the events that unfold in the novel. If she had opted for a female narrator, perhaps she would have been more overtly judgmental about Martin's behavior. Instead, by adopting his perspective, she can effectively skewer him with his own words, thoughts, self-justifications, and pretensions.

Many readers question the right of a male author to speak through a female narrator. I believe this proposition is misguided. The issue is more about ability than entitlement. Not all males can credibly pull it off; that simply means they lack the necessary insight or skills, not that they shouldn't be entitled to attempt it. If this proposition were legitimate, then it would severely limit the scope of fiction as a whole. Presumably, if the first proposition holds true, then the converse should equally apply: that female authors shouldn't be able to speak through a male narrator. "A Severed Head" vividly demonstrates that Murdoch has the essential ability to succeed in her endeavor, thus challenging the validity of both propositions.

**The Severed Head**
Paradoxically, Murdoch's strategy enables readers to view the female characters through the eyes of a male. This isn't necessarily a negative thing. There are four female characters, and, apart from his sister, Martin falls in love with all of them.

Despite having been married to Antonia for 11 years, he has been engaged in an affair with Georgia for two years.

He encounters the anthropologist Honor Klein (she is the eponymous severed head) during the course of the novel and promptly falls in love with her as well, largely due to her apparent inaccessibility and lack of reciprocation of his interest. She tells Martin:

"Your love for me does not inhabit the real world. Yes, it is love, I do not deny it. But not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all.

Because of what I am and what you saw I am a terrible object of fascination for you. I am a severed head such as primitive tribes and old alchemists used to use, anointing it with oil and putting a morsel of gold upon its tongue to make it utter prophecies. And who knows but that long acquaintance with a severed head might not lead to strange knowledge...

But that is remote from love and remote from ordinary life. As real people we do not exist for each other."

**The Need for Love**
Martin seems to have an insatiable need for love, and he is determined to satisfy it, regardless of how many women it involves or how much it hurts them. His need must prevail in all circumstances, defying any conventional sense of morality or rationality.

The farce becomes evident as we discover that the female characters (not to mention the other males, including Martin's brother, Alexander, and Antonia's 50-something psychoanalyst friend, Palmer Anderson) are subject to the same needs, and that Martin too has been cheated on, misled, cuckolded, and made a fool of, just like they have.

**The Potential for Elimination of the Survivor**
This allows the supposedly gentle (albeit occasionally violent) Martin to cast himself as a victim, albeit a resilient one:

"I pictured myself indeed as a survivor."

Towards the end of the novel, facing his greatest challenge yet, he says:

"I wonder if I shall survive it."

The answer: "You must take your chance!"

This novel documents the reckless gambling with emotions, both one's own and those of others.

The rationalizing is little more than a transparent mask for the conceitedness of the characters.

**"Let's Have a Quintet!"**
Early on, Martin's wife Antonia confesses that she has been having an affair with Palmer Anderson (Honor's half-brother). Despite his profession, Palmer appears to adhere to even fewer moral and ethical principles than Martin. Everything is possible and permissible (he is the ultimate advocate of permissiveness), as long as it can be rationalized and understood.

Martin foreshadows future developments when, shortly after learning of the affair, he says to Palmer:

"You were on about all three of us some time ago. Now it's all four. Why do you leave your sister out? Let's have a quintet."

**Medusa's Head Severed from Her Body**
Honor Klein was by far the most captivating character in the novel from my perspective. A fictitious portrait graces the cover of the book I read, and her physical features as described and depicted reminded me of an early photo of Susan Sontag, who was a student of Iris Murdoch at Oxford in 1958, three years before the publication of the novel.

Martin's brother, Alexander, is a sculptor who avoids sculpting heads that have been severed from their bodies. They represent "an illicit and incomplete relationship. Perhaps an obsession. Freud on Medusa. The head can represent the female genitals, feared not desired."

Honor owns a Japanese sword, which she wields with great skill. Both she and Martin recognize its symbolism of control and power, as well as the castration complex. Rather than being horrified, Martin views it as a challenge, just as he does a relationship with Honor, no matter how improbable it may seem. Despite his fear (of both Honor and her sword), he has succumbed to a frenzy of need and desire:

"...it was in truth a monstrous love such as I had never experienced before, a love out of such depths of self as monsters live in."

**Cursed by the Tawny-Breasted Object of Taboo**
Martin imagines Honor as a:

"tawny-breasted witch the vision of whom, her jagged black hair in disorder, her face stern and angelic above her nakedness, never ceased now to be before me; and I felt equally that I was cursed for life, like men who have slept with temple prostitutes and, visited by a goddess, cannot touch a woman after."

She is "aloof, frightening, sacred, and in a way which I now more clearly understood, taboo...I awaited Honor as one awaits, without hope, the searing presence of a god."

Murdoch masterfully weaves her captivating taboo-ridden tale around a structure inspired by cultural anthropology ("The Golden Bough"), ancient history, mythology (Herodotus' tale of Gyges and Candaules), and psychoanalysis (Freud).

This novel is intelligent, witty, and exhilarating. I highly recommend it for fans of Rikki Ducornet, Angela Carter, and Martin Amis.

**SOUNDTRACK:**
**Robyn Hitchcock - "Dark Princess"**
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4fXUxIg...

**Robyn Hitchcock - "No, I Don't Remember Guildford"**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaY5n...

I'm currently on a Murdoch kick.

His works are always worth reading, as they offer unique perspectives and engaging storylines.

However, this particular piece wasn't one of my absolute favorites.

Perhaps it didn't resonate with me as strongly as some of his others, or maybe the subject matter wasn't as captivating.

Nonetheless, I still appreciate the effort and talent that goes into his writing.

Murdoch has a way of creating complex characters and intricate plots that keep readers hooked from start to finish.

Even when a work isn't my top pick, it's still a pleasure to explore his literary world and see where his imagination takes him.

I look forward to reading more of his works in the future and seeing what new ideas and stories he has to offer.

This was a truly strange and dark read. At times, it was humorous, making me chuckle softly. And yet, at other moments, it was simply weird, leaving me scratching my head in confusion.

I won't summarize the plot here, as the best part of this book was the "wait-for-it" feeling I had at the end of each chapter. I couldn't help but wonder: what on earth would these strange people do next?

This was a novel that I picked up completely blind, without knowing anything about it. As it turns out, it's a 1960's satire, filled with characters who think of themselves as highly educated, sophisticated, and evolved. There's alcohol aplenty, mind games that keep you on your toes, and even mythology stories thrown in for good measure. And don't worry, there's no beheadings in this one. There is violence, but not to an extreme extent.

I have a hunch that I might have found this book even funnier if I'd read it closer to the time it was first published.

If you're in the mood for something different, something that will challenge your expectations and keep you engaged from start to finish, then this well-written and strangely captivating novel might just be the perfect choice for you.

Spoilers for A Severed Head and The Magus.

The illogic of the design of A Severed Head is astonishingly perfect, almost to the point of being logical. It reminds the reader of the intense sister/daughter slapfest in Chinatown, or even more precisely, the significant slap at the end of John Fowles's The Magus. The slap is an extremely fitting image as the moment in A Severed Head when Martin slaps Honor serves as a crucial hinge that divides the two halves of the book. The first half represents Martin's blissful ignorance, while the second half is a cascade of truths. Interestingly, the respective language used by Fowles and Murdoch is quite similar.

Fowles describes the incident as follows:

I do not know why I did what happened next. It was neither intended nor instinctive, it was neither in cold blood nor in hot; but yet it seemed, once committed, a necessary act; no breaking of the commandment. My arm flicked out and slapped her left cheek as hard as it could. The blow caught her completely by surprise, nearly knocked her off balance, and her eyes blinked with shock; then very slowly she put her left hand to the cheek. We stared wildly at each other for a long moment, in a kind of terror: the world had disappeared and we were falling through space. The abyss might be narrow, but it was bottomless.

Murdoch's account is as follows:

I could see her face just below mine, the black hairs on her upper lip, the white of her teeth. I lifted myself a little and with my free hand struck her three times, a sideways blow across the mouth. She closed her eyes and tried to turn her head away. I saw that clearly in retrospect too. After I had hit her the third time I began to wonder what I was doing. I let go and rolled off her. She got up without haste while I got myself into a sitting position. My head, suddenly asserting its existence, felt terrible. She brushed down her coat and then without looking at me and still without haste she mounted the cellar steps. I sat quiet for a minute feeling extremely confused. Then, holding my head, which felt ready to break open, I got shakily to my feet.

Toward the end, the question arises as to whether Martin staying with Antonia is "right." The fopish psychoanalyst Palmer first encourages Martin to leave her but then states, "On reflection I feel sure that in returning to Antonia and mending your marriage you have done the right thing." However, there is no such thing as a "right thing" because the book's scope is limited to the complex web of relationships between the characters. Very little of the outside world is shown; the book consists of a series of scenes where different combinations of characters interact. Martin visits Palmer, Antonia visits Martin, Martin picks up Honor at the train station, and Martin visits Alexander's studio. All the while, characters are meeting off-stage and then revealing the results to Martin. The world of A Severed Head is confined to conversations within rooms. We only know the occupations of the characters, and London is constantly foggy. How can there be a definitive right or wrong answer to Martin leaving Antonia when we don't know what the world holds if he leaves? If there were a clear alternative in the form of another character with whom Martin could choose, it might be different. But Murdoch so quickly and chaotically scrambles her characters' affections that it becomes clear that no alternative relationship is reliable or trustworthy. In the end, who can say that even Martin's love for Honor is to be trusted? Given the book's final conversation, it seems that even the characters themselves are aware of the untrustworthiness of everything.

“I say pish, Sir, I say bah!” These words were exclaimed with great force and vigor. It seemed as if the speaker was expressing his extreme dissatisfaction or contempt. The use of such colorful language added a touch of drama to the situation. Perhaps the person was frustrated with something that had happened, or maybe they simply wanted to make a strong statement. Whatever the reason, the words “pish” and “bah” carried a certain weight and impact. They were not just ordinary words, but rather an expression of the speaker's emotions. It was as if he was trying to brush aside whatever was bothering him with a dismissive gesture. The use of the exclamation marks further emphasized the intensity of his feelings. Overall, these words left a lasting impression and made one wonder what had caused such a reaction.

This book, I think, had been sitting on my shelf for decades.

Last month, I picked it up and glanced at the opening page. Immediately, I was hooked by its style - crisp, fresh, and clean. And there was a touch of warpiness too. In fact, it was the first Murdoch I've read. I had always shied away from her because I was under the impression that she was heavy, plodding, and perhaps too psychological or pseudo-psychological.

However, this turned out to be a light yet profound, and highly entertaining tale of London society. It raised interesting questions about love. Occasionally, the number of twists and turns that the love intrigues took went just slightly overboard, but that also served to illustrate interesting points about human nature.

My edition was a first edition Penguin from 1963. It suffered a great deal as I carried it around with me from country to country on various flights and such. But this experience has renewed my love for mid-century English fiction, and I truly hope there are more books like it.

I look forward to exploring more works from that era and uncovering the hidden gems that might be waiting for me on my bookshelf.

LE TESTE SCAMBIATE

Ian Holm and Lee Remick are Martin and Antonia, husband and wife. The story begins with an exchange that sets the stage for a web of secrets and surprises. “Are you sure she doesn't know?” asks Georgie. “Antonia? About us? No, of course not.” But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this is far from the truth.

Although at that moment Antonia is indeed unaware of the long-term extramarital affair between her husband Martin, a prosperous wine merchant in his forties, and the much younger university assistant Georgie, she is destined to find out. And it won't be from Martin or Georgie, but from Honor, the stepsister of her psychiatrist Palmer, who is also strangely a friend of the Antonia-Martin couple. Antonia, who is a bit older than her husband, has a somewhat maternal attitude towards him at times, even though she wants to leave him. One day, she announces to Martin that she has been having a relationship with their friend Palmer Anderson, her psychiatrist, and wants to divorce and live with him.

The film with the same title was released in 1971, an American production directed by Dick Clement. The story involves a small group of characters, three men and three women, in London and the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge. They are all affluent bourgeois academics. It's the early 1960s (the novel was first published in 1961), and free love and polygamy are being practiced and discussed, partly due to the times, partly due to the characters' culture and social background, and partly because it's a topic that will always be of interest. Monogamy may be a remedy, but it's not the solution.

Murdoch chooses Martin, a man, as the narrator. This may have raised some eyebrows among readers who believe that a male writer will have a protagonist of the same sex, and vice versa for a female writer. But I find it refreshing and engaging to see unconventional perspectives. The story is not just about free love, marriage, extramarital affairs, and relationships, but also includes incest and a attempted suicide, as well as lovers being chased out the back door. The novel is filled with many witty and fast-paced dialogues, making it perhaps Murdoch's most entertaining story. It seems ready for a theatrical adaptation, which has happened more than once, as well as a cinematic adaptation, which was released in the early 1970s when these themes were still 'hot'.

However, the novel also has its tender moments, with a hint of sadness peeking through. The tone alternates, although the bright tone predominates. The idea of the severed head, along with the attempted suicide and the sending of a lock of hair, refers to the distance between the mind and the heart, between sex and intimacy. “I don't think I like it much, a head without a body… It seems an unfair advantage, an illicit and incomplete relationship… There are people, including those who are coupled or married, who never, in their entire lives, have entered into intimacy.” They have lived side by side for years but without imagining “sticking out,” in fact “they haven't even suspected the possibility; they have never crossed this threshold, they haven't even thought about it… The Other has become a familiar being but not an intimate one.”

The limited number of characters, the exchanges and intersections, the ease of dialogue, and the setting mostly in interiors, especially homes, suggest a theatrical setup and therefore stimulate echoes and parallels with other stories already read or seen. From the right distance, the one that comes to mind the most is the entertaining black and white film The Party by Sally Potter. The film is now fifty years old and from what I can imagine, it wasn't a fully successful adaptation.

On the left is Richard Attenborough who plays Palmer, the psychiatrist friend of the couple and the lover of the friend's wife.

So it is more or less like this: We have a married man. The relationship is warm and comfortable in the tranquility of daily life, but he loves the woman who is a beautiful and elegant lady, the kind that makes other women envious and men drool like dogs - a love "hot and radiant, tinged with the gold of human dignity". But it's not enough for him. He also has a mistress, much younger, sloppy, and disheveled, a pet to savor clandestinely, and for whom he feels a love "tender, sensual, and cheerful". Was he happy? Of course! "He needed both and, having both, he possessed the world."

Everything went well? Of course! Until the day when the woman happily tells him that she is going to leave him because she has fallen in love with her psychoanalyst.

And it just so happens that he is his best friend!

When he sees her leaving, all his passion and desire reignite, and he is shocked by the "pair of horns on his head".

What about the mistress? Ah, she is on standby...

All the predictability of this book ends here. What is found until the last page is a succession of unexpected events and behaviors that leave us with our mouths open.

It seems like a game, but it is - in an exaggerated way - very authentic and capable of making us think about how we would react in one of these situations. Unlike the protagonist. Not being a saint and with many sins on his record, he nevertheless reveals himself, in the face of a difficult-to-digest menu, to be of incredible civility.

It was a delight to discover the writing of this lady: Iris Murdoch.