Iris Murdoch (1919–1999)
Teoksen Meri, meri : romaani tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Iris Murdoch was one of the twentieth century's most prominent novelists, winner of the Booker Prize for The Sea. She died in 1999. (Publisher Provided) Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin, Ireland on July 15, 1919. She was educated at Badminton School in Bristol and Oxford University, where she read näytä lisää classics, ancient history, and philosophy. After several government jobs, she returned to academic life, studying philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948, she became a fellow and tutor at St. Anne's College, Oxford. She also taught at the Royal College of Art in London. A professional philosopher, she began writing novels as a hobby, but quickly established herself as a genuine literary talent. She wrote over 25 novels during her lifetime including Under the Net, A Severed Head, The Unicorn, and Of the Nice and the Good. She won several awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince in 1973 and the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea in 1978. She died on February 8, 1999 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän
Image credit: © Steve Pyke 1990 (use of image requires permission from Steve Pyke)
Tekijän teokset
The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists. Based upon the Romanes Lecture (Oxford Paperbacks) (1977) 117 kappaletta
The Novels of Iris Murdoch Volume Two: The Flight from the Enchanter, The Red and the Green, and The Time of the Angels (2018) 9 kappaletta
The Novels of Iris Murdoch Volume One: Henry and Cato, The Italian Girl, and The Philosopher's Pupil (2018) 9 kappaletta
The Novels of Iris Murdoch Volume Three: A Word Child, An Unofficial Rose, and Bruno's Dream (2018) 6 kappaletta
La salvación por las palabras : ¿puede la literatura curarnos de los males de la filosofía? (2014) 6 kappaletta
O Sino 4 kappaletta
Canterburyjske priče 4 kappaletta
Vintage Classics Collection 3 Books Set, (The Bell, Under the Net and The Sea, The Sea) 2 kappaletta
Hoe bewijs ik het bestaan van God 2 kappaletta
Algo del otro mundo (IMPEDIMENTA) 1 kappale
Unicórnio 1 kappale
Sartre'ın Yazarlığı ve Felsefesi 1 kappale
Ο Μαύρος Πρίγκηπας 1 kappale
Een filosofie van de liefde 1 kappale
Henry e Cato 1 kappale
Przypadkowy cz¿owiek 1 kappale
İTALYAN KIZI 1 kappale
THE SUBLIME AND THE GOOD - essay in one complete issue of Chicago Review, Autumn 1959 (1959) 1 kappale
Existentialists and mystics : 1 kappale
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch 1 kappale
Tilfælghedens spil 1 kappale
[Notebook : 34 pages occupied with lists of words in Russian with their English translations] 1 kappale
[Make a joyful noise Vol. 2] 1 kappale
[Make a joyful noise Vol. 1] 1 kappale
Hver tar sin 1 kappale
Murdoch, Iris Archive 1 kappale
Against Dryness 1 kappale
Os Olhos da Aranha Livro 1 1 kappale
Çan 1 kappale
Сочинения в 3-Х томах 1 kappale
Associated Works
Wise Women: Over Two Thousand Years of Spiritual Writing by Women (1996) — Avustaja — 201 kappaletta
Plato's Republic: Critical Essays (Critical Essays on the Classics Series) (1997) — Avustaja — 35 kappaletta
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Virallinen nimi
- Murdoch, Jean Iris
- Muut nimet
- Murdoch, Jean Iris
- Syntymäaika
- 1919-07-15
- Kuolinaika
- 1999-02-08
- Hautapaikka
- Ashes scattered in the garden of Oxford Crematorium
- Sukupuoli
- female
- Kansalaisuus
- Ierland
- Syntymäpaikka
- Dublin, Ireland
- Kuolinpaikka
- Oxfordshire, England, UK
- Kuolinsyy
- Alzheimer's disease
- Asuinpaikat
- Dublin, Ierland
Oxford, Engeland - Koulutus
- Somerville College, Oxford
- Ammatit
- novelist
philosopher - Suhteet
- Bayley, John (husband)
- Organisaatiot
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary, Literature | 1975)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Foreign Honorary Member | 1982)
St Anne's College, Oxford University - Palkinnot ja kunnianosoitukset
- Booker Prize (1978)
- Agentti
- Ed Victor
- Lyhyt elämäkerta
- Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin, Ireland, the only child of an Anglo-Irish family. When she was a baby, the family moved to London, where her father worked as a civil servant. She attended the Badminton School as a boarder from 1932 to 1938. In 1938, she enrolled at Oxford University, where she read Classics. She graduated with a First Class Honors degree in 1942 and got a job with the Treasury. In 1944, she joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), working in Brussels, Innsbruck, and Graz for two years. She then returned to her studies and became a postgraduate at Cambridge University. In 1948, she became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, where she taught philosophy until 1963. In 1956, she married John Bayley, a literary critic, novelist, and English professor at Oxford. She published her debut novel, Under the Net, in 1954 and went on to produce 25 more novels and additional acclaimed works of philosophy, poetry and drama. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1982, and named a Dame Commander of Order of the British Empire in 1987. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1997 and died two years later.
Jäseniä
Keskustelut
Group Read, June 2022: The Sea, the Sea, 1001 Books to read before you die (heinäkuu 2022)
Group Read, July 2018: Under The Net, 1001 Books to read before you die (heinäkuu 2018)
The Bell, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2018)
Musing on Murdoch in General, Iris Murdoch readers (lokakuuta 2017)
The Nice and the Good, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2017)
The Italian Girl, Iris Murdoch readers (marraskuu 2015)
The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch readers (syyskuu 2015)
The Sandcastle, Iris Murdoch readers (tammikuu 2015)
The Green Knight, Iris Murdoch readers (toukokuu 2014)
The Unicorn, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2014)
***Group Read, October 2013: The Bell by Iris Murdoch, 1001 Books to read before you die (lokakuuta 2013)
The Book and the Brotherhood, Iris Murdoch readers (lokakuuta 2013)
A Severed Head, Iris Murdoch readers (toukokuu 2013)
The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch readers (toukokuu 2013)
The Philosopher's Pupil, Iris Murdoch readers (huhtikuu 2013)
The Good Apprentice, Iris Murdoch readers (maaliskuu 2013)
Something Special, Iris Murdoch readers (maaliskuu 2013)
Henry and Cato, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2013)
A Word Child, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2013)
Bruno's Dream, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2013)
An Unofficial Rose, Iris Murdoch readers (helmikuu 2013)
Henry Cato, Iris Murdoch readers (tammikuu 2013)
Murdoch & Mayhem, 75 Books Challenge for 2012 (joulukuu 2012)
Kirja-arvosteluja
Listat
Five star books (1)
Booker Prize (7)
Unread books (1)
Nifty Fifties (1)
First Novels (1)
Folio Society (1)
Revolutions (1)
5 Best 5 Years (1)
1970s (1)
Big Jubilee List (1)
Franklit (1)
Read This Next (1)
Favourite Books (1)
Didactic Fiction (2)
Art of Reading (2)
Female Author (3)
Best Beach Reads (1)
Summer Books (1)
A Novel Cure (1)
1950s (1)
Palkinnot
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Associated Authors
Tilastot
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- 10
- Jäseniä
- 26,182
- Suosituimmuussija
- #799
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 3.7
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 564
- ISBN:t
- 692
- Kielet
- 25
- Kuinka monen suosikki
- 138
Iris Murdoch's debut novel is a disconcerting, shabby picaresque novel following the young hack writer Jake Donahue through a series of adventures. For the most part, it falls into my particular favourite type of picaresque: the adventure novel largely set over a few days. Murdoch is already comfortably inhabiting the body of a downtrodden, almost-broken, deeply strange protagonist, whose voice we can never entirely trust (Jake is keen to narrate his own story - a little too keen), and whose world seems to be a series of set-pieces that emerge out of otherwise ordinary life.
What is the plot? This is the kind of novel where certain literary snobs would say "the plot doesn't matter" but, reader, do not listen to them. In this case, the plot is precisely point. In a nutshell: Jake is kicked out by a woman, goes fawning back to two actress sisters from his past, uncovers a potential conspiracy involving a screenplay secretly adapted from a translation of a French novel he wrote some time ago, goes on a mad pub crawl with his gadabout mates, steals a film star dog who subsequently saves him from a police raid in the aftermath of a socialist party riot amidst an Ancient Roman film set in the middle of London, is mistaken for an escaped mental patient by an alley full of suburban gossips, pursues his lady love through Paris on Bastille Day, takes an unexpected job as a hospital orderly where his doubts and concerns come back to haunt him during a daring midnight visit to an incapacitated friend, and must consider whether he will position himself high(brow) or low on the unsteady rope ladder that is a literary career - or whether he even has the chops to climb the ladder at all. Throw in some Plato and a dash of Wittgenstein, a starling invasion straight out of Hitchcock's The Birds, and an avant-garde mime theatre, and you have Under the Net.
Murdoch's novel, first published in 1957, seems to sit quite comfortably within the (poorly named) 'Angry Young Man' cultural epoch - although Jake is not so much a victim of society as a personal exploration of those who exist comfortably in the margins. He has never held a job aside from writing until he signs up as an orderly, and is impressed by how easily he gets this one given how much his friends complain about the process. ("You will point out, and quite rightly", Jake says in one of Murdoch's moments of wry hilarity, that hospital orderly is perhaps a job where supply eclipses demand, "whereas what my friends were finding it so difficult to become was higher civil servants, columnists of the London dailies, officials of the British Council, fellows of colleges, or governors of the BBC. That is true.") Whereas her fellow novelists were interested in the temporal, Murdoch constantly allows us to see the metaphysical moments, the sublime and the ridiculous. But she is not writing, contrary to the philosophers who want to claim this text as their own, about what lies beyond the plot; Murdoch is finding the sublime within what is taking place, within human interaction and yearning.
And there is so much yearning. Although we have reason to doubt some of Jake's suspicions very early, he is a man easily compelled to new feeling: sudden love, sudden self-doubt, convinced he has destroyed a friendship or is under attack from the slightest of impulses. He is a fascinating character and, while I might concede that I'm not sure Murdoch entirely captures what it is like to be a male, the fulcrum around which her fairytale-like world rotates. (On a more terrestrial note, how times have changed - Jake tells us on the first page that his friend-cum-assistant Finn usually waits for him in bed, and later spends much of the book deeply pining for an old friend named Hugo. I had to separate myself entirely from 2020 to see these as the perfectly normal actions of a sensitive and impoverished heterosexual man!)
It is clear that one of my great projects for the 2020s will be to read all twenty-six of Murdoch's novels in order. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the pitch-perfect Samuel West, and I heartily recommend it for the way that West teases out both the uproarious comedy and the more delicate variety, yet I found myself returning to my copy of the book often to reread paragraphs or phrases just to let the author wash over me. I suspect that, structurally, or literarily, Under the Net is not one of Murdoch's greatest novels. (As her debut, it hardly could be!) But clearly from the Top 100 lists it frequently appears on, the novel has a place in the heart of many writers, and is perhaps an easier access point to her oeuvre than most.
Such fun.… (lisätietoja)