The book and the Brotherhood - Iris Murdoch

From Amazon Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends 'commissioned' one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. 'Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?' Rose Curtland asks. 'The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history,' Jenkin Riderhood suggests. The theft of a wife further embroils the situation. Moral indignation must be separated from political disagreement. Tamar Hernshaw has a different rouble and a terrible secret. Can one die of shame? In another quarter a suicide pact seems the solution. Duncan Cambus thinks that since it is a tragedy, someone must die. Someone dies. Rose, who has gone on loving without hope, at least deserves a reward. The 23rd Iris Murdoch novel, and so the 23rd book of the  Murdoch a month Challenge undertaken by a small group of us. Although we are now reading them every other month as the books have got quite large. This one at about 600 pages is pretty meaty. The book opens with a party at an Oxford college – a group of friends many of them former students of that college are present.  Past and present seem to collide that evening, the effects of which are felt by the characters and the reader throughout the rest of the book. There is a rather sad and yet marvellous bit about a parrot, and a truly marvellous bit about a snail. Partners change – as they usually do in a Murdoch novel, someone dies, and a book is written.  I thought this one to be a very enjoyable read, quite engrossing, with plenty of the usual Murdoch themes, and complicated stuff about philosophy. I won’t say too much more here – as my Murdocian friends haven’t started this one yet I don’t  think – I only went and started it a week early : )