Henry and Cato – Iris Murdoch

From Amazon Henry and Cato is the story of two prodigal sons. Henry returns from a self-imposed exile in America to an unforeseen inheritance of wealth and land in England. He is also returning to his mother. His friend Cato is struggling with two ambiguous intermingled passions, one for a God who may or may not exist, the other for a petty criminal who may or may not be capable of salvation. Cato's father and his sister Colette wait anxiously to welcome Cato back to sanity after his dubious escapades. Henry meanwhile confronts his mother, the unappeased furies of childish resentment, and various possibilities of revenge. Henry's cool mother watches, Cato's impetuous sister intervenes. Can love here become a saving force, or is it condemned to be possessive and demonic? Blackmail and violence take a hand, and both Henry and Cato return home at last. I won't say too much about this book here, as of course I shall be discussing it with my fellow Murdoch readers on our yahoo group. However I must say I really  enjoyed this one, although not quite as much as The Word Child, which was the last one we read. There is much that is typical  Murdoch here, and what I particularly loved with this one, is the genius of the duality of certain characters feelings, loving people only for who they think they are.  Henry and Cato as characters are like the two sides of a mirror image.  Enormously clever, this is a novel about love, power and faith.   Very enjoyable and highly recommended to anyone who likes Iris Murdoch, or even has never read one before.