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The Green Knight
Full of suspense, humor, and symbolism, this magnificently crafted and magical novel replays biblical and medieval themes in contemporary London. An attempt by the sharp, feral, and uncommonly intelligent Lucas Graffe to murder his sensual and charismatic half-brother Clement is interrupted by a stranger—whom Lucas strikes and leaves for dead. When the stranger mysteriously reappears, with specific demands for reparation, the Graffes’ circle of idiosyncratic family and friends is disrupted—for the demands are bizarre, intrusive, and ultimately fatal.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Iris Murdoch
118books2,231followersDame Jean Iris Murdoch
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction."(John Bayley inElegy for Iris,1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction."(John Bayley inElegy for Iris,1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
June 14, 2024
I AM THE WEAKEST OF YOUR KNIGHTS, AND THE DULLEST-MINDED,
SO MY DEATH WOULD BE LEAST LOSS, IF TRUTH BE TOLD.
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
If you ever try to read this late novel by the wonderful Iris Murdoch, be sure to fasten your seatbelts first. And be prepared to wrangle your mind out of some perniciously sticky imaginative spiderwebs.
And once you’re into this winding labyrinth with its suggestions of lurking ogres everywhere, hopefully you’ll mark your progress on its walls so you can get out again safely!
By far the best way I could give you a sense of the deeply atmospheric and intense plot-line of the book is by quoting Baudelaire (English to follow):
La nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Nature is a temple where living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with knowing glances.
Do you see the intense, rich, brooding atmosphere? THIS is The Green Knight.
The Green Knight was that pernicious and deceitful enemy of the good Sir Gawain in the medieval Anglo-Saxon Romance.
And THIS Green Knight was the beginning of Murdoch's troubled descent into Alzheimer's Disease.
It is scary to read in more ways than one. Someone once did a word count of Murdoch's last works, and found that the number and complexity of the words she used decreased DRAMATICALLY toward the end of her writing career.
Murdoch was a specialist in contemporary philosophy who was getting lost in its Dark Wood.
For without gaining a full and exhaustive knowledge of oneself, the whole raison d’être of metaphysics collapses. So suggests Socrates.
For we engage in philosophical thought not only to understand the world in toto, but also to DISARM THE DEVILS of our everyday life.
But Murdoch was lost in the metaphysical labyrinth, because total self-knowledge was unbearable. The underworld was winning. Exhausted, she turned her imagination’s autopilot switch on when writing this:
A FATAL mistake for anyone - because then, the devils WIN.
It’s an edge-of-your-seat challenge to finish the novel. It is very much like reading the early John Irving: if something CAN go wrong it WILL - so watch out!
Very much a HAUNTED work.
Personally, I couldn't make it to the end, though I bravely kept reading till way past the mid-point. For those of us who know the Might of Erebus, it’s just too full of shadowy, half-glimpsed fears.
Like doing pitched battle with hobgoblins! And there was a LOT to think about when I finally put it down.
One thing I thought about then was the way Murdoch's husband described her final years in his wonderful Elegy for Iris, and Iris and Her Friends.
He says that his wife - the eternal philosophy professor - never gave up her search for truth, and that he successfully kept up her spirits with his jokes and loving care till almost the end.
It's almost as if, in her own mind, she was Penelope or even Ulysses, off on a Second Odyssey...
For her final destination and resting place was almost in sight. She was just trying to keep an even keel, and still trying, like old Tennyson:
"To strive, to seek, to find - and not to yield."
SO MY DEATH WOULD BE LEAST LOSS, IF TRUTH BE TOLD.
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
If you ever try to read this late novel by the wonderful Iris Murdoch, be sure to fasten your seatbelts first. And be prepared to wrangle your mind out of some perniciously sticky imaginative spiderwebs.
And once you’re into this winding labyrinth with its suggestions of lurking ogres everywhere, hopefully you’ll mark your progress on its walls so you can get out again safely!
By far the best way I could give you a sense of the deeply atmospheric and intense plot-line of the book is by quoting Baudelaire (English to follow):
La nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Nature is a temple where living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with knowing glances.
Do you see the intense, rich, brooding atmosphere? THIS is The Green Knight.
The Green Knight was that pernicious and deceitful enemy of the good Sir Gawain in the medieval Anglo-Saxon Romance.
And THIS Green Knight was the beginning of Murdoch's troubled descent into Alzheimer's Disease.
It is scary to read in more ways than one. Someone once did a word count of Murdoch's last works, and found that the number and complexity of the words she used decreased DRAMATICALLY toward the end of her writing career.
Murdoch was a specialist in contemporary philosophy who was getting lost in its Dark Wood.
For without gaining a full and exhaustive knowledge of oneself, the whole raison d’être of metaphysics collapses. So suggests Socrates.
For we engage in philosophical thought not only to understand the world in toto, but also to DISARM THE DEVILS of our everyday life.
But Murdoch was lost in the metaphysical labyrinth, because total self-knowledge was unbearable. The underworld was winning. Exhausted, she turned her imagination’s autopilot switch on when writing this:
A FATAL mistake for anyone - because then, the devils WIN.
It’s an edge-of-your-seat challenge to finish the novel. It is very much like reading the early John Irving: if something CAN go wrong it WILL - so watch out!
Very much a HAUNTED work.
Personally, I couldn't make it to the end, though I bravely kept reading till way past the mid-point. For those of us who know the Might of Erebus, it’s just too full of shadowy, half-glimpsed fears.
Like doing pitched battle with hobgoblins! And there was a LOT to think about when I finally put it down.
One thing I thought about then was the way Murdoch's husband described her final years in his wonderful Elegy for Iris, and Iris and Her Friends.
He says that his wife - the eternal philosophy professor - never gave up her search for truth, and that he successfully kept up her spirits with his jokes and loving care till almost the end.
It's almost as if, in her own mind, she was Penelope or even Ulysses, off on a Second Odyssey...
For her final destination and resting place was almost in sight. She was just trying to keep an even keel, and still trying, like old Tennyson:
"To strive, to seek, to find - and not to yield."
January 17, 2021
This was iris Murdoch's 25th and penultimate novel, and I have now read all of them except the final one (Jackson's Dilemma.I was initially rather wary of her late work, perhaps because most of them missed out on the Vintage Classics rebranding and are rarely seen in bookshops, but even at this stage in her career (1993) she was producing novels that stand comparison with her best work. Most of her characteristic idiosyncrasies are here again - it is another ensemble piece set among middle class Londoners, there are enigmatic charismatic characters, watery trials, letters, philosophical and religious ideas, quirky relationships, unrequited love, adolescents who are both precocious and sheltered, and outlandish set pieces.
In this one none of the protagonists is obviously a leading character, which makes it rather difficult to summarise the plot. The central conceit is created by Lucas, one of Murdoch's difficult reclusive academics, who was adopted by his parents and resents his younger brother Clement, a natural child of his parents who works in theatre. In the back story Lucas has lured Clement to a quiet spot ostensibly to see fireflies, and appears to have attempted to murder him with a baseball bat, but instead hit a third man who intervened and left him apparently dead. Lucas enlists Clement's help in covering up the crime, and is acquitted of the murder thanks to a lawyer who explains the incident as self-defence against a mugger.
The drama starts when the victim Peter Mir suddenly reappears. Mir is another enigmatic charismatic, a rich man who appears to have no friends, and he demands to be introduced to Clement's circle of friends, who he has been watching while tracking Lucas down.
I won't even attempt to describe any more of the characters or the rest of the plot.
Another enjoyable read, but for me the best of her later works are still The Good Apprentice and The Book and the Brotherhood.
In this one none of the protagonists is obviously a leading character, which makes it rather difficult to summarise the plot. The central conceit is created by Lucas, one of Murdoch's difficult reclusive academics, who was adopted by his parents and resents his younger brother Clement, a natural child of his parents who works in theatre. In the back story Lucas has lured Clement to a quiet spot ostensibly to see fireflies, and appears to have attempted to murder him with a baseball bat, but instead hit a third man who intervened and left him apparently dead. Lucas enlists Clement's help in covering up the crime, and is acquitted of the murder thanks to a lawyer who explains the incident as self-defence against a mugger.
The drama starts when the victim Peter Mir suddenly reappears. Mir is another enigmatic charismatic, a rich man who appears to have no friends, and he demands to be introduced to Clement's circle of friends, who he has been watching while tracking Lucas down.
I won't even attempt to describe any more of the characters or the rest of the plot.
Another enjoyable read, but for me the best of her later works are still The Good Apprentice and The Book and the Brotherhood.
November 21, 2018
Η Άϊρις Μέρντοχ ειναι μια θαυμάσια συγγραφέας που υφαίνει με μπόλικη μυρωδιά αγάπης και πάθους έναν απροσδόκητο ιστό γύρω απο την ψυχή του αναγνώστη.
Αξέχαστες στιγμές, δράση, αγωνία, ανατροπές και αρχή-μέση-τέλος πάντα στα έργα της, ως σημείο αναφοράς που διακρίνει την πένα της.
Ακόμη κι αν ξεχαστεί η δράση ενός ��ργου της,
η αίσθηση που αφήνει δεν ξεχνιέται ποτέ.
Ο πράσινος ιππότης είναι ενα επιβλητικό μυθιστόρημα για μια συναρπαστικά δυνατή και περίεργη ιστορία σκοτεινού οράματος.
Πρόκειται για μια ομάδα πνευματικά καλλιεργημένων και ιδιαίτερα μορφωμένων Λονδρέζων που οι σχέσεις μεταξύ τους είναι αναμφιβόλως αμφίβολες.
Ειναι συγγενείς, φίλοι, εραστές, σύντροφοι, συμφοιτητές πνεύματος, συνοδοιπόροι ζωής,
προστάτες άγγελοι, ανυπέρβλητοι μάγοι και ιεροί δαίμονες.
Οι περισσότεροι απο αυτούς είναι άτομα που ψάχνουν την αγάπη ή την λύτρωση ή και τα δύο και η πορεία των σχέσεων τους διαπνέεται απο διακεκαυμένες ζώνες συναισθήματος, θαυμασμού, σεβασμού και κρυμμένου πάθους.
Όλα ανατρέπονται όταν στη ζωή τους εισβάλει ένας ισχυρός και χαρισματικός ξένος άνδρας που κρύβει πολλά, μπερδεύει, μαγεύει και αναποδογυρίζει τον κόσμο τους.
Το τελικό στάδιο οράματος στη ζωή και το έργο της Μέρντοχ με αυτό το βιβλίο είναι πιο ψυχοφθόρο απ’το συνηθισμενο. Η ανταμοιβή απαιτεί δυνατή αποπληρωμή για νικητές και ηττημένους.
Αυτό σίγουρα δεν είναι το κατάλληλο βιβλίο για να γνωρίσει κάποιος την αποπνικτική σαγήνη της Μέρντοχ.
Προσωπικά τοποθέτησα στο πάνθεον των βιβλίων που αγάπησα τον δικό της «μαύρο πρίγκιπα».
⚔️💌♥️⚔️💌♥️⚔️
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Αξέχαστες στιγμές, δράση, αγωνία, ανατροπές και αρχή-μέση-τέλος πάντα στα έργα της, ως σημείο αναφοράς που διακρίνει την πένα της.
Ακόμη κι αν ξεχαστεί η δράση ενός ��ργου της,
η αίσθηση που αφήνει δεν ξεχνιέται ποτέ.
Ο πράσινος ιππότης είναι ενα επιβλητικό μυθιστόρημα για μια συναρπαστικά δυνατή και περίεργη ιστορία σκοτεινού οράματος.
Πρόκειται για μια ομάδα πνευματικά καλλιεργημένων και ιδιαίτερα μορφωμένων Λονδρέζων που οι σχέσεις μεταξύ τους είναι αναμφιβόλως αμφίβολες.
Ειναι συγγενείς, φίλοι, εραστές, σύντροφοι, συμφοιτητές πνεύματος, συνοδοιπόροι ζωής,
προστάτες άγγελοι, ανυπέρβλητοι μάγοι και ιεροί δαίμονες.
Οι περισσότεροι απο αυτούς είναι άτομα που ψάχνουν την αγάπη ή την λύτρωση ή και τα δύο και η πορεία των σχέσεων τους διαπνέεται απο διακεκαυμένες ζώνες συναισθήματος, θαυμασμού, σεβασμού και κρυμμένου πάθους.
Όλα ανατρέπονται όταν στη ζωή τους εισβάλει ένας ισχυρός και χαρισματικός ξένος άνδρας που κρύβει πολλά, μπερδεύει, μαγεύει και αναποδογυρίζει τον κόσμο τους.
Το τελικό στάδιο οράματος στη ζωή και το έργο της Μέρντοχ με αυτό το βιβλίο είναι πιο ψυχοφθόρο απ’το συνηθισμενο. Η ανταμοιβή απαιτεί δυνατή αποπληρωμή για νικητές και ηττημένους.
Αυτό σίγουρα δεν είναι το κατάλληλο βιβλίο για να γνωρίσει κάποιος την αποπνικτική σαγήνη της Μέρντοχ.
Προσωπικά τοποθέτησα στο πάνθεον των βιβλίων που αγάπησα τον δικό της «μαύρο πρίγκιπα».
⚔️💌♥️⚔️💌♥️⚔️
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
April 9, 2013
An unforgettable book by a brilliant author. But how to describe it? I can't do better than begin with this from another Goodreads reviewer: "Clement is in love with Louise. Louise's husband is dead. Everyone thinks Moy is in love with Clement, but she is in love with Harvey. Harvey thinks he's in love with one sister, but he's actually in love with another sister. One sister is in love with Lucas. Lucas is Clement's brother. Lucas tried to kill Clement. But he actually killed Peter Mir. Only, Peter Mir isn't dead! Peter Mir is our beloved Green Knight, beheaded but still among the living. Who is Sir Gawain? Was there ever really a Gawain?" This book has all the trappings and "feel" of a medieval visit to faerie-land, but is set in something resembling 1990's London, where a private house ( "Clifton" ) stands in for an enchanted castle. Three princesses live there (very Greekly named Alethea, Sophia, and Moira, but who hate their names and so call themselves Aleph, Sefton, and Moy). Visitors come and go, falling under each other's spells. A preternaturally wise dog is named Anax, the Greek word used in the Iliad to describe Agamemenon. Each sister is eccentric in her own way, as is every other character in the book. Magic, fate, and other-worldly significance are everywhere, all easily discountable by the literal-minded reader as mild insanity, coincidence, and over-thinking. The novel is loosely based on the medieval poemSir Gawain and the Green Knight,but with touches of Cain and Abel, much classical mythology (there is even an attack on a young virgin by a swan), and the Holy Spirit (or at least an angelic presence) often seems to be hovering nearby. There is a happy conclusion reminiscent of a Shakespearian comedy, where no character, however minor, is safe from matrimony. It got a little repetitious for my taste, as characters had multiple struggles to understand each other's motivations; but nevertheless an unforgettable experience. When disaster seems to strike (as it does several times in the course of the book) you feel that something fully solid and real in in danger of toppling into ruin. An amazing read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2010
I always experience a mix of emotion when I reread a beloved book. Excitement that I'm going to spend hours with something I've proven to love but at the same time trepidation that for some reason, the story will fail to captivate me as much as previously. Sometimes I am lucky enough to find that, upon rereading, I find I love the book even more than I did originally. Such is the case with The Green Knight.
The Green Knight traces the lives of a group of people loosely arranged as a family more so because of their proximity than blood. They live comfortably with little drama until a startling incident drops a man they all thought was dead into their lives. This action kicks off a series of events that forces each of them to re-examine their relationships with each other, as well as grapple with the realizations that people are not always who they say they are and that not every one is intrinsically good.
Murdoch's characters are always odd in some sense or another. When reading any of her novels, I find myself repeatedly thinking, "But no one would ever do that," yet her characters always do. However, because Murdoch imbues her writing with so much philosophy and theology, the unexpected actions of her characters always seem justified. So instead of thinking that early 20-something Harvey would never attempt seduction with middle aged Tessa, it becomes reasonable in light of Oedipus. The result is that Murdoch's books are *interesting* in a way that many are not - the plots can be ridiculous and the characters eccentric but the writing is so intelligent that it all makes sense.
The Green Knight is one of Murdoch's most accessible novels, and is a good place to start if you haven't read her before.
The Green Knight traces the lives of a group of people loosely arranged as a family more so because of their proximity than blood. They live comfortably with little drama until a startling incident drops a man they all thought was dead into their lives. This action kicks off a series of events that forces each of them to re-examine their relationships with each other, as well as grapple with the realizations that people are not always who they say they are and that not every one is intrinsically good.
Murdoch's characters are always odd in some sense or another. When reading any of her novels, I find myself repeatedly thinking, "But no one would ever do that," yet her characters always do. However, because Murdoch imbues her writing with so much philosophy and theology, the unexpected actions of her characters always seem justified. So instead of thinking that early 20-something Harvey would never attempt seduction with middle aged Tessa, it becomes reasonable in light of Oedipus. The result is that Murdoch's books are *interesting* in a way that many are not - the plots can be ridiculous and the characters eccentric but the writing is so intelligent that it all makes sense.
The Green Knight is one of Murdoch's most accessible novels, and is a good place to start if you haven't read her before.
November 25, 2019
4.5 stars
Central to the drama of The Green Knight are a family of three girls and a mysterious stranger. One of the girls is beautiful and two are highly intelligent, while the youngest is creative, has an affinity with animals and a touch of magic. There is a fairy tale like aura to this novel, or perhaps one more akin to ancient myths, after all the title does come from the story of Sir Gawain belonging to the time of Arthur and the round table. The Green Knight himself is Peter Mir, a man who suffers an injury while performing an heroic action and who becomes central to the lives of the other characters in the novel.
Peter is not the only character described as a knight while others are described as angels, magicians or fey, and we even have a courageous and anthropomorphized animal. The older sister Aleph even says at one point,“You mean it’s as if we are in a fairy tale, and there’s something we can’t say, some word we can’t utter, some riddle we can’t answer –and if we did say it or answer it we would die, or be in paradise together.”Even if you disregard all these fairytale allusions, this is still a novel filled with secrets, usually involving unrequited love, there is soul searching, loss of faith, anguish and injury - a typical Iris Murdoch novel then but one of her more enchanting ones.
The three girls are all of interest but the most engaging for me is Moy who is compared to a ‘silky’ or fairy like creature. Moy has a kinship with all things, living and otherwise including stones and rocks in particular,and goes through torture imagining how two rocks have been separated from one another or what has happened to the creatures she encounters. She has a wildness to her yet primarily stays enclosed in the “enchanted circle” of the Anderson family a place of which her sister says,“I feel as if we leave this place, we shall crumble to pieces,”there is almost“a barrier between us and the world like a wall of rays.”
Sefton and Aleph, her older sisters play different roles in the romantic entanglements that take place in the novel while their mother Louise often seems mystified by her offspring and lost in her own dreams and illusions. Orbiting this family unit are Harvey, a young man who has to go through his own particular challenge and Clement, the actor friend of Louise’s dead husband who runs around in utter confusion most of the time as to what he should do and where his loyalty should be. Rounding out the list of major players are Bellamy, whose correspondence with the head of a religious order in an attempt to obtain entrance provides some amusement, if only from Father Damien’s responses. We have Lucas, Clements older brother who at the beginning of the novel has disappeared to escape the shame of accidentally killing a man, and who is himself a mysterious enigmatic figure and of course Peter who seems to entrance them all.
Peter is fascinating both in his desires to be a part of this circle and his actions in regard to Clement and Lucas. He manages to touch the lives of everyone and bewitches them with compassion, gifts and a grand dinner party at the ‘enchanters palace’ which makes up one of the great set pieces in the book. Lucas also is an enchanter but Lucas and Peter seem two sides of one coin, one dark, one light although that differentiation is probably simplistic. Clement sees Peter and Lucas as “two mad magicians” or “two archangels” who are in some kind of battle and much of the drama of the novel is concerned with how this ‘battle’ might play out. Both Bellamy and Clement are torn between the two acting as go-betweens like seconds in a mighty duel and both excite our empathy in the conundrums they face.
It is not only the men who engage our empathy and interest, as with several of Murdoch’s later novels, this one is filled with women of all types, not only the noble Louise and her girls on the brink of life but Harry’s mother Joan, a vamp down on her luck whose dry humour hides her despair, Tessa, the wise woman, who might or might not be rich but runs a women’s shelter and Cora, the maternal figure who tries to make everyone happy. Everyone in the novel, seems to care deeply about at least one person even if they are mired in their own existential crisis and there is a real sense of family in the broader sense that helps to explain Peter and his desires.
By the end of the novel the enchanted circle has been severed as love and death have pulled the familial group apart and for Moy especially there is a kind of rebirth. As befits a fairy tale ending, everyone seems to be in the place they should be or at least on the path to it and we the reader are left entirely satisfied with this realistically enchanting tale.
Some favorite Lines
“You say he’s kind, you say Bellamy is generous and you refuse to call him a fool, you think Harvey is a sweet good boy, you think Clement is a parfit gentle knight, you see Aleph as an angel who will never turn into a Valkyrie.’
“Like what we’ve been saying, it’s the future, it’s so near and so secret and so difficult and so awful and so unavoidable and socrammed.”
‘Bellamy found simply living a task of amazing difficulty. It was as if ordinary human life were a mobile machine full of holes, crannies, spaces, apertures, fissures, cavities, lairs, into one of which Bellamy was required to (and indeed desired to) fit himself.’
“You don’t realize you’re in clover. Relax, Work, think, learn languages, read books, read poetry, write poetry, attract people, make lots of eternal friendships, parade your beauty. Youth is a great green field. Romp in it.”
Central to the drama of The Green Knight are a family of three girls and a mysterious stranger. One of the girls is beautiful and two are highly intelligent, while the youngest is creative, has an affinity with animals and a touch of magic. There is a fairy tale like aura to this novel, or perhaps one more akin to ancient myths, after all the title does come from the story of Sir Gawain belonging to the time of Arthur and the round table. The Green Knight himself is Peter Mir, a man who suffers an injury while performing an heroic action and who becomes central to the lives of the other characters in the novel.
Peter is not the only character described as a knight while others are described as angels, magicians or fey, and we even have a courageous and anthropomorphized animal. The older sister Aleph even says at one point,“You mean it’s as if we are in a fairy tale, and there’s something we can’t say, some word we can’t utter, some riddle we can’t answer –and if we did say it or answer it we would die, or be in paradise together.”Even if you disregard all these fairytale allusions, this is still a novel filled with secrets, usually involving unrequited love, there is soul searching, loss of faith, anguish and injury - a typical Iris Murdoch novel then but one of her more enchanting ones.
The three girls are all of interest but the most engaging for me is Moy who is compared to a ‘silky’ or fairy like creature. Moy has a kinship with all things, living and otherwise including stones and rocks in particular,and goes through torture imagining how two rocks have been separated from one another or what has happened to the creatures she encounters. She has a wildness to her yet primarily stays enclosed in the “enchanted circle” of the Anderson family a place of which her sister says,“I feel as if we leave this place, we shall crumble to pieces,”there is almost“a barrier between us and the world like a wall of rays.”
Sefton and Aleph, her older sisters play different roles in the romantic entanglements that take place in the novel while their mother Louise often seems mystified by her offspring and lost in her own dreams and illusions. Orbiting this family unit are Harvey, a young man who has to go through his own particular challenge and Clement, the actor friend of Louise’s dead husband who runs around in utter confusion most of the time as to what he should do and where his loyalty should be. Rounding out the list of major players are Bellamy, whose correspondence with the head of a religious order in an attempt to obtain entrance provides some amusement, if only from Father Damien’s responses. We have Lucas, Clements older brother who at the beginning of the novel has disappeared to escape the shame of accidentally killing a man, and who is himself a mysterious enigmatic figure and of course Peter who seems to entrance them all.
Peter is fascinating both in his desires to be a part of this circle and his actions in regard to Clement and Lucas. He manages to touch the lives of everyone and bewitches them with compassion, gifts and a grand dinner party at the ‘enchanters palace’ which makes up one of the great set pieces in the book. Lucas also is an enchanter but Lucas and Peter seem two sides of one coin, one dark, one light although that differentiation is probably simplistic. Clement sees Peter and Lucas as “two mad magicians” or “two archangels” who are in some kind of battle and much of the drama of the novel is concerned with how this ‘battle’ might play out. Both Bellamy and Clement are torn between the two acting as go-betweens like seconds in a mighty duel and both excite our empathy in the conundrums they face.
It is not only the men who engage our empathy and interest, as with several of Murdoch’s later novels, this one is filled with women of all types, not only the noble Louise and her girls on the brink of life but Harry’s mother Joan, a vamp down on her luck whose dry humour hides her despair, Tessa, the wise woman, who might or might not be rich but runs a women’s shelter and Cora, the maternal figure who tries to make everyone happy. Everyone in the novel, seems to care deeply about at least one person even if they are mired in their own existential crisis and there is a real sense of family in the broader sense that helps to explain Peter and his desires.
By the end of the novel the enchanted circle has been severed as love and death have pulled the familial group apart and for Moy especially there is a kind of rebirth. As befits a fairy tale ending, everyone seems to be in the place they should be or at least on the path to it and we the reader are left entirely satisfied with this realistically enchanting tale.
Some favorite Lines
“You say he’s kind, you say Bellamy is generous and you refuse to call him a fool, you think Harvey is a sweet good boy, you think Clement is a parfit gentle knight, you see Aleph as an angel who will never turn into a Valkyrie.’
“Like what we’ve been saying, it’s the future, it’s so near and so secret and so difficult and so awful and so unavoidable and socrammed.”
‘Bellamy found simply living a task of amazing difficulty. It was as if ordinary human life were a mobile machine full of holes, crannies, spaces, apertures, fissures, cavities, lairs, into one of which Bellamy was required to (and indeed desired to) fit himself.’
“You don’t realize you’re in clover. Relax, Work, think, learn languages, read books, read poetry, write poetry, attract people, make lots of eternal friendships, parade your beauty. Youth is a great green field. Romp in it.”
October 19, 2018
I readThe Green Knightover the course of more than two weeks, spending a lot of time with Iris Murdoch's characters. The peculiar world of the story is very immersive; I feel that I really know the eccentric, bohemian, intellectual Londoners who people its pages. After finishing my second Murdoch novel, I'm further impressed by her strong focus on craft while providing engaging, unusual narratives.The Green Knightis a highly accomplished novel of ideas.
In London, a group of friends form a makeshift family. There are the Andersons, a widow and her three teenage daughters living in a house called Clifton. There are Clement and Lucas Graffe, adoptive brothers who seem incredibly close on the outside but have festering resentments and a toxic power structure in private. There is Bellamy, a religious fanatic who is determined to give all his loved ones up in order to become a monk. And there are various other people in their orbit who comprise the close-knit group. At the start of the story, Lucas has been missing ever since he accidentally killed a man. The papers said he acted in self-defense against a mugger, but he did stand trial for using excessive force. After being acquitted, he disappeared without a trace, leaving Clement and his friends very worried. A man appears in the lives of the group claiming to be the man Lucas struck down, back from the dead. He begins insinuating himself into their social circle and making demands for reparation. His idea of justice is invasive and practically medieval and the lives of everyone involved will never be the same.
The characters in this book are quirky, with specific preoccupations and obsessions. How they handle the situation that is the story's premise is fascinating to witness. Their reactions and impulses reveal the kind of people they are, something the characters themselves ponder at length. They are characters constantly asking, who do I want to be? The various crises throughoutThe Green Knightconstantly shifts the answers to that question.
This is an ensemble piece. I loved the Andersons; they reminded me a bit of the Schlegels inHowards End.I enjoyed the family life in this novel. Bellamy sees events through a feverishly devout religious lens. I like characters like Clement, who are always, "dreaming... wildly imagining things." The inherent sadomasochism in Clement and Lucas's relationship is central to the story. There is a love triangle, or rather a rectangle, a many sided thing that's a mess of unrequited love. Murdoch is great at coming up with a social circle and delineating those social relations. She has a fantastic way of introducing us to all the characters in depth. You really understand the ins and outs of the group as if you yourself were a member. You see how each person relates to each other person and how the dynamic works as a whole.
I loved the mystical elements. InThe Green Knight,there are cool, ambiguous supernatural occurrences. The resurrected man is scary! And the circumstances surrounding him are eerie. This novel is philosophical, dealing with justice, vengeance, moral quandaries, and religious questions. It's definitely allegorical. I love that in both Iris Murdoch novels I've read—the other beingThe Sea, The Sea—the painting on the cover is featured in the story. Murdoch is a genius, connecting her literature to fine art. And the art is perfectly paired with the themes of her novels!
I enjoyed the omniscient POV, the authorial voice, and portentous narration. There are many great lines like: "It is necessary at this point to recount what actually occurred, as opposed to what was generally supposed to have occurred, on that terrible evening when Lucas killed a man." I love the old-fashioned cadences of the prose. And man, can Iris Murdoch write a letter! There are several epistolary passages in the novel. There are also many cool dream sequences. Murdoch has a gift for setting a scene, conjuring up locations so you can really see them. I love the homey details of Clifton. Like inThe Sea, The Sea,there are remarkable descriptions of the sea and clouds.
The Green Knighthas so many great lines. The sentences are elegant and beautifully crafted. If you love language and style, you'll love this. There are fantastic, long passages of (often hilarious) dialogue. There are great reveals in the novel late in the game, things having been carefully concealed. In the end, I was moved to tears.
The Green Knightis a story of good and evil. It's about social and familial entanglements with all the rich psychologies that go with that. It's brimming with symbolism and life-altering events. There's plenty of humor to go along with the existential crises. All the perspectives and reactions of the characters are a treat to comb over. This novel is truly different from anything else. I loved it. All hail Iris Murdoch!
In London, a group of friends form a makeshift family. There are the Andersons, a widow and her three teenage daughters living in a house called Clifton. There are Clement and Lucas Graffe, adoptive brothers who seem incredibly close on the outside but have festering resentments and a toxic power structure in private. There is Bellamy, a religious fanatic who is determined to give all his loved ones up in order to become a monk. And there are various other people in their orbit who comprise the close-knit group. At the start of the story, Lucas has been missing ever since he accidentally killed a man. The papers said he acted in self-defense against a mugger, but he did stand trial for using excessive force. After being acquitted, he disappeared without a trace, leaving Clement and his friends very worried. A man appears in the lives of the group claiming to be the man Lucas struck down, back from the dead. He begins insinuating himself into their social circle and making demands for reparation. His idea of justice is invasive and practically medieval and the lives of everyone involved will never be the same.
The characters in this book are quirky, with specific preoccupations and obsessions. How they handle the situation that is the story's premise is fascinating to witness. Their reactions and impulses reveal the kind of people they are, something the characters themselves ponder at length. They are characters constantly asking, who do I want to be? The various crises throughoutThe Green Knightconstantly shifts the answers to that question.
This is an ensemble piece. I loved the Andersons; they reminded me a bit of the Schlegels inHowards End.I enjoyed the family life in this novel. Bellamy sees events through a feverishly devout religious lens. I like characters like Clement, who are always, "dreaming... wildly imagining things." The inherent sadomasochism in Clement and Lucas's relationship is central to the story. There is a love triangle, or rather a rectangle, a many sided thing that's a mess of unrequited love. Murdoch is great at coming up with a social circle and delineating those social relations. She has a fantastic way of introducing us to all the characters in depth. You really understand the ins and outs of the group as if you yourself were a member. You see how each person relates to each other person and how the dynamic works as a whole.
I loved the mystical elements. InThe Green Knight,there are cool, ambiguous supernatural occurrences. The resurrected man is scary! And the circumstances surrounding him are eerie. This novel is philosophical, dealing with justice, vengeance, moral quandaries, and religious questions. It's definitely allegorical. I love that in both Iris Murdoch novels I've read—the other beingThe Sea, The Sea—the painting on the cover is featured in the story. Murdoch is a genius, connecting her literature to fine art. And the art is perfectly paired with the themes of her novels!
I enjoyed the omniscient POV, the authorial voice, and portentous narration. There are many great lines like: "It is necessary at this point to recount what actually occurred, as opposed to what was generally supposed to have occurred, on that terrible evening when Lucas killed a man." I love the old-fashioned cadences of the prose. And man, can Iris Murdoch write a letter! There are several epistolary passages in the novel. There are also many cool dream sequences. Murdoch has a gift for setting a scene, conjuring up locations so you can really see them. I love the homey details of Clifton. Like inThe Sea, The Sea,there are remarkable descriptions of the sea and clouds.
The Green Knighthas so many great lines. The sentences are elegant and beautifully crafted. If you love language and style, you'll love this. There are fantastic, long passages of (often hilarious) dialogue. There are great reveals in the novel late in the game, things having been carefully concealed. In the end, I was moved to tears.
The Green Knightis a story of good and evil. It's about social and familial entanglements with all the rich psychologies that go with that. It's brimming with symbolism and life-altering events. There's plenty of humor to go along with the existential crises. All the perspectives and reactions of the characters are a treat to comb over. This novel is truly different from anything else. I loved it. All hail Iris Murdoch!
July 19, 2018
Iris Murdoch, on her birthday July 15
Mercurial, protean, a will o' the wisp, armed with the full panoply of literary regalia like Achilles and tilting at windmills of Augustinian thematic looming dark, with the sardonic japery of a self-aware Don Quixote spinning inside jokes at a cocktail party of the puffed up and decadent professorial fools of culture; Iris Murdoch rides under the twin banners of Platonism and Surrealism, great rivals of the Academy, with the panache of a trickster goddess.
Her fiction is informed by her scholarship as an important Platonic philosoper, and shaped by her relationship with her mentor of 39 years, the French Surrealist Raymond Queneau, whose novel Zazie was a kind of toolkit and model of authorial techniques for her, like Da Vinci's Book of Secrets.
These two forces, classicism and surrealism, a conservatism from the dawn of civilization and a radical modernism which flouts all boundaries, are harnessed together uniquely in her art, defying conventions of academic tribalism and bringing British literature into the mainstream of European tradition.
This is the secret of her greatness; a sleight of hand only half of which is comprehensible to her fellow professors, depending on which tribe they belong to. She similarly baffled and confounded her associates in her personal life. I think she had a lot of fun doing so.
Great books and immortal classics of her twin arts include the tomes philosophic Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, and The Sovereignty of Good. Of her novels, beginning with The Black Prince she created a legacy of vivid and incisive works; The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, A Word Child, Henry and Cato, The Sea, the Sea, Nuns and Soldiers, The Philosopher's Pupil, The Good Apprentice, The Book and the Brotherhood, The Message to the Planet, and The Green Knight. There are also poems, plays, and many books about her and her work, among them Peter J. Conradi's 2001 biography & his critical book The Saint and the Artist: A Study of Iris Murdoch's Works.
The Philosopher's Pupil presents a battle of love and art, good and evil for the soul of man in a reimagination of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
In The Good Apprentice, the play of Illusion and Reality, madness and actuality, love,art, all her great themes complicate an inquiry into the nature of the Good.
The Green Knight references both the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Biblical story of Cain and Abel in an alternate reality London which recapitulates and interrogates the history of humanity and civilization in a narrative Socratic dialog.
Iris Murdoch crafted exquisite narrative puzzles and inquiries into the nature of the Good and other Ideals peopled with unforgettable and complex characters, written with playfulness, a mastery of language games, and great depth of soul, and above all examining the figure of the demonic philosopher and the Romantic myth of the mad genius of which she was a living embodiment; an Icarus or figure of Prometheus.
In her we find a reflection of Byron awakening from stuperous revels at the foot of a goddess or whore, unsure if he is there to worship or to mock. And of course she is also the figure on the pedestal, avatar and sacrifice, wondering what the devil she's doing there and thinking up one last trick, illusion, or game of words by which she may release and transform both of them and become human.
Mercurial, protean, a will o' the wisp, armed with the full panoply of literary regalia like Achilles and tilting at windmills of Augustinian thematic looming dark, with the sardonic japery of a self-aware Don Quixote spinning inside jokes at a cocktail party of the puffed up and decadent professorial fools of culture; Iris Murdoch rides under the twin banners of Platonism and Surrealism, great rivals of the Academy, with the panache of a trickster goddess.
Her fiction is informed by her scholarship as an important Platonic philosoper, and shaped by her relationship with her mentor of 39 years, the French Surrealist Raymond Queneau, whose novel Zazie was a kind of toolkit and model of authorial techniques for her, like Da Vinci's Book of Secrets.
These two forces, classicism and surrealism, a conservatism from the dawn of civilization and a radical modernism which flouts all boundaries, are harnessed together uniquely in her art, defying conventions of academic tribalism and bringing British literature into the mainstream of European tradition.
This is the secret of her greatness; a sleight of hand only half of which is comprehensible to her fellow professors, depending on which tribe they belong to. She similarly baffled and confounded her associates in her personal life. I think she had a lot of fun doing so.
Great books and immortal classics of her twin arts include the tomes philosophic Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, and The Sovereignty of Good. Of her novels, beginning with The Black Prince she created a legacy of vivid and incisive works; The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, A Word Child, Henry and Cato, The Sea, the Sea, Nuns and Soldiers, The Philosopher's Pupil, The Good Apprentice, The Book and the Brotherhood, The Message to the Planet, and The Green Knight. There are also poems, plays, and many books about her and her work, among them Peter J. Conradi's 2001 biography & his critical book The Saint and the Artist: A Study of Iris Murdoch's Works.
The Philosopher's Pupil presents a battle of love and art, good and evil for the soul of man in a reimagination of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
In The Good Apprentice, the play of Illusion and Reality, madness and actuality, love,art, all her great themes complicate an inquiry into the nature of the Good.
The Green Knight references both the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Biblical story of Cain and Abel in an alternate reality London which recapitulates and interrogates the history of humanity and civilization in a narrative Socratic dialog.
Iris Murdoch crafted exquisite narrative puzzles and inquiries into the nature of the Good and other Ideals peopled with unforgettable and complex characters, written with playfulness, a mastery of language games, and great depth of soul, and above all examining the figure of the demonic philosopher and the Romantic myth of the mad genius of which she was a living embodiment; an Icarus or figure of Prometheus.
In her we find a reflection of Byron awakening from stuperous revels at the foot of a goddess or whore, unsure if he is there to worship or to mock. And of course she is also the figure on the pedestal, avatar and sacrifice, wondering what the devil she's doing there and thinking up one last trick, illusion, or game of words by which she may release and transform both of them and become human.
November 15, 2010
Iris Murdoch writes about a London in which young people in the 1990s wear vests, woolly tights and pyjamas, sing madrigals, exclaim, "Good Heavens!" and "Oh Lord!", and don't watch TV. It's very strange, but endearing - her London is the London we all know, same river, same places, same landmarks, but an oddly different zeitgeist - like a parallel universe version of London.
If you can suspend astonishment and accept this, then you're in for another cracking good read - a plot that's too good to give away, here, and masterly narrative that never loses it's vibrancy or momentum, never mind that it's her penultimate novel and there are allegedly hints of the effects of dementia detectable within it. It's simply brilliant!
If you can suspend astonishment and accept this, then you're in for another cracking good read - a plot that's too good to give away, here, and masterly narrative that never loses it's vibrancy or momentum, never mind that it's her penultimate novel and there are allegedly hints of the effects of dementia detectable within it. It's simply brilliant!
May 11, 2022
Iris Murdoch was a famous philosopher (whose philosophy I don't know much about), as well as a novelist, and also the subject of a moving film ( "Iris," 2001) about her descent into Alzheimer's. I had read another novel of hers ages ago and remembered enjoying it, and recently got the idea of seeking out some more of her novels because her name came up in a discussion where someone said that if you have a yen for reading about scenes of people having afternoon tea, her books are full of them, and that was exactly the yen I had at the moment. I've tried to get away from ordering books online unless I can't find them in a physical bookstore, since the bookstore shopping is such a pleasure for me, but none of my favorite shops seemed to be carrying anything by her - I suppose since she passed away in 1999, her novels have begun to fall out of fashion. But, I did eventually come across several in a used bookstore and snapped them up. I was particularly intrigued by the title of this one, because I had just seen the film "The Green Knight," which was so strange and hypnotic and beautiful.
So the book - it definitely did have a lot of cozy scenes of rainy days where people would sit indoors talking and making each other tea. The cast of characters were by turns sympathetic, implausibly articulate and intellectual, charmingly quirky, painful to read about in their occasional acute suffering, and difficult to understand despite the stream-of-consciousness style of writing. So, basically, like people I would enjoy hanging out with in real life. At almost 500 pages, the book goes deeply into all their psyches, and by the end I felt attached to them, and sad to say goodbye on the last page, and at the same time ready for a bit of an introverted break from all the intimacy and intensity of spending time with them.
The resonances with the medieval story of Gawain and the Green Knight come through clearly without hitting you over the head, so it was fun recognizing the familiar elements. I really don't know if I would recommend this book to others - it's the kind of book where you need a lot of time and calm to let yourself just go where the meandering story and character arcs will take you and to savor the beautiful prose and contemplate the strangeness of things, and you come out at the other end a little confused about where you've been and why you were there. All the same, I really enjoyed it and was glad to have read it - it was "a journey," as they say. I think another charming aspect for me is that it came out in 1993, a couple of years before the advent of e-mail and the internet, so it has the nostalgic aspect of being set in a world where people still send each other letters through the mail, and the immobile telephone is still an important line of communication, and relationships all have the simplicity and immediacy of the pre-social media world, with no one fixated on posting pictures of their lunch to Instagram. It made me miss that world.
So the book - it definitely did have a lot of cozy scenes of rainy days where people would sit indoors talking and making each other tea. The cast of characters were by turns sympathetic, implausibly articulate and intellectual, charmingly quirky, painful to read about in their occasional acute suffering, and difficult to understand despite the stream-of-consciousness style of writing. So, basically, like people I would enjoy hanging out with in real life. At almost 500 pages, the book goes deeply into all their psyches, and by the end I felt attached to them, and sad to say goodbye on the last page, and at the same time ready for a bit of an introverted break from all the intimacy and intensity of spending time with them.
The resonances with the medieval story of Gawain and the Green Knight come through clearly without hitting you over the head, so it was fun recognizing the familiar elements. I really don't know if I would recommend this book to others - it's the kind of book where you need a lot of time and calm to let yourself just go where the meandering story and character arcs will take you and to savor the beautiful prose and contemplate the strangeness of things, and you come out at the other end a little confused about where you've been and why you were there. All the same, I really enjoyed it and was glad to have read it - it was "a journey," as they say. I think another charming aspect for me is that it came out in 1993, a couple of years before the advent of e-mail and the internet, so it has the nostalgic aspect of being set in a world where people still send each other letters through the mail, and the immobile telephone is still an important line of communication, and relationships all have the simplicity and immediacy of the pre-social media world, with no one fixated on posting pictures of their lunch to Instagram. It made me miss that world.
March 14, 2010
Throughly caught up in the dramas of Lucus and Clement and their brush with murder, also Bellamy's wish to become a monk. Enjoy Iris's way with words. So far so good.
Finished. Iris weaves a good story, was unable to stop reading. One flaw though, one of the characters dies suddenly and I suspect that Iris just killed him off to finish the story as no other character actually questions why he died or how he died. And so while the other characters have resolutions to their problems the catalyst (the character that dies) is just forgotten.
Finished. Iris weaves a good story, was unable to stop reading. One flaw though, one of the characters dies suddenly and I suspect that Iris just killed him off to finish the story as no other character actually questions why he died or how he died. And so while the other characters have resolutions to their problems the catalyst (the character that dies) is just forgotten.
March 22, 2015
One of my favorites that I re-read every few years. The setting is contemporary but doesn't feel 'real'. Many complain that the dialogue and characters don't seem realistic but they aren't meant to. This isn't realist literature. May as well complain that Monet's 'Water Lilies' are all blurry. As well the plot centres around a 'murder mystery' but most of the book is not directly focused on this plot, much more is on character and inward meaning.
July 3, 2008
I have read around in the Green Knight. It is one of those books I began not to trust and so went to the ending and read backwards. The large array of characters are fascinating, but also unreal in their actions and attitudes. The philosophical talk is charming and thoughtful, but because the author provides detailed descriptions of the characters without allowing examination of those characters in conflict, I developed little of the attachment to them that I would have had I seen their personalities worked out in particular situations. As I stopped caring about the characters the artificial plot annoyed me greatly.
September 30, 2021
Swan attacks! Umbrella swords! Vegetarian butchers!
This might be the wackiest book I’ve ever read, even for a philosophical novel. Caught somewhere between existentialism and absurdism, it’s never quite as heavy handed as similar novels.
The pacing was strange, but I could not care when I was always trying to find out what was going to happen next! Anyone who claims to know how the book will end is lying.
The characters were outrageous and fun. The dialogue was superb and often made me laugh. And it was always wonderfully queer.
This might be the wackiest book I’ve ever read, even for a philosophical novel. Caught somewhere between existentialism and absurdism, it’s never quite as heavy handed as similar novels.
The pacing was strange, but I could not care when I was always trying to find out what was going to happen next! Anyone who claims to know how the book will end is lying.
The characters were outrageous and fun. The dialogue was superb and often made me laugh. And it was always wonderfully queer.
April 20, 2022
I had a hard time assigning a star rating for this confounding, mesmerizing, and overlong book. The setup couldn't be simpler: a close-knit group of long-time friends is shaken up by the arrival of a mysterious visitor, who insinuates himself into their clique with the promise of long-withheld secrets. But the pacing is pretty slack - scenes seem to repeat themselves over and over again to the point where I thought I had lost my place a few times. It was entertaining, but it wasn't very deep, and golly, was it long.
September 10, 2018
Exquisite dialogue, well-crafted characters, and gravity that turns the reader inward.
This gets better every time I read it. But, it does demand an awful lot from its reader. So consider yourself warned.
— "How terribly quickly things go away into the past and people become ghosts, first vivid ghosts, then pale ghosts, then just names, then – nothing." —
This gets better every time I read it. But, it does demand an awful lot from its reader. So consider yourself warned.
— "How terribly quickly things go away into the past and people become ghosts, first vivid ghosts, then pale ghosts, then just names, then – nothing." —
January 19, 2021
Published in 1993, this was Murdoch's 25th (and penultimate) novel. It's a very good novel, not dissimilar to her other novels that I have read, but seems to me, tame in comparison. Yes, there are many characters and yes, they are confused and impulsive, as is usual. But lacking is the wild, violent drama that I've come to associate with Murdoch. Also lacking is her trademark humorous dialogue, both spoken and inner dialogue.
There is very little action in this novel, also an oddity. I would expect her characters to be striking and yelling at each other, or throwing themselves on the floor. There are really only three great dramatic scenes here; the best is very short, told from the dog's POV; the other is with Moy and the swan; the last is the key scene where Peter Mir enters the story.
Peter is the central figure around which everything and everyone revolves. He is both The Green Knight and also a Christ figure. This is where Murdoch's strength lies in this novel. Peter is clouded in mystery and meaning, also sadness.
The other characters are somewhat disappointing and not very convincing. There are too many long rambling scenes with too much repetitive talking. Overall the book is way too long. The story doesn't get going until about page 90. I almost gave up on it, which I have never before thought of doing with this great writer.
If you can stick it through the protracted beginning and the long rambling ending, it is a rewarding read with a powerful central motif.
There is very little action in this novel, also an oddity. I would expect her characters to be striking and yelling at each other, or throwing themselves on the floor. There are really only three great dramatic scenes here; the best is very short, told from the dog's POV; the other is with Moy and the swan; the last is the key scene where Peter Mir enters the story.
Peter is the central figure around which everything and everyone revolves. He is both The Green Knight and also a Christ figure. This is where Murdoch's strength lies in this novel. Peter is clouded in mystery and meaning, also sadness.
The other characters are somewhat disappointing and not very convincing. There are too many long rambling scenes with too much repetitive talking. Overall the book is way too long. The story doesn't get going until about page 90. I almost gave up on it, which I have never before thought of doing with this great writer.
If you can stick it through the protracted beginning and the long rambling ending, it is a rewarding read with a powerful central motif.
August 4, 2019
I started off being unsure of this book, but warmed to it as it progressed. Some of the characters were infuriating, some I didn't like (e.g. Lucas), but the plot was intriguing and it was interesting to examine Murdoch's writing style.
December 5, 2023
I honestly didn't think I'd ever finish this, 472 pages of densely written pages with next to nothing ever happening. I so enjoyed The Severed Head and The Black Prince - this was an overwritten, too long soap opera.
May 3, 2021
Perfection.
November 14, 2023
A veritable feast of language and of story!
January 7, 2024
My charitable review: too much symbolism and metaphor for my literal mind.
My uncharitable review: too many self-indulgent twee people who don't need to work. Maybe if they had to get up and out of the house 4 or 5 days a week, they would realize that they don't have as many problems as they think they do.
My uncharitable review: too many self-indulgent twee people who don't need to work. Maybe if they had to get up and out of the house 4 or 5 days a week, they would realize that they don't have as many problems as they think they do.
Read
January 7, 2018A difficult book to settle on. One that has flashes of brilliance (it is by Iris Murdoch, after all) but becomes mired at points in unbelievable dialogue (everyone with that same upperclass English eloquence) and small dilemmas much considered - which didn't have to be an issue, except that the book could have been heavily cut down to the benefit of the power of what was happening, I think. I can't help but feel the shadow of the author's Alzheimer's, possibly incipient at the time of her writing, leading to some of the issues. Still, there's a lot here that is good and worthwhile and engaging.
January 10, 2021
The Green Knight is a late novel from Iris Murdoch. A psychological and spiritual thriller it lapses into some appalling caricature with some of the minor characters like the 'Australian' publican Kenneth Rathbone: "Listen, sport, I want to know what's happening to my mate? Who is that bastard you were conveying?" (347) And then "Well said, cobber" (357). When one of the girls disappears Kenneth turns up with a case of lager "which he thought might help, and stayed a little, also sitting in the kitchen and drinking the lager and talking to Louise..." (405). All taken whole from the Barry Humphries guide to the textbook Aussie larrikin as personified by Bazza McKenzie and Sir Les Patterson. In Mudoch's defence, it is the larrikin Rathbone can I defies doctor's orders and climbs through a window to be with Peter Mir before his death (449). Bellamy was "tormented by his conversation with Kenneth Rathbone" (451). He asks himself why he "had not the wit and the sensibility and the consuming love to climb through a window..." (452).
There are also the thematic concerns that Murdoch explored again and again in her late fiction. Through these Murdoch demonstrates her acceptance of Aristotle's taxonomy of souls in which all living things have a soul; vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive and intellective.
Stones
The teenager Moy and her collection of "grotesque ugly flint stones...". She reached out to one: "After a moment the stone shifted slightly, it rocked, then slid evenly forward off the shelf and through the air into her hand... She put the stone, warmed and reassured by her hand, back on the shelf" (21)
Moy's stone "which she had found near a big grey rock in the hills near Bellamy's cottage... Perhaps she ought to take the stone back... tones walked sometimes. Perhaps this poor stone would set off one day through the streets of London seeking its lo set friend who was now forsaken" (148).
Reflecting later on the same 'conical stone, still covered with runic scrawls of yellow lichen' Moy thinks to herself, "How unhappy it must be. And she thought of the grey rock far away, lonely in the night and the day, the Sun and the storm. Tears came into her eyes" (261). Like Harvey she feels'crippled'.
Animals
The dog Anax is essentially one of the characters in this novel. The thought processes of the dog are interwoven with those of the human characters. It is clearly a dog but does not identify with its own species. "Anax did not really like other dogs, and regarded them.one and all as an inferior species" (185). For Anax, dignity matters. This novel in some ways about a dogs search for identity that places it on the same level of consciousness as the human characters, engaged in the same existential struggle for meaning.
When human beings come between a dog and his master: the dog Anax watches Moy and the moving stone but when she reassures him Anax's 'judgemental eyes say to her "Where is my lord, for you, have taken him away and I know not you have hidden him" (21)
Clement is asked about the special game he played with his older adopted brother Lucas. It was called "Dogs" but when asked why he says he has forgotten (34). Later it is revealed the punishment for being born and taking over his parents' love and affection was a carefully hidden bullying, "The despotism remained a secret between the master and theslave" (81). Despite winning the 'early childhood game' Lucas had beaten Clement at "Dogs". However, Lucas is described as being "not really capable of hatred" (82). Lucas plans to kill his brother but is interrupted by a stranger who he kills with a baseball bat. Clement is given the bat to hide. When he returns it, it is revealed it is the "very sample bat which had played a major part in the game of 'Dogs', a considerably more ferocious game than was dreamt of by their mother, to whom Clement did not dare to show his bruises" (90).
Bellamy gives up Anax upon the "spiritual road of no return" (45). Bellamy tried to describe to Moy Anax's "look of perfect innocence, perfect love, which could not but be just. Bellamy thought, a dog is an image of God, better than us" (46).
When Harvey gets a plaster cast which is drawn upon, Clement's contribution is describes as a 'comic dog (48).
God as a dog. Bellamy wonders why he gave up social work and decides "Because he had been disturbed by religion, by the Absolute, by the Hound of Heaven" (76).
When Mir returns from the dead he demands restitution from Lucas. "Mir turned to him for a moment and Clement gained an impression of his head, suddenly like a the head of a large animal, a boat perhaps, or even a buffalo" (124). As the conversation continues "Why does he look so like an animal? Clement thought, he smiles like a dog. He has proud mercy nostrils like a horse, and children his hair is like a close pelt, and he has big prominent dark eyes" (125).
Moy is attacked by a swan in the Thames when she rescues a black duck "... As Moy steadied herself, the swan was upon her, she saw the great wings, unfolded and in the surface water the big black webbed feet trailing like claws, as the swan fell upon her, pressing her down with its descending weight, as it had pressed down the little struggling duck" (175).
Anax's escape: "Anax had, since the terrible moment when he had realised that Bellamy was not coming back to Clifton to fetch him home had been obsessed by one great thought, to escape" (182). "He did not picture any plan, but simply knew that as soon as he was free he would be guided" (183).
Anax gets lost in the park "He too had had no breakfast and was feeling hungry. He was also aware that he was not wearing his collar, and that troubled him. He felt undressed, unsafe" (184). "... some boys were playing football with a big black Labrador, who had learnt to dribble the ball with its nose. People passing by were laughing. Anax scorned the animal's undignified behaviour" (185).
List on the streets looking for his master, Anax's encounters a mouse: "Anax felt pity for the mouse, or something more likecaffinity, respect. He did not wantonly kill other creatures as cats do, and some dogs are taught to do. He felt such a strange feeling, as if He had lost his identity" (186).
Not only does Peter Mir (the green knight) find Anax and take him home, he tells the girls who are all vegetarian "I care very much about animals" (194).
Clement confesses to Bellamy. He has been lying to protect his brother Lucas. In the process he says "everything I do is false, I've lost my self" (237). He is like Anax....
A victim of unrequited love Moy jumps into the sea to be with the seals, her people. Anax starts barking from the shore and Bellamy isalerted to the danger and comes to her rescue (467). After her rescue, Anax leads Moy to the place where she once found the conical stone. "Moy felt something snap inside her as if her heart had snapped..." (470).
Shakespeare
Then there is Murdoch's indebtedness to Shakespeare who figures on a regular basis and throughout her writing.
After Bellamy turns away from his lover Magnus, chooses to wear black and white. Clement teases him saying "he was just always playing Hamlet. (A part which Clement had so far aspired in vain)" (45).
The girls play a game, 'what character in fiction Peter Mir reminded them of.' Sefton suggests Prospero (195).
Lucas tells his actor brother Clement "Get back to your theatre world. Has anybody asked you to play Hamlet yet?" (200).
When Harvey begins to suspect his mother Joan is having affair with Lucas he "wishes he could" fly like Ariel "to investigate (245).
When Harvey is despairing of being 'filthy and guilty and worthless' he wonders what she means when she says he will 'awake? He asks, "You mean wonderful, like people in Henry James?" She replies, "No, noble, heroic, straight-backed, like people in Shakespeare." (263).
The structure of the novel emulates Shakespeare's late 'problem' plays with their magical resolutions. "Harvey, looking up at Moy, thought suddenly, Anax loves Bellamy, Not loves Clement, I love Aleph. And here we all are shipwrecked. Of what a fool I am! 'When will she be back?' he said to Moy. Not made a vague helpless gesture. Evidently she didn't know" (327).
After the disappearance of Aleph, Clement stays the night at Louise's request. "Clement had achieved his great ambition at last. He was playing Hamlet" (413). He imagines himself dancing, "Now he was on the ground confronting a woman,, only this woman was t wow women, and the two women were his mother and Ophelia" (413).
There are also the thematic concerns that Murdoch explored again and again in her late fiction. Through these Murdoch demonstrates her acceptance of Aristotle's taxonomy of souls in which all living things have a soul; vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive and intellective.
Stones
The teenager Moy and her collection of "grotesque ugly flint stones...". She reached out to one: "After a moment the stone shifted slightly, it rocked, then slid evenly forward off the shelf and through the air into her hand... She put the stone, warmed and reassured by her hand, back on the shelf" (21)
Moy's stone "which she had found near a big grey rock in the hills near Bellamy's cottage... Perhaps she ought to take the stone back... tones walked sometimes. Perhaps this poor stone would set off one day through the streets of London seeking its lo set friend who was now forsaken" (148).
Reflecting later on the same 'conical stone, still covered with runic scrawls of yellow lichen' Moy thinks to herself, "How unhappy it must be. And she thought of the grey rock far away, lonely in the night and the day, the Sun and the storm. Tears came into her eyes" (261). Like Harvey she feels'crippled'.
Animals
The dog Anax is essentially one of the characters in this novel. The thought processes of the dog are interwoven with those of the human characters. It is clearly a dog but does not identify with its own species. "Anax did not really like other dogs, and regarded them.one and all as an inferior species" (185). For Anax, dignity matters. This novel in some ways about a dogs search for identity that places it on the same level of consciousness as the human characters, engaged in the same existential struggle for meaning.
When human beings come between a dog and his master: the dog Anax watches Moy and the moving stone but when she reassures him Anax's 'judgemental eyes say to her "Where is my lord, for you, have taken him away and I know not you have hidden him" (21)
Clement is asked about the special game he played with his older adopted brother Lucas. It was called "Dogs" but when asked why he says he has forgotten (34). Later it is revealed the punishment for being born and taking over his parents' love and affection was a carefully hidden bullying, "The despotism remained a secret between the master and theslave" (81). Despite winning the 'early childhood game' Lucas had beaten Clement at "Dogs". However, Lucas is described as being "not really capable of hatred" (82). Lucas plans to kill his brother but is interrupted by a stranger who he kills with a baseball bat. Clement is given the bat to hide. When he returns it, it is revealed it is the "very sample bat which had played a major part in the game of 'Dogs', a considerably more ferocious game than was dreamt of by their mother, to whom Clement did not dare to show his bruises" (90).
Bellamy gives up Anax upon the "spiritual road of no return" (45). Bellamy tried to describe to Moy Anax's "look of perfect innocence, perfect love, which could not but be just. Bellamy thought, a dog is an image of God, better than us" (46).
When Harvey gets a plaster cast which is drawn upon, Clement's contribution is describes as a 'comic dog (48).
God as a dog. Bellamy wonders why he gave up social work and decides "Because he had been disturbed by religion, by the Absolute, by the Hound of Heaven" (76).
When Mir returns from the dead he demands restitution from Lucas. "Mir turned to him for a moment and Clement gained an impression of his head, suddenly like a the head of a large animal, a boat perhaps, or even a buffalo" (124). As the conversation continues "Why does he look so like an animal? Clement thought, he smiles like a dog. He has proud mercy nostrils like a horse, and children his hair is like a close pelt, and he has big prominent dark eyes" (125).
Moy is attacked by a swan in the Thames when she rescues a black duck "... As Moy steadied herself, the swan was upon her, she saw the great wings, unfolded and in the surface water the big black webbed feet trailing like claws, as the swan fell upon her, pressing her down with its descending weight, as it had pressed down the little struggling duck" (175).
Anax's escape: "Anax had, since the terrible moment when he had realised that Bellamy was not coming back to Clifton to fetch him home had been obsessed by one great thought, to escape" (182). "He did not picture any plan, but simply knew that as soon as he was free he would be guided" (183).
Anax gets lost in the park "He too had had no breakfast and was feeling hungry. He was also aware that he was not wearing his collar, and that troubled him. He felt undressed, unsafe" (184). "... some boys were playing football with a big black Labrador, who had learnt to dribble the ball with its nose. People passing by were laughing. Anax scorned the animal's undignified behaviour" (185).
List on the streets looking for his master, Anax's encounters a mouse: "Anax felt pity for the mouse, or something more likecaffinity, respect. He did not wantonly kill other creatures as cats do, and some dogs are taught to do. He felt such a strange feeling, as if He had lost his identity" (186).
Not only does Peter Mir (the green knight) find Anax and take him home, he tells the girls who are all vegetarian "I care very much about animals" (194).
Clement confesses to Bellamy. He has been lying to protect his brother Lucas. In the process he says "everything I do is false, I've lost my self" (237). He is like Anax....
A victim of unrequited love Moy jumps into the sea to be with the seals, her people. Anax starts barking from the shore and Bellamy isalerted to the danger and comes to her rescue (467). After her rescue, Anax leads Moy to the place where she once found the conical stone. "Moy felt something snap inside her as if her heart had snapped..." (470).
Shakespeare
Then there is Murdoch's indebtedness to Shakespeare who figures on a regular basis and throughout her writing.
After Bellamy turns away from his lover Magnus, chooses to wear black and white. Clement teases him saying "he was just always playing Hamlet. (A part which Clement had so far aspired in vain)" (45).
The girls play a game, 'what character in fiction Peter Mir reminded them of.' Sefton suggests Prospero (195).
Lucas tells his actor brother Clement "Get back to your theatre world. Has anybody asked you to play Hamlet yet?" (200).
When Harvey begins to suspect his mother Joan is having affair with Lucas he "wishes he could" fly like Ariel "to investigate (245).
When Harvey is despairing of being 'filthy and guilty and worthless' he wonders what she means when she says he will 'awake? He asks, "You mean wonderful, like people in Henry James?" She replies, "No, noble, heroic, straight-backed, like people in Shakespeare." (263).
The structure of the novel emulates Shakespeare's late 'problem' plays with their magical resolutions. "Harvey, looking up at Moy, thought suddenly, Anax loves Bellamy, Not loves Clement, I love Aleph. And here we all are shipwrecked. Of what a fool I am! 'When will she be back?' he said to Moy. Not made a vague helpless gesture. Evidently she didn't know" (327).
After the disappearance of Aleph, Clement stays the night at Louise's request. "Clement had achieved his great ambition at last. He was playing Hamlet" (413). He imagines himself dancing, "Now he was on the ground confronting a woman,, only this woman was t wow women, and the two women were his mother and Ophelia" (413).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2021
I have read a number of Iris Murdoch's books over the years and have enjoyed them all. I hadn't heard of The Green Knight until I saw it on a friend's bookshelf and she very kindly passed it onto me. It was written towards the end of her writing career in 1993. It follows a group of friends who after a series of events described throughout the book are transformed. At the start of the book Lucas Graffe, an academic, has disappeared following an incident when he killed a man said to be robbing him in self-defence. This has caused great consternation for his brother Clement, a charismatic actor, their friend Bellamy who is going through a time of crisis, has given away all his possessions including his dog and considering becoming a monk and the inhabitants of Clifton where Louise, the widow of one of Lucas' university friends lives with her three talented teenage daughters, Aleph, Sefton and Moy. Joan, another friend and her son Harvey are frequent visitors to Clifton and Aleph and Harvey have formed a close friendship.
Lucas comes back and then a mysterious man is seen watching Clifton - he makes himself know to Lucas and it turns out that he is the man who he killed who had made a miraculous recovery from the head injury inflicted on him. His name is Peter Mir and he says he is a psychoanalyst. He is demanding 'justice' because he claims his head injury has made him unable to work because he has forgotten something that is key to him. At first he just wants to meet Lucas' friends and reluctantly Clement introduces him to The Clifton circle. Lucas does not attend the gathering at Clifton (he is very reclusive) at which Peter drops the bombshell that Clement was present on the night that he was attached by Lucas and that in fact Lucas was intending to kill Clement, of whom he has always been jealous as he was adopted, Clement being born to his adoptive parents a couple of years later.
Thinking Peter not quite right in the head following his injuries, no-one believes his account, except Clement who of course knows the truth, but he denies Peter's account, through loyalty (totally misplaced in my opinion) to his brother whom he has always loved, despite being bullied by him as a child. With Peter still wanting justice, Lucas is persuaded to stage a re-enactment of the attack with Clement and Bellamy in attendance as 'seconds'. This causes Peter to remember that what he'd forgotten was his faith; he had been a Buddhist he said. Following a very bizarre incident where Peter cuts Lucas with a knife concealed in his umbrella(!) he feels justice has been done and invites everyone to a dinner party at his home. The injury to Lucas is superficial.
Bellamy meanwhile has had some sort of mystic experience as he saw Peter as an angel during the recreation of the attack and feels that he will be his salvation. During the dinner party Peter offers him a job as his secretary, having decided to do benevolent work. Bellamy is ecstatic! However this is short lived as midway through the party medics appear to take Peter Mir back; he has it seems absconded from the hospital where he was still undergoing treatment. And he is not a psychoanalyst but a butcher! Although a rich one as he had built up his father's business. He had been in hiding in the local pub and only come back to his house a few days ago, which alerted the medical team to his whereabouts.
Aleph goes on holiday with a friend and then vanishes. After a couple of days of great anxiety as to her whereabouts, Louise receives a letter from her eldest daughter dropping the bombshell that Aleph has gone to America with Lucas to whom she will be married. At about the same time we learn that Peter has died in hospital from his injuries.
This to me was the key event in the book. This unexpected and unlikely pairing of Aleph and Lucas frees up other characters to find happiness. Sefton and Harvey have fallen in love but Sefton felt that she didn't want to stand in the way of her sister as everyone believed that Aleph and Harvey would marry. Furthermore she secretly adored Lucas by whom she'd been tutored over the years. Clement has long loved Louise but she has been very confused about her feelings as Lucas had asked her to marry him not long after her husband died, but she turned him down. Louise is now free to be with Clement. There is a lovely scene where the two delighted couples share their news and everyone is happy - except Moy. Everyone thinks this is because she is in love with Clement, but we learn at the end of the book that it's Harvey she loves. However at the end of the book even Moy, whom I found the most fragile character is transformed following being rescued from the sea by Bellamy and his dog Anax. Bellamy too finds happiness with Emil.
As usual with Iris Murdoch, this book is full of strange events! The recreation of the attack is a definite moment of black comedy. There are quirky small details like Clement returning to the scene of the crime to retrieve the 'murder' weapon, a baseball bat, only to find that a Belgian family have found it in the park and take it away with them. Excellent way to dispose of incriminating evidence! I loved the bohemian atmosphere of Clifton with the aviary, the room where the sisters spent their time. Although they lived together each of the inhabitants tended to live separately, not always eating meals together and spending a lot of time alone in their rooms.
I also liked a lot of the characters. Moy was a lovely gentle soul. She loves all creatures and is very upset if she thinks she has hurt any of them. She gets attacked by a swan and has flashbacks about it, although is most upset by the thought that she might have hurt the swan. She has a collection of stones and she even thinks that they have feelings. She is most worried by a stone she has taken from Bellamy's cottage by the sea and wants to put it back because she thinks it is missing the rock that was next to it - this she is able to do right at the end of the book and this is an important event for her.
The only character I disliked was Lucas. He was arrogant and did not deserve his brother's loyalty. The only character who seemed to have any influence over him was Peter and I was cheering him on when he insisted on justice!
I think my favourite scene was the dinner party. I wanted to be there and eat the coq au vin and bread and butter pudding! Interestingly food often featured in this book - usually just ordinary food like bread and cheese or coffee and biscuits. This reminded me of Murakami, in particular The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, where we were constantly told what the characters were eating. It struck me that both Iris Murdoch and Haruki Murakami share other similarities. Their characters whilst going about their daily lives have very deep and intellectual conversations and are searching for answers to life's great questions. Animals also occur in both writer's work. There is Toru's missing cat in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and Anax the dog in The Green Knight. We even get a whole section of the book from Anax's perspective and he is important to the plot. Also I could just imagine Bellamy deciding to go down a well or Toru wanting to repatriate a stone! Similarly acts of violence appear in both writers books.
The Green Knight is told from multiple viewpoints - Moy, Sefton, Clement, Bellamy, Harvey - but not Aleph or Lucas. This is interesting as we only see their actions through the eyes of others, yet their actions are crucial to the transformations that the other characters go through. Louise feels that they have all 'lived under Aleph's great brilliant canopy', yet to me she is a shadowy character.
I really enjoyed this book and it would rank highly amongst the other Iris Murdoch books I have read. This was one of the last books she wrote but I feel she was still at the height of her powers, before the dementia robbed her of her voice. Excellent 5/5!
Lucas comes back and then a mysterious man is seen watching Clifton - he makes himself know to Lucas and it turns out that he is the man who he killed who had made a miraculous recovery from the head injury inflicted on him. His name is Peter Mir and he says he is a psychoanalyst. He is demanding 'justice' because he claims his head injury has made him unable to work because he has forgotten something that is key to him. At first he just wants to meet Lucas' friends and reluctantly Clement introduces him to The Clifton circle. Lucas does not attend the gathering at Clifton (he is very reclusive) at which Peter drops the bombshell that Clement was present on the night that he was attached by Lucas and that in fact Lucas was intending to kill Clement, of whom he has always been jealous as he was adopted, Clement being born to his adoptive parents a couple of years later.
Thinking Peter not quite right in the head following his injuries, no-one believes his account, except Clement who of course knows the truth, but he denies Peter's account, through loyalty (totally misplaced in my opinion) to his brother whom he has always loved, despite being bullied by him as a child. With Peter still wanting justice, Lucas is persuaded to stage a re-enactment of the attack with Clement and Bellamy in attendance as 'seconds'. This causes Peter to remember that what he'd forgotten was his faith; he had been a Buddhist he said. Following a very bizarre incident where Peter cuts Lucas with a knife concealed in his umbrella(!) he feels justice has been done and invites everyone to a dinner party at his home. The injury to Lucas is superficial.
Bellamy meanwhile has had some sort of mystic experience as he saw Peter as an angel during the recreation of the attack and feels that he will be his salvation. During the dinner party Peter offers him a job as his secretary, having decided to do benevolent work. Bellamy is ecstatic! However this is short lived as midway through the party medics appear to take Peter Mir back; he has it seems absconded from the hospital where he was still undergoing treatment. And he is not a psychoanalyst but a butcher! Although a rich one as he had built up his father's business. He had been in hiding in the local pub and only come back to his house a few days ago, which alerted the medical team to his whereabouts.
Aleph goes on holiday with a friend and then vanishes. After a couple of days of great anxiety as to her whereabouts, Louise receives a letter from her eldest daughter dropping the bombshell that Aleph has gone to America with Lucas to whom she will be married. At about the same time we learn that Peter has died in hospital from his injuries.
This to me was the key event in the book. This unexpected and unlikely pairing of Aleph and Lucas frees up other characters to find happiness. Sefton and Harvey have fallen in love but Sefton felt that she didn't want to stand in the way of her sister as everyone believed that Aleph and Harvey would marry. Furthermore she secretly adored Lucas by whom she'd been tutored over the years. Clement has long loved Louise but she has been very confused about her feelings as Lucas had asked her to marry him not long after her husband died, but she turned him down. Louise is now free to be with Clement. There is a lovely scene where the two delighted couples share their news and everyone is happy - except Moy. Everyone thinks this is because she is in love with Clement, but we learn at the end of the book that it's Harvey she loves. However at the end of the book even Moy, whom I found the most fragile character is transformed following being rescued from the sea by Bellamy and his dog Anax. Bellamy too finds happiness with Emil.
As usual with Iris Murdoch, this book is full of strange events! The recreation of the attack is a definite moment of black comedy. There are quirky small details like Clement returning to the scene of the crime to retrieve the 'murder' weapon, a baseball bat, only to find that a Belgian family have found it in the park and take it away with them. Excellent way to dispose of incriminating evidence! I loved the bohemian atmosphere of Clifton with the aviary, the room where the sisters spent their time. Although they lived together each of the inhabitants tended to live separately, not always eating meals together and spending a lot of time alone in their rooms.
I also liked a lot of the characters. Moy was a lovely gentle soul. She loves all creatures and is very upset if she thinks she has hurt any of them. She gets attacked by a swan and has flashbacks about it, although is most upset by the thought that she might have hurt the swan. She has a collection of stones and she even thinks that they have feelings. She is most worried by a stone she has taken from Bellamy's cottage by the sea and wants to put it back because she thinks it is missing the rock that was next to it - this she is able to do right at the end of the book and this is an important event for her.
The only character I disliked was Lucas. He was arrogant and did not deserve his brother's loyalty. The only character who seemed to have any influence over him was Peter and I was cheering him on when he insisted on justice!
I think my favourite scene was the dinner party. I wanted to be there and eat the coq au vin and bread and butter pudding! Interestingly food often featured in this book - usually just ordinary food like bread and cheese or coffee and biscuits. This reminded me of Murakami, in particular The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, where we were constantly told what the characters were eating. It struck me that both Iris Murdoch and Haruki Murakami share other similarities. Their characters whilst going about their daily lives have very deep and intellectual conversations and are searching for answers to life's great questions. Animals also occur in both writer's work. There is Toru's missing cat in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and Anax the dog in The Green Knight. We even get a whole section of the book from Anax's perspective and he is important to the plot. Also I could just imagine Bellamy deciding to go down a well or Toru wanting to repatriate a stone! Similarly acts of violence appear in both writers books.
The Green Knight is told from multiple viewpoints - Moy, Sefton, Clement, Bellamy, Harvey - but not Aleph or Lucas. This is interesting as we only see their actions through the eyes of others, yet their actions are crucial to the transformations that the other characters go through. Louise feels that they have all 'lived under Aleph's great brilliant canopy', yet to me she is a shadowy character.
I really enjoyed this book and it would rank highly amongst the other Iris Murdoch books I have read. This was one of the last books she wrote but I feel she was still at the height of her powers, before the dementia robbed her of her voice. Excellent 5/5!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 16, 2013
The Green Knight is the 25th novel written by the prolific Iris Murdoch, the purpose of this novel is reasoning about the connection between art and morality a first example lies at page 9:
"A picture of Remembrant: Oh yes. I always found that picture a bit soppy. isn't he supposed to be a woman? And anyway now they say it isn't by Remembrandt. But seriously, are they in love?
Looking at this painting we can say that the art is immoral because we are considering the knight as a woman and not as man.
With this example I tried to explain or better to give a personal definition of morality which is influenced by the society, if so, it will be positive or negative, for the future generations? and in this context which rule has our ego?
"When I die, what goes away? nothing. As we grow older the body devours the soul. But it may also be that the soul, shocked into awareness, is able to chasten the body"
If so we aren't able to reinvent a system of ethics for the simple fact that we chose a personal God and we are preoccupied by ourselves only.
Recently on my essay on Charles Arrowby (The Sea, The Sea) I wrote that we are not completely free on our decision because our behavior are heavily influenced by our ego.
So at this point I am thinking to the Socratic quest: "What is a good man like?" are we able to rewrite the concept of morality once we are freed from our ego?
"A picture of Remembrant: Oh yes. I always found that picture a bit soppy. isn't he supposed to be a woman? And anyway now they say it isn't by Remembrandt. But seriously, are they in love?
Looking at this painting we can say that the art is immoral because we are considering the knight as a woman and not as man.
With this example I tried to explain or better to give a personal definition of morality which is influenced by the society, if so, it will be positive or negative, for the future generations? and in this context which rule has our ego?
"When I die, what goes away? nothing. As we grow older the body devours the soul. But it may also be that the soul, shocked into awareness, is able to chasten the body"
If so we aren't able to reinvent a system of ethics for the simple fact that we chose a personal God and we are preoccupied by ourselves only.
Recently on my essay on Charles Arrowby (The Sea, The Sea) I wrote that we are not completely free on our decision because our behavior are heavily influenced by our ego.
So at this point I am thinking to the Socratic quest: "What is a good man like?" are we able to rewrite the concept of morality once we are freed from our ego?
June 11, 2010
I picked up this book because of the title's allusion to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and I haven't read anything by Murdoch before. I set out with high expectations as I commenced reading, but this has been a torturous read. I love descriptive writing, but Murdoch goes overboard in describing every minutiae there is, and the semi-stream of consciousness description of the characters' thoughts after awhile annoyed me. How many times am I to read a character's overly melodramatic mental musings and angst?? Then the overly sentimentalized verbal effusions of the characters, which most have melancholia! My second favorite had to be Lucas. He was a self-absorbed cynic but he was not as puke-inducing as his self-pitying brother Clement or Bellamy or Harvey or Louise. However, there is something to be gained by reading this novel, themes and symbolism abound, but it is Moy's character that captivated me.
Excerpt from NYTimes by Linda Simon, "Ms. Murdoch is an admirable artist. Reading her work is like watching an expert needlewoman embroider, with fine silk thread and a dazzling array of stitches, a large, intricate, multicolored piece of fancywork. But as the design becomes more complicated and the patterns more repetitious, one senses that the embroiderer may realize more pleasure than the viewer."
Excerpt from NYTimes by Linda Simon, "Ms. Murdoch is an admirable artist. Reading her work is like watching an expert needlewoman embroider, with fine silk thread and a dazzling array of stitches, a large, intricate, multicolored piece of fancywork. But as the design becomes more complicated and the patterns more repetitious, one senses that the embroiderer may realize more pleasure than the viewer."
November 30, 2012
Clement is in love with Louise. Louise's husband is dead. Everyone thinks Moy is in love with Clement, but she is in love with Harvey. Harvey thinks he's in love with one sister, but he's actually in love with another sister. One sister is in love with Lucas. Lucas is Clement's brother. Lucas tried to kill Clement. But he actually killed Peter Mir. Only, Peter Mir isn't dead! Peter Mir is our beloved Green Knight, beheaded but still among the living. Who is Sir Gawain? Was there ever really a Gawain?
It sounds like tosh or a mass-market paperback mess, but it's Iris Murdoch, and the absurd tangle of human emotions is her means of probing our deepest motivations, ideals, sins, relationships, and loves. She was, to me, a first-rate philosopher, the kind who doesn't sit in ivory tower made of abstractions, but walks and pays attention to the world and makes philosophy not only coherent, but relevant.
On top of all that it's London in late-autumn with all sorts of peculiar characters sitting in cold rooms with fluttering fires. I adore it.
It sounds like tosh or a mass-market paperback mess, but it's Iris Murdoch, and the absurd tangle of human emotions is her means of probing our deepest motivations, ideals, sins, relationships, and loves. She was, to me, a first-rate philosopher, the kind who doesn't sit in ivory tower made of abstractions, but walks and pays attention to the world and makes philosophy not only coherent, but relevant.
On top of all that it's London in late-autumn with all sorts of peculiar characters sitting in cold rooms with fluttering fires. I adore it.
March 3, 2023
The only Murdoch I've read so far is this novel and "The Unicorn," but her stories, though vaguely set in the "present" day, operate on a seemingly timeless plane. I read a few comments questioning the realism of the dialogue, especially that between the young adult characters of this novel--certainly a valid observation--but I think that the titles of her novels serve to place the book in some semi-mythical place that requires a certain suspension of disbelief. The philosophical themes and mythical allusions she touches upon (and there are many) are both basic and (as hackneyed as it is to say) eternal. Not for everyone, but definitely for me.
October 18, 2017
I sometimes think Murdoch lived in Cloud Cuckoo land: would three teenage girls – no matter how well educated – spend an evening in a TV-less room playing the piano and reading Milton aloud? And this is 1992! Nevertheless, this is another riveting tale from the lady, fast paced with some interesting characters, including a dog called Anax. Actually Anax’s thought processes as he runs around London looking for his former master are brilliantly presented and, for me, the best part of the book. Less philosophical than her other later novels but all the features usually found in Murdoch World are here for the devoted fan.
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