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Title: Under the Net by Iris Murdoch ISBN: 0-14-001445-4 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Caught in a Magnificent Net
Comment: Very few books have I ever picked up to immediately find myself thinking, "Oh!"
Such was the case with "Under the Net". This was my first Iris Murdoch novel, but by no means will it be my last.
She deftly creates empathy for our anti-hero, Jake, while making him less than sympathetic, drawing the reader into the story while at the same time keeping us far enough away that we can comfortably laugh at the proceedings. Murdoch also reveals her story slowly, layer by layer, turning what we believe will be little more than mild humor into a mystery of character assassination.
And it reads very much like a mystery, the kind that you just don't find anymore. But here it is not a dead body that is the victim, but rather a living, breathing one. But is he as much a victim as he likes to think he is? Our hero finds that nothing is as he believes it to be.
Is it ever?
Rating: 5
Summary: A novel of action, a novel of ideas
Comment: Fast-paced, funny, unpredictable, this book may be Murdoch's best. I originally came to it because I read that she had based her first novel on the ideas (and character) of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I did, in fact, find some elements of W's ideas in it; but that's not really the reason I found this book so beguiling. As a novel it succeeds brilliantly: it manages to present complex ideas in a completely literary form. You are so caught up in the plot, the characters, the comedy, you may never notice the author is doing philosophy.The writing is excellent: Murdoch describes a night of drunken revelry so well that you can feel the chill air on your skin. She also puts together an unforgettable cast of characters: Sadie the movie star; her mysterious sister Anne; Hugo, the tortured soul; Dave the impatient academic; Lefty the socialist bon-viveur; Magdalen the ambitious secretary; Sacred Sammy the cool operator... and more. Read it as as a philosophical 'bildungsroman' or read it as a picaresque romp - entertainment guaranteed.
Rating: 4
Summary: 3.5 stars out of 5
Comment: Published in 1954, Under the Net is an entertaining novel about one season in Jake Donaghue's life. Jake is a 30-ish writer in London whose specialty is translating French novels to English to earn money, which he hasn't much of, and he hasn't written anything original for sometime. Despite being semi-dependent on friends for survival (and a strong aversion for actual work), he seems very likeable, generous, loyal, and would not compromise his ideals for easy money. He is living everyone's romantic version of poverty, where everything works out and he's never actually desperate, in fact it's a bit too fantastic how he gets out of trouble sometimes, chasing one urgency (a long lost love or friendship he has to repair) after the next. But it's a feel good book because of that, and maybe in post-World War II London all this was not impossible. In the end, this very impressionable and impetuous character is more wise, has writing and employment plans, and is just as poor.
Jake's fascinating friends also add entertainment - the social climbing Madge and her friendly/devious fiancé Sammie the bookie, Jake's strangely loyal "assistant" Finn, his socialist filmmaker friend Hugo, and the attractive Quentin sisters who are two corners of a sad, 4-way unrequited love structure. Something exciting or dangerous is always happening.
The novel is also filled with nuggets of wisdom from Murdoch, that you can't help but feel she's pondered a lot on love, the intellectual life (vs. accomplishing work on a daily basis), and many other things. She describes swimming and judo with such zeal you feel it is something she has done, rather than just having researched on it. Perhaps it should not have been told in the first person because at times it does not sound like the thoughts of an immature male writer who is still finding himself, but someone wiser. It takes thirty pages (out of 286) to get going and I'm not sure everyone will relate to Jake's character, but it's certainly a worthwhile read.
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Title: The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch ISBN: 014002476X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: January, 1987 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain ISBN: 0679723250 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 May, 1989 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Loving/Living/Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Henry Green, John Uplike, John Updike ISBN: 0140186913 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie ISBN: 014118616X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 27 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Ginger Man by James Patrick Donleavy ISBN: 0802137954 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 10 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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