Iris Murdoch se salta a la torera la máxima de "no cuentes, muestra" y no deja de contar en toda la novela. Relata una escena con todo detalle, se mete en la mente de todos los sujetos presentes, y lo que ocurrió antes y después a cada uno de ellos, que son un lote, por otra parte. Y nunca aburre.
Por el medio anota todos los cambios de pareceres que van surgiendo, romances, enamoramientos, decepciones, mentiras, lo raros e inconsistentes que somos y, de paso, nos suelta una chapa sobre filosofía, ética y política. Y sigue sin aburrir.
Por si fuera poco, acaba metiendo algunas notas de magia sobrenatural en una novela realista y no nos resulta extraño, sino que son detalles que encajan perfectamente en el hilo narrativo que no nos deja levantar la vista del libro.
En fin, que una maravilla. Y que si queréis una crítica más seria, al final del libro, os la ofrece Fresán. ( )

Excellent read. Oxford friends enact their imagined worlds with devastating consequences. Murdoch grabs your interest with an exacting dissection of the motivations behind what we do and the way we see ourselves.
All the wonderful Murdoch touches are here; descriptions of clothes, meals and furniture, and even notes that one of the characters has gone to Harrods to buy some Egyptian cotton sheets.
She's a genius.

I first read this novel some thirty odd years ago, shortly after it was published. At that point I hadn’t read anything else by Iris Murdoch, and had picked it up on the basis of a newspaper review and a recommendation from Lucy, the manager of the old branch of Dillons in Covent Garden who had the most amazing green eyes, and could easily have persuaded me to buy virtually anything, or even everything, in the shop.

Lucy spoke with straight tongue, and I remember being enthralled as I slowly worked my way through it. (It is a large book and Iris Murdoch’s writing, while rewarding to the reader, is never quickly consumed.) I recently had a conversation about Iris Murdoch with one of my colleagues, who suggested that this book was probably her finest. Having always been an advocate of [The Sea, The Sea] as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, I felt that I had better revisit it to see what I thought.

I have recently been very disappointed when returning to reread favourite novels from the past. No such worries on this occasion. It remains, of course, a substantial read, and it has taken me a long time, but the complexities of the plot and the depth of detail in the characterisation amply compensate the reader for their effort.

As with so many of Iris Murdoch’s novels, the characters live in a strange world, slightly removed from the ordinary cut and thrust of life, and operate with a dense maelstrom of moral conflict. This book opens at a Commem Ball at an unspecified Oxford College, attended by a group of alumni and their friends, all of whom are stunned by the revelation that David Crimond, formerly of their ‘set’ is also there. We then learn that some thirty odd years ago, following their graduation, the group of friends had been deeply committed to left wing politics. Within their group, these views were most clearly and passionately articulated by Crimond, who went on to enjoy a certain notoriety as a Marxist campaigner and agitator. The group of friends had undertaken to support him in the writing of a book that would synthesis his views into a new Marxist manifesto. This undertaking became known as the Crimondgesellschaft, modelled on the Musilgesellschaft which supported Robert Musil throughout the writing of his [The Man Without Qualities] series of novels.

As time wore on, the group became estranged from Crimond and his views. Their political inclinations mellowed while his remained firm. Despite this estrangement, they had continued to fund the research and writing of his book, although they became increasingly alarmed about what form it might take.

Their estrangement was bot, however, solely a consequence of the divergence of their respective political ethos. Some years before the novel opens, Crimond had had an affair with the wife of one of the group. While she had subsequently returned to her husband, the bitterness that this had caused seemed almost insuperable. His entirely unforeseen emergence at the College Ball sends reverberations through the group, with devastating effects.

While most of the novel attends to the interactions between the various members of the group, whose relationships are certainly intricate and unconventional, there are some key crisis points, where it seems as if Iris Murdoch has suddenly slipped a gear or switched on the overdrive, with the novel suddenly lurching to a completely new level. There are some quite shocking incidents, too, yet while they come as a surprise at the time, they fit entirely into the greater scheme of the novel.

I believe that iris Murdoch wrote all her novels by hand, in a series of exercise books, and that they seldom required any significant editorial reorganisation. For a novel as complex as this, that must have been an awesome feat of mental discipline. She was, of course, first and foremost an academic, engaged throughout her career at Oxford in the study of philosophy. always denied that her novels were works of philosophy, but I am not convinced of that. This one fairly crackles with philosophical dialogue and exploration, although divining which views were most closely aligned with her own would be more of a challenge than I would care to take on. ( )

I read this Murdoch immediately after having finished reading The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas. It was such a relief to feel that I could relate to the characters. In some senses the book is dated, but then so is Dickens. However it seemed in the end that Crimond and Duncan got off scot free both being implicated in the death of Jenkin.

I guess the key to this book is that explores the nature of friendship and love.

This is one of Iris Murdoch's most complex and philosophical novels, and is full of her trademark humour and quirky plot twists, a many layered narrative which covers a multitude of ideas. Very enjoyable, but probably not the easiest of her books to start with. ( )