Amazon.com (ISBN 0312421117, Paperback)

In one of literary history's ghastlier ironies, Iris Murdoch, the author of such highly intellectual and philosophical novels as A Severed Head and Under the Net, was diagnosed in 1994 with Alzheimer's disease, which slowly destroys reasoning powers, memory, even the ability to speak coherently. Her husband, English literary critic John Bayley, unsparingly depicts his wife's affliction in prose as elegant and accessible as hers always was. Readers may wince at the spectacle of Murdoch glued to the TV watching the Teletubbies program, unable to perform tasks as simple as dressing herself and prey to devastating anxiety as the world becomes less and less comprehensible to her. We understand Bayley's occasional fits of rage when his caretaking chores overwhelm him. Yet in the end his memoir is touching, even inspiring. As he recalls their first meetings and marriage in the 1950s, it becomes clear that theirs was always an unconventional union, in which solitude was as important to each of them as togetherness and Bayley was content to let Murdoch keep her inner life to herself. He loves Iris, the woman, not the intellect, and he conveys an essential sweetness about his wife that endures even as her mental faculties deteriorate. This totally unsentimental account of their life and her illness is nonetheless a heartbreaker. --Wendy Smith

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0312253826, Paperback)

Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0312198647, Hardcover)

A melodious, affecting tribute to one of the greatest writers of her time--now stricken with Alzheimer's disease--by her devoted husband of over forty years

"I was living in a fairy story--the kind with sinister overtones and not always a happy ending--in which a young man loves a beautiful maiden who returns his love but is always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing."

So writes John Bayley about his wife, Iris Murdoch, considered by many to be one of the greatest living writers in the English-speaking world. In dreamlike passages, he recalls both his youthful love for an entrancing philosopher who stole his heart at Oxford's St. Antony's Dance in 1954, as well as their marriage, a union of two great minds, which resulted two years later.

In examining this extraordinary relationship, which he describes in a language that resurrects the classical mythology of love, Bayley attempts to discover the real Iris, always so mysterious, who became beloved of readers with her incandescent novels like Unlike the Net, The Green Knight, and The Bell. But the harder he tries to know Iris, the more ineffable and protean she becomes, even more so after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994.

Elegy for Iris is a remarkable memoir of our time, an ironically joyous story about the ephemeral beauty of youth and the sobering reality of what it means to grow old. Tolstoyan in its compassionate grasp of life's frailty, and mesmerizing inn its portrayal of one of the great literary romances of this century, Elegy for Iris is a consummate work of art.