The Italian Girl
by Iris Murdoch 
On This Page
Description
A poignant portrait of a family's struggle for redemptionThe funeral of Edward's mother brings him home for the first time in years. Though his return rekindles his affection for his childhood home, it also triggers a resurgence of the family tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edward becomes tangled in his family's web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos.The Italian Girl is Murdoch's compelling story of a man's show more reunion with his estranged family, and of the tragedy that shocks them all into confronting their dark past. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
At 171 pages, this practically a novella, but it packs a lot of emotion into those pages, and although it's an early work, it is very clearly an Iris Murdoch, albeit less subtle than later works.
Edmund returns to his childhood home after the death of his manipulative and estranged mother. His brother Otto, an alcoholic, lives there with his wife, daughter and the eponymous Italian girl (an au pair who stayed on), none of whom he has seen for years. His brother is a "half-stranger" and he can't remember how old his niece is, but such detachment started earlier, "My father had passed from us almost unnoticed, we believed in his death long before it came".
These five character, plus another two, have multiple and complex relationships and show more neurosis that they discuss, without much hope of overcoming. They have all missed out on happiness in some way, and so they seem destined to sabotage the possibility of it in their own lives and those of others. Despite his introspection, Edmund distrusts psychiatrists, describing them as "modern necromancers" and saying "I preferred to suffer the thing that I was".
There are two further characters. The house itself has dark qualities, made clear from the start when Edmund arrives so late that the house is dark, everyone is asleep and it has a haunted atmosphere: "The closed doors breathed a stupefaction of slumber". Lydia, the dead mother, continues to be a major force on the lives of all therein.
The plot twists, turns, tangles and the Italian girl is in the background till the end. Some aspects are a little dated (fair enough) or stretch credulity, but it's a good story and well told.
Having attended a couple of humanist funerals lately, I was particularly struck by this passage: "At least a Christian burial would with ancient images and emotions have covered up this moment of blankness and lent to that querulous frailty the dignity and sadness of general mortality."
If Woody Allen hasn't read any Murdoch, he really should. They have much in common. show less
Edmund returns to his childhood home after the death of his manipulative and estranged mother. His brother Otto, an alcoholic, lives there with his wife, daughter and the eponymous Italian girl (an au pair who stayed on), none of whom he has seen for years. His brother is a "half-stranger" and he can't remember how old his niece is, but such detachment started earlier, "My father had passed from us almost unnoticed, we believed in his death long before it came".
These five character, plus another two, have multiple and complex relationships and show more neurosis that they discuss, without much hope of overcoming. They have all missed out on happiness in some way, and so they seem destined to sabotage the possibility of it in their own lives and those of others. Despite his introspection, Edmund distrusts psychiatrists, describing them as "modern necromancers" and saying "I preferred to suffer the thing that I was".
There are two further characters. The house itself has dark qualities, made clear from the start when Edmund arrives so late that the house is dark, everyone is asleep and it has a haunted atmosphere: "The closed doors breathed a stupefaction of slumber". Lydia, the dead mother, continues to be a major force on the lives of all therein.
The plot twists, turns, tangles and the Italian girl is in the background till the end. Some aspects are a little dated (fair enough) or stretch credulity, but it's a good story and well told.
Having attended a couple of humanist funerals lately, I was particularly struck by this passage: "At least a Christian burial would with ancient images and emotions have covered up this moment of blankness and lent to that querulous frailty the dignity and sadness of general mortality."
If Woody Allen hasn't read any Murdoch, he really should. They have much in common. show less
Protagonist Edmund returns to his family home in northern England for his mother’s funeral. He has been gone for many years, and at first thinks nothing much has changed. However, after speaking with his niece, he finds that the relationships among his relatives are much more complicated than expected. He soon finds himself embroiled in an unfolding family drama.
It harkens back to the gothic novels of the past, with the family’s mansion playing a significant role. The writing is atmospheric, projecting a dark and haunted impression, but avoiding supernatural elements. It is tightly focused, containing only six characters. The novel is named after one of the lesser prominent characters, the family’s long-time Italian servant. She show more floats around the fringes of the story, almost like a ghost. It contains an unreliable narrator and layered structure. It is not a traditional mystery by any stretch, but the family members’ secrets are eventually revealed.
I have now read three of Murdoch’s novels. My favorites are The Sea, The Sea, and The Black Prince. I liked this one but found the ending rather vague and unsatisfying. show less
It harkens back to the gothic novels of the past, with the family’s mansion playing a significant role. The writing is atmospheric, projecting a dark and haunted impression, but avoiding supernatural elements. It is tightly focused, containing only six characters. The novel is named after one of the lesser prominent characters, the family’s long-time Italian servant. She show more floats around the fringes of the story, almost like a ghost. It contains an unreliable narrator and layered structure. It is not a traditional mystery by any stretch, but the family members’ secrets are eventually revealed.
I have now read three of Murdoch’s novels. My favorites are The Sea, The Sea, and The Black Prince. I liked this one but found the ending rather vague and unsatisfying. show less
Protagonist Edmund returns to his family home in northern England for his mother’s funeral. He has been gone for many years, and at first thinks nothing much has changed. However, after speaking with his niece, he finds that the relationships among his relatives are much more complicated than expected. He soon finds himself embroiled in an unfolding family drama.
It harkens back to the gothic novels of the past, with the family’s mansion playing a significant role. The writing is atmospheric, projecting a dark and haunted impression, but avoiding supernatural elements. It is tightly focused, containing only six characters. The novel is named after one of the lesser prominent characters, the family’s long-time Italian servant. She show more floats around the fringes of the story, almost like a ghost. It contains an unreliable narrator and layered structure. It is not a traditional mystery by any stretch, but the family members’ secrets are eventually revealed.
I have now read three of Murdoch’s novels. My favorites are The Sea, The Sea, and The Black Prince. I liked this one but found the ending rather vague and unsatisfying. show less
It harkens back to the gothic novels of the past, with the family’s mansion playing a significant role. The writing is atmospheric, projecting a dark and haunted impression, but avoiding supernatural elements. It is tightly focused, containing only six characters. The novel is named after one of the lesser prominent characters, the family’s long-time Italian servant. She show more floats around the fringes of the story, almost like a ghost. It contains an unreliable narrator and layered structure. It is not a traditional mystery by any stretch, but the family members’ secrets are eventually revealed.
I have now read three of Murdoch’s novels. My favorites are The Sea, The Sea, and The Black Prince. I liked this one but found the ending rather vague and unsatisfying. show less
[This is a review I wrote in 2010]
** Lays bare the innermost destructive workings of an extremely dysfunctional isolated family. **
A short story - effective, darkly emotive, but not as rich in plot, and perhaps not as empathetic as a result, as some of the author's other novels. The Italian Girl is the story of immense self-destruction within an extremely dysfunctional family. There seems to be a rot at the very core of this divided family, probably in the form of the recently deceased matriarch, Lydia, who exercises control over her household even from beyond the grave. - This last in an emotional rather than haunting sense.
Lydia lived all her life in the isolated family home, with one of her sons, Otto, and his own family staying show more within the family fold. Otto has problems of his own - marital discord, addiction, temptation, anger - and focuses his problems very much in an internal way, blocking out the outside world in many ways, and remaining ignorant about what his wife and teenage daughter might be getting up to. It takes the arrival of second son, Edmund, at Lydia's funeral to stir up some realisation of what's going on within the family home. Edmund narrates this difficult return to his childhood home and the shocking events that come to light as a result of trying to help his niece come to terms with a devastating situation. Through it all, a silent witness to this domestic discord, grief and temptation is the 'Italian girl', housekeeper and previous companion to the deceased Lydia, she has been privy to everthing that has occurred within her earshot within the house, and yet largely ignored by the members of the family.
This is an interesting novel which explores some of the darkest aspects of human nature and relationships with ease and expertise. It's not a page-turner, or a novel steeped in plot, yet it makes compulsive, if slightly detached, reading for the insights and laying bare of some of the most secret parts of a human soul. **** 4 stars. show less
** Lays bare the innermost destructive workings of an extremely dysfunctional isolated family. **
A short story - effective, darkly emotive, but not as rich in plot, and perhaps not as empathetic as a result, as some of the author's other novels. The Italian Girl is the story of immense self-destruction within an extremely dysfunctional family. There seems to be a rot at the very core of this divided family, probably in the form of the recently deceased matriarch, Lydia, who exercises control over her household even from beyond the grave. - This last in an emotional rather than haunting sense.
Lydia lived all her life in the isolated family home, with one of her sons, Otto, and his own family staying show more within the family fold. Otto has problems of his own - marital discord, addiction, temptation, anger - and focuses his problems very much in an internal way, blocking out the outside world in many ways, and remaining ignorant about what his wife and teenage daughter might be getting up to. It takes the arrival of second son, Edmund, at Lydia's funeral to stir up some realisation of what's going on within the family home. Edmund narrates this difficult return to his childhood home and the shocking events that come to light as a result of trying to help his niece come to terms with a devastating situation. Through it all, a silent witness to this domestic discord, grief and temptation is the 'Italian girl', housekeeper and previous companion to the deceased Lydia, she has been privy to everthing that has occurred within her earshot within the house, and yet largely ignored by the members of the family.
This is an interesting novel which explores some of the darkest aspects of human nature and relationships with ease and expertise. It's not a page-turner, or a novel steeped in plot, yet it makes compulsive, if slightly detached, reading for the insights and laying bare of some of the most secret parts of a human soul. **** 4 stars. show less
The characters are all annoyingly useless and flawed, react badly to every situation they've worked themselves into and make you despair for them. Far more realistic than anything else I've read recently.
If you can cope with the horrible people then it's an excellent book.
If you can cope with the horrible people then it's an excellent book.
A minor novel by the great Iris Murdoch — with major charm.
The ending is not as satisfying as usual, with this "Shakespearean" tragicomic author, but prior to that this is a solid five stars.
First-person narrative.
I read it from my print edition and from an ebook. Trading media.
The ending is not as satisfying as usual, with this "Shakespearean" tragicomic author, but prior to that this is a solid five stars.
First-person narrative.
I read it from my print edition and from an ebook. Trading media.
This is a very poor effort by Iris Murdoch, and I found it almost unreadable. The prose is clumsy and leaden, and the characters are incompletely drawn. The story itself is badly handicapped by the incomplete characters: it is a story about the ham-fisted efforts of the narrator to cure an ailing and collapsing family, but exactly why the narrator fails, and why the family is mostly beyond redemption, is part of a back story that Murdoch never properly gives us. In the end, the story is hugely over-plotted, leaving the reader wondering where all this 'meaning' is coming from. The apple in the final scene was just too much for me. I found myself wishing that Muriel Spark had written this story: it would be lively and clear, with touches show more of humour. Or even Jane Austen: with one or two more houses, and a little more coyness about the sex, it's a perfect Austen story, even serving up a disturbing brother/sister pair, one of Austen's better devices. show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Talk Discussions
Past Discussions
The Italian Girl in Iris Murdoch readers (November 2015)
Author Information
99+ Works 29,243 Members
Iris Murdoch was one of the twentieth century's most prominent novelists, winner of the Booker Prize for The Sea. She died in 1999. (Publisher Provided) Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin, Ireland on July 15, 1919. She was educated at Badminton School in Bristol and Oxford University, where she read classics, ancient history, and philosophy. After show more several government jobs, she returned to academic life, studying philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948, she became a fellow and tutor at St. Anne's College, Oxford. She also taught at the Royal College of Art in London. A professional philosopher, she began writing novels as a hobby, but quickly established herself as a genuine literary talent. She wrote over 25 novels during her lifetime including Under the Net, A Severed Head, The Unicorn, and Of the Nice and the Good. She won several awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince in 1973 and the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea in 1978. She died on February 8, 1999 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Iris Murdoch has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Het Italiaanse meisje
- Original title
- The Italian Girl
- Original publication date
- 1964
- Dedication
- To Patsy and John Grigg
- First words
- I pressed the door gently.
- Quotations*
- 'I think I know altogether what's going on in this house.' 'How?' 'People have loud voices. Everyone shouts a great deal here. Perhaps the pipes conduct the sound. I seem to hear everything in the kitchen.' She spoke with an ... (show all)extreme cat-like softness; it was the voice of the unseen observer, of the eternally silent superior servant.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)As I went to the door I paused beside the map of Italy. The route, yes, that too we would have to discuss. I drew my finger along the Via Aurelia. Genova, Pisa, Livorno, Grosseto, Civitavecchia, Roma.
- Original language*
- Engels
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 684
- Popularity
- 41,851
- Reviews
- 23
- Rating
- (3.27)
- Languages
- 10 — Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- ASINs
- 19
