The Green Knight

After a year and some ten or so novels of IM's ouevre, certain patterns, themes, plot twists, settings have, by now, come to be expected and indeed cherished. A close knit group of people are disturbed, usually by the intrusion of a new person, but sometimes by a violent event (in this case both), and during the upheaval, people 'act out of character' - (or is it more IN character?), secrets are revealed (or not revealed but guessed at), the numinous is hinted at, the ending is usually satisfactory as in the comedic meaning of the word where the right people usually end up together and those who die, must die. Dogs and cats if missing, are found. Most of the action takes place indoors with the exception of wild country settings which show more are almost always close to the sea (although not always). The houses in which the stories take place are always interesting and always meticulously described with Nabokovian particularity and these houses and flats, grand or grubby, have characters of their own which influence outcomes too. Murdoch also always stops to tell you what people are wearing (always so much nicer than anything I ever wear, even in this novel which dates from the early 90's just before her Alzheimer's began incapacitating her). Everything matters, everything in the universe is slightly animate, not just the obviously living: dogs, people, spiders, and plants, but the things we consider inanimate: cars, houses, rocks, even walking canes. And everything lives in relation to everything else and the longer they have rubbed together the more connected they are if for no other reason than proximity. This novel features an attempted fratricide, the intervention of a man who returns from the dead, three young women on the verge of adulthood, their mother who is a widow, a young man who has badly broken his foot and feels his life is ruined..... they are all related or part of a social group that has more or less simply happened and, in the nature of things, become connected through simply hanging about together so long. This novel, I think considered the last fully coherent one, has an odd edge to it, and I wonder if Iris was feeling the slippage.... there is no bitterness, only a feeling of impending loss, hard to explain, perhaps it is embedded in the imagery of the title [The Green Knight] a valiant young man meeting his inevitable destiny with bravery. Oh Iris, you were wise and strange and wonderful! I am greatly enjoying reading your work and thank you for it. **** show less

I have only 1 more Iris Murdoch novel left to read after this and that makes me a little sad. I had expected these later novels to have diminishing returns, but I loved this one. There is a lot about memory and I wonder if she knew she was losing hers and trying to grapple with that. It is a kind of retelling of the Green Knight myth, but transplanted into a very Murdochian London landscape. A close knit but odd bunch of friends, and the interplay of friendship, love, family ties as some very strange events take place.

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.

"And he thought, I shall go on blindly and secretly jumbling all these things together and making no sense of them as long as I live. Maybe every human creature carries some such inescapable burden. That is being human. A very weird affair."

I saw Iris Murdoch's debut novel on the Modern Library 100 list but ultimately read this later work because it seemed more relevant to my interests. And so it was: a subtle study of the intersection of madness and mysticism, woven into a sometimes-funny magically real yarn about a traditionally non-traditional extended family in London.

"And he thought, I shall go on blindly and secretly jumbling all these things together and making no sense of them as long as I live. Maybe every human creature carries some such inescapable burden. That is being human. A very weird affair."

I saw Iris Murdoch's debut novel on the Modern Library 100 list but ultimately read this later work because it seemed more relevant to my interests. And so it was: a subtle study of the intersection of madness and mysticism, woven into a sometimes-funny magically real yarn about a traditionally non-traditional extended family in London.

This book was a very pleasant surprise for me. Lately I have been picking up more books at the thrift store, simply based on the blurb and often I will look up the rating on here. The Green Knight was one such book.

Murdoch knows how to write a character. The perspective often shifts around between a few members of a small circle of friends in London, and all of these people seem to leap off the page. They are all certainly characters, yet they feel so much like people you could actually run into and meet. Murdoch does not over-describe their appearances, but does so enough that I had a clear picture in my mind for each of them.

Although there is a certain mystery in the plot, the book mainly revolves around the psychology of the people show more you meet. This may not be for everyone, but personally I do enjoy quite slow-burn stories and diving into characters’ thoughts and motivations. This is combined with numerous references to literature, art and spirituality, elements which I very much enjoyed but does not make it the most accessible read. It also expects that the reader has some basic knowledge of French, as French terms and sentences are not translated.

This is not to put potential readers off, as the story does in fact have many twists and turns that keep you on your toes, and made me at least, desperately curious to see where all this would be going.

In the beginning, I was a bit confused as to when the story was taking place. The way people live and dress initially made me think it was set maybe in the 1960s, only later it became clear to me that it was set in the early 1990s.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for something to cozy up with on a rainy afternoon. show less

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.