Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Iris Murdoch produced twenty-six novels in forty years. The last of these, Jackson's Dilemma, was published in 1995, four years before her death. Murdoch's interest in moral problems inclined her towards what could be seen as an unusual view of human character and human life, leading her to create bizarre situations and offer unsettling solutions which frequently challenge and intrigue the reader.This essential introduction to one of Britain's best-known writers guides the reader through the full range of Murdoch's fictional output, tracing basic patterns which run throughout Murdoch's work and showing how the novels help to elucidate one another. The revised, updated and expanded new edition takes into account certain details which have emerged following Murdoch's death in 1999, incorporates the latest scholarship and offers fuller treatment of a number of novels.
The second edition gives more weight to the development of the moral discourse which is predominant in Murdoch's work. From the mid-sixties onwards, Murdoch was intensely concerned with the problems of Good and Evil in a godless would. In the later novels, particularly those of the 1980s and 1990s, she posited the possibility of mystic personalities who influence others from a position beyond the normal parameters of our world. Hilda D. Spear examines these mystic, and mysterious, fictions in the later chapters of her study, and argues that Jackson's Dilemma should be viewed as Murdoch's unfinished novel.'
About the Author:
Hilda D. Spear is an Honorary Research Fellow of Dundee University
Synopsis
An introduction to one of Britain's best-known writers, which guides the reader through the novels, tracing basic patterns which run throughout Murdoch's work and showing how the novels help to elucidate one another. This new edition takes into account certain details which have emerged following Murdoch's death in 1999 and is revised and updated throughout, incorporating the latest scholarship. It also features an examination of Murdoch's last published novel, Jackson's Dilemma.
Booknews
A brief guide to the progressive moral discourse of the 25 novels Murdoch produced between 1954 and 1993. Spear traces the basic patterns running through Murdoch's work and shows how the novels help elucidate each other. Murdoch's philosophical works are referred to in order to illustrate how the novelist uses the intricacy of her plots to reinforce the subtlety and anxiety of the human response to problems such as the nature of reality and of good and evil. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)