#iris murdoch

[petaltexturedskies]

Iris Murdoch, The Italian Girl

[derangedrhythms]

My holy place is [him]. And it is an abomination.

Iris Murdoch, from 'The Philosopher's Pupil'

[the-goldenratio]

"..... in a faint, golden, long ago light."

[lillyli-74]

Every year I pass the anniversary of my death.

~Iris Murdoch

[firstfullmoon]

It’s snowing (big flakes) and I love you.

Iris Murdoch, from a letter to Brigid Brophy

[pixiedeadbeat]

The Iris Murdoch novel the Sandcastle with a groovy mid 70’s cover.

[lascitasdelashoras]

Iris Murdoch

[davidhudson]

Iris Murdoch, July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999.

1958 photo by Mark Gerson.

[yorgunherakles]

birine bağlanıldığı sanılır: halbuki, kendi herhan­gi bir düşüncene, bir özgürlük ya da beklenmedik bir olayın görüntüsüne, seraplara bağlısındır.

simone de beauvoir - love letters

[lyssahumana]

[petaltexturedskies]

These were the old June smells, the wet midsummer night smells, the sound of the river and the distant waterfall.

Iris Murdoch, The Italian Girl

[derangedrhythms]

Every year I pass the anniversary of my death.

Iris Murdoch, from 'The Philosopher's Pupil'

[dk-thrive]

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

— Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat” (Chatto & Windus in 1970) (via Thoughts)

[lillyli-74]

We just live in bottomless chaos and have to help each other, that's all.

~Iris Murdoch

[nohoperadio]

My favourite author is Iris Murdoch.

I don't think I have favourites in any other category, it feels like a bit of an artificial concept usually, but it would be silly to deny this one. I was halfway through my first Murdoch novel (at age 20 or so) when I felt certain I was going to have to read them all (there are 26). My feeling was that I would have stayed true to that even if every other book she wrote had been terrible. I'm sure that's not true, but I say it to illustrate that she inspired a deep and irrational loyalty in me very early on that hasn't waned over time. I've been reading between one and three of her books per year since I started, deliberately spreading them out so as not to deplete a valuable resource too soon, although presumably I'll just start rereading them at the same rate after I've finished. I've read 21 out of 26 so far.

Maybe someday I'll have something to say on here about what draws me to her books so strongly. Not right now though. What I want to say today is that I usually like her opening lines very much, she often starts with some very punchy compact moment that feels weirdly complete already even as it clearly stands in need of unpacking, if that makes sense to anyone else. This post is going to be simply a compilation of some good ones. Let's say 10 of the best, in no particular order.

I'm defining "opening lines" as not literally just the first sentence but enough to cover the first self-contained "moment" of the book, which is a bit of a judgment call for sure but you can be confident I've judged correctly in every case. For The Philosopher's Pupil (but no others) I've blatantly cheated by entirely skipping a sort of prologue chapter because I think the opening of the next chapter is both more opening-like and more compelling, I acknowledge that this is illegitimate but you'll just have to deal with it. Okay here goes.

---

The Unicorn

'How far away is it?'

'Fifteen miles.'

'Is there a bus?'

'There is not.'

'Is there a taxi or a car I can hire in the village?'

'There is not.'

'Then how am I to get there?'

'You might hire a horse hereabouts,' someone suggested after a silence.

---

An Accidental Man

'Gracie darling, will you marry me?'

'Yes.'

'What?'

---

The Bell

Dora Greenfield left her husband because she was afraid of him. She decided six months later to return to him for the same reason.

---

The Philosopher's Pupil

I am the narrator: a discreet and self-effacing narrator. This book is not about me.

---

Bruno's Dream

Bruno was waking up. The room seemed to be dark. He held his breath, testing the quality of the darkness, wondering if it was night or day, morning or afternoon. If it was night that was bad and might be terrible. Afternoon could be terrible too if he woke up too early. The drama of sleeping and waking had become preoccupying and fearful now that consciousness itself could be so heavy a burden.

---

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

The boy was there again this morning, and the dogs were not barking.

---

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

'Julius King.'

'You speak his name as if you were meditating upon it.'

'I am meditating upon it.'

'He's not a saint.'

'He's not a saint. And yet—'

---

The Message to the Planet

'Of course we have to do with two madmen now, not with one.'

'You mean Marcus is mad too?'

'No, he means Patrick is mad too.'

---

The Red and the Green

Ten more glorious days without horses!

---

The Sea, The Sea

The sea which lies before me as I write glows rather than sparkles in the bland May sunshine. With the tide turning, it leans quietly against the land, almost unflecked by ripples or by foam. Near the horizon it is a luxurious purple, spotted with regular lines of emerald green. At the horizon it is indigo. Near to the shore, where my view is framed by rising heaps of humpy yellow rock, there is a band of lighter green, icy and pure, less radiant, opaque however, not transparent. We are in the north, and the bright sunshine cannot penetrate the sea. Where the gentle water taps the rocks there is still a surface skin of colour. The cloudless sky is very pale at the indigo horizon which it lightly pencils in with silver. Its blue gains towards the zenith and vibrates there. But the sky looks cold, even the sun looks cold.

I had written the above, destined to be the opening paragraph of my memoirs, when something happened which was so extraordinary and so horrible that I cannot bring myself to describe it even now after an interval of time and although a possible, though not totally reassuring, explanation has occurred to me. Perhaps I shall feel calmer and more clear-headed after yet another interval.

[howifeltabouthim]

. . . there had been a moment. And it had been numinous and wonderful and transcendent and all those other words for the metaphysical, but that was what it was—a moment. As if he had been given a precious diamond and had held it for only a second before before accidentally dropping it into the ocean and having to feel the agony of watching it fall, glinting, through the water, less bright with every passing moment, knowing it could never be retrieved from the depths. (Was he just remembering a scene in Titanic?)

Kate Atkinson, from Death at the Sign of the Rook