Iris Murdoch - British Novelist and Philosopher
Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was a renowned British novelist and philosopher, known for exploring themes of good and evil, morality, and the power of the unconscious in her acclaimed works like "Under the Net" and "The Sea, the Sea." She received prestigious awards such as the Booker Prize and was honored for her literary contributions. Discover the fascinating literary career of Iris Murdoch, a prominent figure in 20th-century English literature.
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IRIS MURDOCH 1919-1999
Fast facts British novelist and philosopher Born: July 15, 1919 (Dublin, Ireland) Died: February 8, 1999 (Oxford, England) Awards And Honors: Booker Prize (1978), Costa Book Awards (1974) Notable Works: A Severed Head , The Green Knight , Henry and Cato , Jackson s Dilemma The Bell , The Black Prince , The Book and the Brotherhood , The Flight from the Enchanter , The Good Apprentice , The Message to the Planet , The Nice and the Good , The Philosopher s Pupil , The Red and the Green , The Sea, The Sea , Under the Net
Literary career Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, the Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Under the Net Under the Net, published in 1954 in London, was Iris Murdoch's first published novel. In this lightly comic novel about work, love, wealth and fame the main character of Jake Donaghue, a struggling writer and translator, seeks to improve his circumstances and make up for past mistakes by reconnecting with his old acquaintance Hugo Belfounder, a mild mannered and soft spoken philosopher. Jake, a shameless mooch and hack-writer - now homeless and out of other solid options - tracks down his ex-girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her elegant sister, an actress named Sadie. He also reacquaints himself with Hugo, whose philosophy Jake had long ago presumptuously tried to decipher and interpret to his own liking. The plot develops through a series of adventures involving Jake and his offbeat minion, Finn. From the kidnapping of a movie-star canine to the staging of a political riot on a film set, Jake attempts to discover and incorporate Hugo s abstruse philosophies in real life situations. Berated yet enlightened, Jake's aspirations to become a true writer/philosopher may at last be at hand.
Explanation of the title The "net" in question is the net of abstraction, generalization, and theory. In Chapter 6, a quotation from Jake's book The Silencer includes the passage: "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself and this is unutterably particular here. Indeed it is something to which we can never get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net." Peter J. Conradi, in his 2001 biography of Iris Murdoch, specifies that "the title alludes to Wittgenstein s Tractatus, 6, 341, the net of discourse behind which the world's particulars hide, which can separate us from our world, yet simultaneously connect us.
