the sea, the sea

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (Chatto & Windus, 1978)

I read this book with considerable pleasure and admiration, but it wasn’t one of my favorite Murdoch novels, nor did I think it was a particularly successful book (although it won the Booker Prize in 1979).

The hero, and narrator, is Charles Arrowby, an egotistical and unenlightened man who has spent his life in the theatre as an actor, director, and playwright.  He was successful, lauded, and much-loved by many actresses and an occasional actor (as with so many Murdoch novels, homosexual characters and feelings are refreshingly, if somewhat stereotypically, included).  At the age of 65 or thereabouts, Charles retires from the stage and buys a damp and decaying ramshackle house on the coast of England, and moves there to begin a new life of reflection (he intends to write his memoirs) and seclusion.  But his glamorous and dramatic theatre friends can’t stay away from him, and visit him constantly, as does his cousin James, a mysterious career soldier who Charles dislikes for reasons that seem both vague and petty.  By far the greatest disturbance in his new life is the discovery that his long-lost and never forgotten childhood sweetheart, Hartley, is also living in the same tiny village with her husband, Ben, and adopted son, Titus.  The plot of the  book centers upon Charles’s tragic attempts to rescue Hartley from what he assumes is a miserable existence and marriage, and reclaim her for his own (she had spurned him for reasons he could not fathom or accept when they were young).  All his attempts to “rescue” Hartley are misguided, selfish, and horribly botched, and result in destruction and death (Titus and James).

The book is originally conceived and smart and compelling, but Charles’s selfish short-sightedness made him an unappealing and frustrating narrator.  He’s a bit sadder and wiser at the end of the book: reflective, but hardly redeemed.  There are, as in many Murdoch novels, some brilliantly executed dramatic scenes and set pieces here, and some lovely descriptive writing of the sea and the surrounding countryside.  But I wanted to like, or simply understand, (all of) the characters more than I did, and felt disappointed by Murdoch’s unwillingness to allow them to sympathetically and coherently evolve over the book’s 500 pages.