The Sea, the Sea
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor both professionally and personally, and to amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors--some real, some spectral--that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core. In exposing the jumble of motivations that drive Arrowby and the other characters, Iris Murdoch lays bare "the truth of untruth"--the human vanity, jealousy, and lack of compassion behind the disguises they present to the world. Played out against a vividly rendered landscape and filled with allusions to myth and magic, Charles's confrontation with the tidal rips of love and forgiveness is one of Murdoch's most moving and powerful tales.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
4mentions
4people
2014–2025years
25% recommend75% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I've only read one book by Iris Murdoch - The sea, the sea - a brilliant psychological drama that is indeed the opposite of lovey dovey. It's more about the delusions of love and self image, but much much more than that.
Nice review here: https://youtu.be/s3UOXnv2YsU?feature=shared
- I was wondering if there were other examples. Google "people who won prizes named after them". The results I got from the "AI Overview" were:
Helen Dunmore The first winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize, in 1996 for her novel A Spell of Winter
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch Won the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, the Sea. The Booker Prize trophy is named "Iris" after her.
Walter Payton Won the NFL Man of the Year Award in 1977. The award was named after him after his death in 1999.
Taylor Swift Won the Taylor Swift Award at the 2016 BMI Pop Awards, becoming the second artist after Michael Jackson to have an award named after them.
Stuart Parkin Won the Draper Prize in 2024 for developing spintronic devices that allow for cloud storage of large amounts of digital data
The first and last ones are true but irrelevant. The others are legitimate but not exactly what we're talking about here (it turns out that the Taylor Swift Award was just given that one time; it's not like they gave it to her in 2016 and then kept giving it to other people in future years). The Walter Payton case is kind of analogous to the Dijkstra one. The Taylor Swift case would be like the Shannon one if they'd kept giving it out.
- Here are the books I've read so far in 2024, with a letter grade for each:
1. David Copperfield (B). Dickens's favorite of his novels, but you can definitely tell he is being paid by the word. I think a writer's workshop (if they had existed in his day) would have admonished him to tighten things up.
2. Postmodernism 101 by Heath White (2006, A-). A short (165 pp.) book written from a Christian (but academic) perspective. I found it very helpful.
3. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (1978, B). Written in the form of the memoirs of a director recently retired from the London stage. As a woman, Murdoch is eerily effective at representing the thoughts of a prideful, slightly unhinged older, but still vigorous, man. I think this is the first book I've ever read with an "unrealiable narrator," but perhaps someone who has studied literature seriously might disagree with that assessment. In addition to being a prolific novelist, Murdoch was an accomplished philosopher, and her brilliance shines through from time to time. But I must say it is a strange book. I would recommend The Bell to a first time reader of Murdoch.
4. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922, A). My daughter recommended it to me, and it's probably fair to call it a women's novel, but I very much enjoyed it. It's about women that are stifled in their daily lives in London finding, each in her own way, a new joy in living -- while staying at a seaside castle in Italy for the month of April.
5. Love & Mercy, a screenplay by Oren Moverman (2012, B). My daughter-in-law is a screenwriter and recommended this to me. The story centers on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, specifically his descent into mental illness, and how he is eventually rescued from tyrannical and unproductive psychiatric care by a woman who becomes his girlfriend and steadfast advocate. I haven't yet seen the movie, but it had an A-list cast.
- Worth noting that the Orange Pippin site takes it's name from the Cox Orange Pippin variety.
The Cox is an incredible apple that seems to grow well in England.
http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/coxs-orange-pippin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8381396/Why-Coxs-wil...
Even deep in Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" you'll find the Cox being praised by the lead character for being a prince of apples, and putting all others in the shadows.
And very soon, it's Cox season again. What a delight.
I like apples. What a strange thing to say!
