There’s a
strong connection between goodness and power and most of the times we don’t
realize we’re donning this invisible cloak. We, in all our nonchalance, make
ourselves believe in the goodness in us but conveniently ignore the power demon
lurking behind the veil. But do we make ourselves believe at all? Or is it an
inane innate defect of humanity. Murdoch cruelly makes us chant, pushing each
bead of nicety, love, friendship, relationship, deceit, anxiety, despair and
many others against the disturbing string of dominance.
Characters in
this story are few but intense; the intensity lies in their strength and for a
few in their timidity and weaknesses. Morgan, an eccentric, shallow and
hopelessly callous person shelters herself at her sister Hilda’s house. She’s
running away from relationships, she wants to find herself she says. She
doesn’t want to let go of Tallis, her haunting husband, who she hasn’t met for
two years because she’s been in an illicit relationship with Julius King and
now she’s left Julius too. Hilda and her husband Rupert, the epitome of
goodness and morality, don’t know what they are getting into as they harbor the
wild mare into their stable; their lives are about to change because of her
frivolity. Axel and Simon are the other two essential parts. Simon, Rupert’s
brother is gay and madly in love with the guileless Axel.
Murdoch
improvises on the proverb ‘What you give, you get back’, the reader experiences
strong renderings of ‘What you get, you give back’. The deranged Morgan is
treated like dirt as she tries to go back to Julius. She amuses herself in the
most lowering and disgusting manner to Julius’s apathy. And then she becomes
Julius with her husband Tallis, she treats him like a well tamed animal showing
that offence is the best defense while sulking and playing the victim all
along; how cute!
As Morgan
displays her histrionics by introducing the unique concept of ‘loving
innocently’ and making herself and others gulp this potion, Julius King, to
challenge her nonsense and expose the fragility of relationships, plays
Shakespeare and writes and directs the screenplay for an horrendous act. But
should we blame Julius, or Murdoch for that matter? Murdoch’s eloquence
portrays the strongest of characters crumbling to the feeblest of cunningness
and it sounds so believable that one wonders – are all relationships in such a
latent and decrepit state that a single blow can shatter the opaque glass of
misrepresented conscience. Do we humour ourselves by believing in what we are;
are we that, or are we the magician’s rabbit that pops out of the intricate and
unsettling mesh of the brain and the heart each time, every time?
Murdoch plays
around with the power that holds and with the powerlessness that yields. Her
characters like most of us are so full of themselves, though in different ways.
She shows how easy it is to pull a single strand of doubt or suspicion to
create a mess of relationships, how easy it is to fall, to get lost in the
meandering light of a new pleasing and refreshing something. She reinforces the
effortlessness of inducing fear where the heart is timid; she mocks at the
vulnerability of what we call the strength of love, of belief and trust. The
plot shows how ugly people can get or probably are deep inside, beyond the
ostentatious façade of goodness. She probes into the cause of goodness and
derides its fragility.
It’ll be
wrong to end without putting Murdoch’s characters on a pedestal for their
amazing mental strength; or is it hard heartedness! Even in the wiliest of
infidelity, or a treacherous contrivance, they are large hearted enough to
understand, to let go and at times to find innocence in the act; a fairly
honourable defeat indeed. Wow! I wish I meet more of this kind in real life,
the forgiving ones. This book did make me think of the so called goodness of
many people, and analyze them, it; such an ugly thing to do, isn’t it!
Loved the
book, loved the mockery.
My rating: 8/10
Picture courtesy:
Book cover: https://www.jasonbooks.co.nz/p/literary-fiction-a-fairly-honourable-defeat
Irisi Murdoch image: https://www.newstatesman.com/iris-murdoch-novels-reissued-criticism-biography-100-years
