A fairly honourable defeat by Iris Murdoch - A book review

Goodness is a virtue. And Iris Murdoch seems to be possessed with it. Be it this particular book or ‘The Nice and the Good’, she seems to be amazed and possibly irritated by the varieties of it. Her characters drip of this disparateness as her brush strokes the story. But goodness cannot exist by itself, it inevitably co-exists; with love, friendship, innocence, sacrifice and more importantly power.

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