Iris Murdoch Livres

" Commencez par être heureux, puis rendez les autres heureux ", tel est le conseil que reçoit Bellamy James au moment où, renonçant au monde afin d'atteindre l'illumination, il décide de se faire moine. Autour de ce personnage mélancolique, Louise Anderson que préoccupe le sort de ses trois filles adolescentes ; Joan, belle alcoolique désespérée, flanquée de Harvey, son fils, qui, sous des allures de prince du quattrocento, cache lui aussi un profond mal de vivre ; Tessa Millen qui dirige un hospice pour femmes et, surtout, les deux frères Graffe : Lucas, un universitaire arrogant et solitaire, meurtrier de surcroît, et Clement, un acteur bon et sensible, lié à Lucas par un sentiment masochiste... La soudaine apparition d'un visiteur étrange, armé d'un parapluie vert, va bouleverser ce petit cercle : qui est Peter Mir, la victime supposée de Lucas Graffe ? Ce revenant va-t-il pouvoir transformer, grâce à son propre cheminement intérieur, la vie des êtres qui l'entourent ?

Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy. Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

Edward gives his ingenuous friend, Mark, a drugged sandwich, a prank which ends tragically. Edward's subsequent guilt, self-hatred, and crisis of conscience are the focal point of the story.

'Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real' This selection of Iris Murdoch's most interesting and important letters gives us a living portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and thinkers. Here for the first time is Murdoch in her own words, from her schoolgirl days to her last years. The letters show a great mind at work - we watch the young Murdoch struggling with philosophical issues, often unsure of herself; witness her anguish when a novel won't come together; observe her involved in world events and exploring sensuality. They are full of sharp humour and irreverence. They also reveal her personal life, the subject of much speculation, in all its intriguing complexity: her emotional hunger and her tendency to live on the edge of what was socially acceptable. Gradually, we see how this fed into her novels' plots and characters, despite her claims that her fiction was not drawn from reality. Quite apart from giving these valuable insights, her letters bring us closer than ever before to Iris Murdoch as a person. They make for an extraordinary and intimate reading experience: she is wonderful company.

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

Hilda Foster is alone in an isolated cottage when she receives an important telephone call.Hilda's troubles began when she trusts a slippery intellectual called Julius King who decides to demonstrate how he can persuade easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings to betray their loyalties to one another.

Iris Murdoch's 24th novel, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, explores the meaning of life in a story of love and betrayal, faith and doubt. "Murdoch works with an intellectual daring most writers only dream of."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

A sparklingly profound novel about the conflict between love and loyalty The quiet life of schoolmaster Bill Mor and his wife Nan is disturbed when a young woman, Rain Carter, arrives at the school to paint the portrait of the headmaster. Mor, hoping to enter politics, becomes aware of new desires. A complex battle develops, involving love, guilt, magic, art, and political ambition. Mor’s teenage children and their mother fight discreetly and ruthlessly against the invader. The Head, himself disenchanted, advises Mor to seize the girl and run. The final decision rests with Rain. Can a “great love” be purchased at too high a price?

Finding himself surrounded by predatory friends and relations - his ex-wife, her delinquent brother, a younger, deplorably successful writer, Arnold Baffin, Baffin's restless wife and engaging daughter - Bradley attempts to escape.

Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs. But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be. 'It isn't all brainy fantasising in Murdochland; there's wild swimming, appalling sandwiches, death, madness and sex' Guardian 'Dazzlingly entertaining and inventive' The Times WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAISY JOHNSON **WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE**

Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two. Instead, he lets loose misery and confusion and—for the spectators at any rate—a morality play, rich in reflections upon the paradoxes of human life and the nature of the battle between sacred and profane love.

Charming, indolent Dora arrives in their midst, and half-unwittingly conjures these submerged things to the surface.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRYVINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

A scintillating novel of fate, accidents, and moral dilemmas Set in the time of the Vietnam War, this story concerns the plight of a young American, happily installed in a perfect job in England, engaged to a wonderful girl, who is suddenly drafted to a war he disapproves of. What is duty here, what is self-interest, what is cowardice? Austin Gibson Grey, the accidental man of the title, is accident-prone, also prone to bring disaster to his friend sand relations. He blames fate. But are we not all accidental, one of his victims asks. Fate and accidents make deep moral dilemmas for the characters in the long and complex tale.

At an imaginary English spa, Professor Rozanov settles down to write his great book and his former student, George McCaffrey, decides their teacher-pupil relationship is a life-long one

Iris Murdoch's richly peopled novel revolves round a happily married couple, Kate and Octavian, and the friends of all ages attached to their household in Dorset. The novel deals with love in its two aspects, the self-gratifying and the impersonal; - The Nice And The Good - as they are embodied in a fascinating array of paired characters. The Nice And The Good leads through stress and terror to a joyous and compassionate Midsummer Nights Dream conclusion, in which the couples all sort themselves out neatly and omnia vincit amor.

Carel Fisher is a priest who is experiencing doubt and beginning to feel hate for God. The novel explores the forces of good and evil, and studies a religious man transferring his faith from one force to the other.

The acclaimed author of The Good Apprentice draws on the entire history of philosophy--and particularly on Plato and Kant--to formulate her own model of morality and demonstrate how thoroughly it is bound up with our daily lives. "An utterly absorbing book".--The Wall Street Journal.

  An old man struggles to make one last connection with his estranged son, before it’s too late   The elderly Bruno knows he is not far from death. One of his last wishes is to contact his estranged son, Miles, whose marriage to an Indian woman drove a decades-long wedge between father and son. When Miles comes back into his father’s life, Bruno must confront his guilt, and his family must overcome the tension that grew during his long absence.   Set against an enchanting London backdrop, Murdoch’s complex family drama is a poignant exploration of love, remorse, and the power of emotional redemption.  

After his wife's death, Hugh contemplates returning to his former mistress. Randall's young daughter, Miranda, is adored by her Australian cousin Penn, but has attachments elsewhere. Impelled by affection, lust and illusion, these characters search for love within a tightly woven web. schovat popis

Henry and Cato is the story of two prodigal sons. Henry returns from self-imposed exile in America to an unforeseen inheritance of wealth and land in England. He is also returning to his mother. His friend Cato is struggling with two ambiguous intermingled passions, one for a God who may or may not exist, the other for a petty criminal who may or may not be capable of salvation. Cato's father and his sister Colette wait anxiously to welcome Cato back to sanity after his dubious escapades. Henry meanwhile confronts his mother, the unappeased furies of childish resentment, and various possibilities of revenge. He also wants to save his soul, and to save Stephanie, a tragic adventuress and an unexpected part of his inheritance. Henry's cool mother watches, Cato's impetuous sister intervenes. Can love here become a saving force, or is it condemned to be possessive and demonic? Beautiful Joe thinks that a determined man with a gun or a knife can get the money he wants and the girls as well; but perhaps he too is anxious to save his soul. A passionate pure devotion, like that of a 'young knight', inadvertently provokes the crisis. Blackmail, violence, and homicide take a hand, and both Henry and Cato return home at last.

Examining the trials and tribulations of Hilary Burde as he attempts to recover his soul from the misery of his troubled past, this novel is a complex exploration of the possibility and meaning of redemption, the nature of human memory, and the chances of love for the tarnished soul

Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Belfounder, silent philosopher.Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with formidable Hugo, whose ‘philosophy’ he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog, and a political riot in a film-set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo’s secret. Perhaps Hugo’s secret is Hugo himself? Admonished, enlightened, Jake hopes at last to become a real writer.

A bewitching young man is determined to charm an attractive, unworldly woman

As macabre as a Jacobean tragedy, as frivolous as a Restoration comedy, Iris Murdoch's fifth novel takes sombre themes - adultery, incest, castration, violence and suicide - and yet succeeds in making of them a book that is brilliantly enjoyable.

Gertrude has lost her husband and Anne, an ex-nun, her God. They plan to live together and do good works. The 'Count', a Polish man in exile watches over Gertrude with loving patience. Tim, a failed painter, plans with his punk girlfriend to live off his rich friends. Who will judge whom in this intricate pattern of love and deceit? schovat popis

As the Easter Rebellion looms, tension mounts in the rain-soaked streets of Dublin. His relentlessly pious mother pursues her own private war with his stepfather, a man sunk in religious speculation and drink. Meanwhile Pat's Protestant soldier cousin, Andrew Chase-White, puzzles out his complex emotions about Ireland and the girl he loves.

Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life. One by one his relatives reveal their secrets to a reluctant Edmund: illicit affairs, hidden passions, shameful scandals. And the heart of all, there is, as always, the family's loyal servant, the Italian girl. schovat popis

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STEPHEN MEDCALFWhen Marian Taylor takes the post of governess at Gaze castle, remote house on a beautiful but desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with many strange mysteries. What kind of crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house under a brooding spell? schovat popis

En gruppe venner er samlet til middag et par dage før et bryllup, da den vordende brud pludselig meddeler, at brylluppet er aflyst. Jackson, en gådefuld og selvudslettende person, synes at være forklaringen

Previously unpublished – except in a 1950’s anthology and in Japan, and rediscovered after her death. It is the only short story that Iris Murdoch ever wrote for publication. Set in Dublin, in the late fifties, this is the story of Yvonne, a young Irish woman who believes there’s more to life than marriage to Sam, the respectable young man who’s courting her. The action moves to a surprising climax and conclusion – a strangely haunting story about the incompatibility of dreams and desires. From the Trade Paperback edition.

A story about love and friendship and Marxism Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends “commissioned” one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. “Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?” Rose Curtland asks. “The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history,” Jenkin Riderhood suggests. The theft of a wife further embroils the situation. Moral indignation must be separated from political disagreement. Tamar Hernshaw has a different trouble and a terrible secret. Can one die of shame? In another quarter a suicide pact seems the solution. Duncan Cambus thinks that since it is a tragedy, someone must die. Someone dies. Rose, who has gone on loving without hope, at least deserves a reward.

Příběh ukazuje nečekanou, ale o to prudší krizi v rodině dosud poklidně žijícího anglického středoškolského profesora.

Námetom tejto knihy je láska. Všetky druhy lásky, láska ku všetkému, zrod lásky, dozrievanie, jej spevy, bakchanálie, jej prítomnosť v celom bytí.

První román angloirské spisovatelky, vytěžený ze světa londýnské umělecké bohémy. Hrdinou je londýnský intelektuál a bohém, flink s dobrým srdcem a zdravým lidským jádrem. Jeho život je nepřetržitým řetězem divokých dobrodružství a fraškovitých situací. V jejich průběhu zápasí hrdina se světem i sám se sebou o své místo v životě i ve společnosti a vyprošťuje se „zpod sítě“ klamných iluzí a lákavých nástrah. Autorka zde spojuje v jednolitý literární útvar humor s opravdovostí, fantastičnost s reálností.