Iris Murdoch

SUMMARY: Martin Lynch-Gibbon Believes He Can Possess Both A Beautiful Wife And A Delightful Lover. But When His Wife, Antonia, Suddenly Leaves Him For Her Psychoanalyst, Martin Is Plunged Into An Intensive Emotional Re-Education. He Attempts To Behave Beautifully And Sensibly. Then He Meets A Woman Whose Demonic Splendour At First Repels Him And Later Arouses A Consuming And Monstrous Passion. As His Medusa Informs Him, 'This Is Nothing To Do With Happiness'.

<p>Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has 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. <i>Existentialists and Mystics</i> not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, **Iris Murdoch** has 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. Collected here for the first time in one volume are Iris Murdoch's most influential pieces, spotlighting her brilliance as an essayist and critic. Included are her influential critiques of existentialism, written in the fifties, and her two Platonic dialogues on art nad religion; incisive evaluations of T.S. Elliot, Gabriel Marcel, Sartre, Elias Canetti, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, and Camus; and key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, the concept of love, and literature's role in curing the ills of philosophy. *Existentialists and Mystics* traces the genesis of one of the most impassioned intellects of our time - and her journey toward Platonism and the practical mysticism that permeates her novels. ** ### Amazon.com Review Iris Murdoch is a poet, philosopher, novelist, and playwright, and in this collection of her most careful thinking and writing on the relationship between art and philosophy, we are treated to the fruits of decades of good work. Murdoch's changing ideas about the search for meaning in literature and life lead us down a richly rewarding path. Along the way she discusses T. S. Eliot, Dante Alighieri, Matthew Arnold, and many other major literary figures. For cognitive power, a sweeping overview of Western thought and art, and a respectful engagement with the reader, put it on the shelf beside the collected works of Kenneth Burke. ### From Library Journal Most readers think of Murdoch first as a novelist, but as this excellent anthology makes clear, she is an outstanding philosopher as well. After World War II, she established herself as an authority on existentialism, though she did not herself accept this doctrine, viewing it as stressing human autonomy to an undue degree. She locates a similar failing in much contemporary analytic moral philosophy. Instead, she thinks of values as objective: human beings contemplate them rather than create them. Her philosophy culminates in a nontheistic mysticism bearing strong affinities to Plato. The best introduction available to an important and unusual thinker; for all academic and most public libraries.?David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

<p>The decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend any 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians—from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida—to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.</p> <p>The decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend <I>any</I> 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians&#8212;from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida&#8212;to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns. A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. And then things begin to change. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil. With an introduction by A. S. Byatt.

In the English town of Ennistone hot springs bubble up from deep beneath the earth. In these healing waters the townspeople seek health and regeneration, rightousness and ritual cleansing. To this town steeped in ancient lore and subterranean inspiration the Philosopher returns. He exerts an almost magical influence over a host of Ennistonians, and especially over George McCaffrey, the host of Ennistonians, and especially over George McCaffrey, the Philosophers old pupil, a demonic man desperate for redemption. ### Review “Ambitious, unique and ingeniously plotted.” —Joyce Carol Oates “Vivid and memorable . . . it seems to fuel itself with increasingly furious comic energy.” — *The New York Times* “Beautifully written and very artfully constructed.” — *The Christian Science Monitor*

<p>When Charles Arrowby retires from his glittering career in the London theatre, he buys a remote house on the rocks by the sea. He hopes to escape from his tumultuous love affairs but unexpectedly bumps into his childhood sweetheart and sets his heart on destroying her marriage. His equilibrium is further disturbed when his friends all decide to come and keep him company and Charles finds his seaside idyll severely threatened by his past. EDITORIAL REVIEW: 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 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.

SUMMARY: Writer Jake Donaghue's adventures in London and Paris include falling in and out of love, kidnapping a canine film star, and trailing a onetime friend SUMMARY: Iris Murdoch'S First Novel Is A Gem - Solid And Sparkling. Set In A Part Of London, Where Struggling Writers Rub Shoulders With Successful Bookies, And Film Starlets With Frantic Philosophers. Its Hero, Jake Donaghue, Is A Drifting, Clever, Likeable Young Man Who Makes A Living Out Of Translation Work And Sponging On His Friends. Meeting Again, After Some Years, An Old Flame, Anna, He Is Led Into A Series Of Fantastic Adventures. Iris Murdoch Has Wit, Great Power Of Invention And A Knack For Producing Absurd Incidents With A Serious Undertone And Tender Episodes With An Edge Of Satire. Robust, Full Of Flavour And Panache, Here Is One Of Those Rare Novels Which Equally Make One Laugh And Make One Think.