The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)
by Iris Murdoch
published
March 2003
(first published 1973)
by Penguin Classics
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binding
Paperback, 448 pages
literary awards
1973 Booker Prize Nominee
isbn
0142180114
(isbn13: 9780142180112)
description
Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire ...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 352)
Read in August, 2007
Martin Amis (in his more or less essential collection "The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000") refers to this as one of her best. In it (or with it), Murdoch plunges full-scale into the realm of the Nabokovian unreliable narrator and even, I think, tips her hat directly to Lolita and Pale Fire in spots. Lots of plot developments (usually in the form of marital infidelity) tend to keep her books moving rapidly and she's not above a bit of melodrama - in some cases she ge...more
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This book is fantastic. It uses some pretty clever literary devices, but instead of it all being the tool of some pretentious artist, it's kind of about something bigger. It's great. The scene where one of the characters flips out and falls on the floor is tremendous. Iris Murdoch has some books which are just, eh, but altogether she was a tremendous thinker who was able to translate that into her books in a way which was never stuffy. And when she does a great job, she does a a really really gr...more
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Read in February, 2008
This book sat on my shelf for 6 months. Finally, in an attempt to clean out my house and return over-due borrowed items, I picked it up. And didn't put it down! This book covers the entire gamut of the feelings of love, from initial infatuation, the spiritual well-being of love's first throes, and the stomach-turning emotions of love's ending. All that, plus such a beautiful look at the highest purity of true ART, within writing, music, and friendship. This book is a must-read for a mature ...more
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Read in April, 2006
Loved this. First half hilarious romantic comedy, light-hearted, silly, fun. Second half deadly serious romantic tragedy. Well done.
FAVOURITE QUOTE: “Eternally you escape my embrace. Art cannot assimilate you nor thought digest you. I do not now know, or want to know, anything about your life. For me, you have gone into the dark. Yet elsewhere I realize, and I meditate upon this knowledge, that you laugh, you cry, you read books and cook meals and yawn and lie perhaps in someone...more
FAVOURITE QUOTE: “Eternally you escape my embrace. Art cannot assimilate you nor thought digest you. I do not now know, or want to know, anything about your life. For me, you have gone into the dark. Yet elsewhere I realize, and I meditate upon this knowledge, that you laugh, you cry, you read books and cook meals and yawn and lie perhaps in someone...more
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Read in May, 2007
Murdoch is a pretty amazing writer. She manages to juggle lots of Big Themes at once, but elegantly, and although I occasionally felt a bit out of my depth (she's incredibly intellectual, sometimes densely philosophical), there were other moments of sheer mirth, or intense emotion, that kept me in it till the end.
After the end, though, came the postscripts, and I was not a fan of the postscripts.
After the end, though, came the postscripts, and I was not a fan of the postscripts.
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Read in September, 2007
A bit like Lolita, if Evelyn Waugh were a woman and had written it. The book jacket called it a thriller, which I didn't believe at first because it seemed both too mannered and too farcical (there's a lot of scenes in which people toss other people's belongings out the window) but ultimately it did turn out to be as fast-paced as any Bourne novel, and both comic and tragic in equal measures.
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Read in August, 2008
So, a little bit into this book I was thinking of giving up on it, but I'm glad I didn't... The Black Prince really picks up in part two. The characters aren't exactly loveable, but the ending post scripts calling into doubt the narrator's reliability (although, granted, not as subtly as Nabokov's Pnin or Lolita).
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Read in March, 2008
I wish I had read this (as well as The Sea, The Sea) my last year of undergrad, while I was taking intro philosophy courses and could better sythesize Murdoch with moral philosophy and Plato. Or, I wish I remembered all of it. Or had time to reread it...at least the Phaedrus.
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Read in January, 2008
Hilarious so far, and plus, I want to be Iris Murdoch because when she got married they bought a country house and were "famous for their happiness and domestic squalor. Stuart Hampshire remarked of their appearances together that they reminded him of Hansel and Gretel." Amazing.
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i only read about half of this novel. she is an acknowledged story teller and wants, here, to deal with weighty issues of mortality and art, but i did not care a lick for the characters and so the vehicle went no where.
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Read in July, 2008
My 5th Murdoch, and really hitting the spot. During the Pale Fire-ish forward I thought I wouldn't be able to get into it, but now things are unfolding with the usual delicious brilliance.
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Read in January, 2007
Murdoch is a difficult author for me. I have trouble caring about any of her characters and don't like her style, but somehow when I finish I'm strangely satisfied.
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Read in October, 2007
it takes a long time to get through a murdoch, but i think it's really going to pay off sometime this month when i finish.
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Fantastic interpretation of Hamlet- the underlying themes and complexity of character in this novel is astounding.
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Read in January, 2007
Iris Murdoch: What you get when a great storyteller studies philosophy and classics at Cambridge.
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Read in January, 2007
A vaguely ridiculous book that got a little annoying as it went on and on.
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Read in June, 2008
only a few pages into it and I'm already loving the style.
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Read in January, 1979
recommends it for:
everyone
arguably the greatest lovestory ever told
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