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28th out of 30 books
—
14 voters
The Good Apprentice
by
Iris Murdoch
Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: He has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Edward searches for redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram. Funny and compelling, The Good Apprentice...more
Paperback, 528 pages
Published
December 1st 2001
by Penguin Classics
(first published 1985)
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I enjoyed this Iris Murdoch novel - the 22nd read in the Murdoch challenge- although I think it is a little over long. I really liked poor old Edward, and sort of liked Stuart although he isn't such a presence in the novel. After the death of his friend, Edward is in a terrible state - guilt and self hatred drive him away from his home. He arrives at the home of his natural father whom he hasn't seen since childhood. Here he finds a rather different way of living, an almost monastic household, h...more
[These notes were made in 1987:]. Like all Murdochs, this is a tremendously involved and complex novel, but there is at least emotional unity to it - or perhaps I am merely more attuned to this unity than I have been in her earlier stuff. This novel is about grief and loss - living through it, surviving it, taking responsibility for your actions without destroying yourself. It also, as the cover blurb quite rightly says, is about the problem of being good. Plot? There's Edward, a heedless young...more
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"Where there are people there's mess."
Not my favorite Murdoch, but now that I'm done I am glad that I read it. Took 150 pages to get into it, but then I felt fairly hooked. The world that Murdoch created at Seegard was so odd it was the most compelling aspect of the story besides Edward's process. The Seegard family was spooky and strange, and at the end I'm left with too many questions about Mother May's intentions, moral character and motives.
Edward became a substantial character, he was enou...more
Not my favorite Murdoch, but now that I'm done I am glad that I read it. Took 150 pages to get into it, but then I felt fairly hooked. The world that Murdoch created at Seegard was so odd it was the most compelling aspect of the story besides Edward's process. The Seegard family was spooky and strange, and at the end I'm left with too many questions about Mother May's intentions, moral character and motives.
Edward became a substantial character, he was enou...more
With an audiobook, there are always two things to review: the text itself, and the narrator's treatment of it.
Regarding the text: it's a great story about a young man's experience with remorse for accidentally causing his friend's death. The title is misleading -- Stuart (the "good apprentice" who is seeking to do good) is not the main character. Rather, the narrative focuses on Stuart's brother Edward, and how he deals with his intense feelings of guilt. Stuart and other characters are describe...more
Regarding the text: it's a great story about a young man's experience with remorse for accidentally causing his friend's death. The title is misleading -- Stuart (the "good apprentice" who is seeking to do good) is not the main character. Rather, the narrative focuses on Stuart's brother Edward, and how he deals with his intense feelings of guilt. Stuart and other characters are describe...more
What I liked: Iris Murdoch is a brilliant writer. Pick a random page and you will in all likelihood find a very complex sentence that will make you go "Wow! Now that's a sentence from a brilliant writer." And it's amazing how deeply she plumbs the depths of these characters.
What I didn't like: This is one of those novels that feels like eating a large plate of brussels sprouts – which is good if you're a big fan of brussels sprouts, but I prefer cauliflower lightly sauted in garlic and oil.
For f...more
What I didn't like: This is one of those novels that feels like eating a large plate of brussels sprouts – which is good if you're a big fan of brussels sprouts, but I prefer cauliflower lightly sauted in garlic and oil.
For f...more
The struggle to be good shows up in all of Murdoch's work, along with the question of how to cast that struggle in a post-theistic age. She also likes to create 'alternative realities,' which are endlessly available due to the rich variety of notions and delusions of even the most ordinary people.
Perhaps it's inevitable that intense young people who are struggling heroically to be good will end up stumbling into an alternative reality. In this case that world is the creation of another powerful...more
Perhaps it's inevitable that intense young people who are struggling heroically to be good will end up stumbling into an alternative reality. In this case that world is the creation of another powerful...more
An exceptional novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 1985, this book reads like mythology. The characters' lives are intertwined by birth, relationships, and happenstance. The central figures are half brothers Edward and Stuart, each seeking a kind of redemption. The former is complicit in the death of a friend, and the latter seeks a life of study and chastity. It is difficult to describe the plot in detail as there are numerous twists, but I found myself drawn into their world and a v...more
five or six perspective characters, all from very close third POV, usually introduced by a long passage of dialog without hardly any tags like "he said," or "she slapped him," just a segue of blank space on the page, a preface to set the scene, and then four of five pages of solid dialog, followed by five or ten pages of intricate internal monolog.
she's crazy good at giving a sense of distinct characters' changing states of mind, and does some wild acrobatics with plot twists and convergences wh...more
she's crazy good at giving a sense of distinct characters' changing states of mind, and does some wild acrobatics with plot twists and convergences wh...more
This is my first read of Iris Murdoch, and after taking a while to adjust to her, I found myself completely absorbed. The book follows the internal emotional workings of half a dozen characters in response to changing events in their lives. While I was reading this book, I was asked several time what it was about. As my reading progressed, I found myself answering that the book is about good and evil (terms I don't use frequently or lightly), but that it's not simple... it's very complex. Nothin...more
Redemption lies in forgiving yourself and improving your psychological outlook, whether with therapy, drugs, or both - this is Murdoch's take on our increasingly secular and individualistic moral code. Though this is a rather pessimistic view, after reading the book you feel like it is honest. It's hard to give a quick summary of this book. It's about a lot of things - seeking redemption, foremost, but also trying to 'know' your parents, infidelity (lots of that), revenge, understanding love, un...more
Aug 12, 2009
Julia
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of british novels & the philosophy of ethics
It's a familiar enough device: two brothers choose (or are fated to) opposite but complementary paths, and literature ensues. In this case, one searches for redemption from his own crushing guilt, and one wants to live a life beyond moral reproach -- both try to do so without the nudge of a belief in a higher power. Iris Murdoch is a trained philosopher, and this is a very British novel, rife with symbolism & achetypal allusions. I liked it, but it was long in spots and the dialogues/inner m...more
Can you tell Murdoch is both philosopher and writer?? It takes the woman 3 pages to get a single point across- there is definately a transition needed when starting this book- it's no "fast read" [and that can be a good thing:]. I just had to keep working at it because I needed to know what happened with the characters. It was interesting, I'll give you that.
I am glad to have discovered Iris Murdoch, this is my first novel of her's that I've read and it was excellent. The Good Apprentice is deeply psychological and philosophically rich. Iris weaves many characters together in quite a complex tangle of a tale of the fallen human condition. I liked how she ended the book, though it left me wanting more.
What I liked about the book -- her power of description, her ability to draw the characters. What I didn't like about the book is a longer list: the introductory section is too long (Edward's depression depresses the readers), characters that aren't very likeable and have no sense of balance, an ending that has many unanswered questions.
It's been years since I read this, but I still remember even small details (the resting places for things on their way to another room, the girl dancing in the forest), while there are countless other books I have read since that I don't remember anything about. Iris Murdoch is one of the immortals.
Murdoch is finally transcending the rather childish duality of conventional morality here and there is much less philosphical intensity in this novel. This is very much a 'story' but sufffers not for this and presents an entertaining and thoughtful tale which will enrapture curious thinkers everywhere...
Murdoch is a highly respected author, but this is just plain boring, with stilted conversations that are totally implausible & repetitious. The author is just way too self-indulgent, which is too bad, because the moral themes at the heart of the story could be compelling.
I love Murdoch's world, where everyone is a middle class intellectual who spends all day thinking in complete sentences about sex and God. (A vast oversimplification, I'm sure, after having read just two of her 40 books. But I hope they're all like that.)
The complexity with which Murdoch renders her. CHaracters is astonishing...layer upo layer of conflicting thought and meaning followed through and developed to inevitable conclusions. Gripping stuff. Food for. New writers, all writers.
Wonderful, obviously, but I'm not sure if it creeps up to that fourth star. Some astounding writing, but perhaps a little too much waffle. There is psychological depth, and then there are psychological trenches. But it has that strangeness and quiet beauty that suffuses so many Murdoch novels. Not one of my favourites of hers, but still a fine thing.
I'd been wanting to read a Murdoch novel, and chose this one. I did finish it, but found the read rather laborious and felt no real connections with any of the characters. Was really glad to return it to the library.
Do I really need to keep all the Murdoch? I spent so long stockpiling them; $5 says they don't survive the next move.
Unfortunately, "Apprentice" is an uneven novel. All of the ideas & intense thought that Murdoch puts into her work are there, but the execution is not as strong as her earlier books. Her characters are flat & not very interesting, yet there are scenes that can really perk a reader's attention. What turned me off was the style of her writing. The sentences were very jerky & run-on, to the point where I was flat out appalled by the state of some of the passages. I would recommend any o...more
A falling-in-love-athon, wise, witty page-turner, very entertaining, outrageous plot. Well into my top 10 IM.
Exceptional, fantastical and deeply philosophical.
My first and absolute favorite Iris Murdoch book.
Jul 29, 2011
Sara
marked it as to-read
85 shortlisted for booker prize
I had a hard time getting into this book. The plot was a bit strange and in the end it didn't come together for me in a satisfying way. The writing style did not draw me in either.
Aug 22, 2011
Josephine Crawford
added it
engrossing
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Dame Jean Iris Murdoch
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She w...more
More about Iris Murdoch...
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She w...more
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