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Writer at War
These never-before published diaries and letters will be a MUST for every Iris Murdoch fan...These collected writings, never published before, comprise a diary which Iris Murdoch kept in her last summer at Oxford, immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War, and her wartime correspondence with two the poet Frank Thomson, murdered in Bulgaria in 1944, and a teacher for the British Council, David Hicks. They reveal the young writer at her sprightly, original best - as gripped by her own affairs, and those of her friends and peers, as by the great affairs of the world; exuberant when in love, and yet remarkably philosophical even when love goes painfully wrong. Iris A Writer at War is a treasury of one of the great women writers and thinkers of the 20th century - a fascinating private memoir which sheds new light on a brilliant mind in development, but also a remarkable historical document of life behind the scenes during the Second World War.
303 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2002
About the author
Iris Murdoch
127 books2,776 followersDame 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 wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
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 wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 11, 2024
In the weeks before the outbreak of WWII, 20 year old Iris Murdoch toured the English countryside as part of a theatrical troupe known as the Magpie Players. She had not yet published her first novel and was a fervent member of the Communist Party. After her death of Alzheimer's in 1999, the two aspects of her personal life on which everyone seemed to focus was her screwing and her becoming screwy, as the editor bluntly puts it. The Magpie diary, which at times reads like an excerpt from Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, shows a lighthearted and carefree Murdoch honing her acting as well as her sewing skills.
In addition to the diary there is also included two sets of war letters, written to friends, both men, in whom she took a romantic interest, and in these she graduates from Somerville College, gets a job at the Treasury, loses her virginity, attempts to learn Russian, Turkish, Italian. She grapples with a typewriter and with letter-eating rats, as well as with writing as a métier. The letters to and from Frank Thompson, who was stationed largely in the Middle East, are funny and tender, and never anything but a delight.
The letters to David Hicks are much stiffer (only initially) and are at times almost desperate (she absolutely craves his attention), but we do get a glimpse of her work with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. UNRRA sends her to Brussels, where she gets a chance to meet Jean-Paul Sartre, and later to Austria.
As someone who has long been enchanted by Iris Murdoch, this book only deepened my admiration. (I always had the idea that Iris Murdoch was a born novelist who had success from day one, but these letters reveal several frustrated attempts at writing as well as publication).
In addition to the diary there is also included two sets of war letters, written to friends, both men, in whom she took a romantic interest, and in these she graduates from Somerville College, gets a job at the Treasury, loses her virginity, attempts to learn Russian, Turkish, Italian. She grapples with a typewriter and with letter-eating rats, as well as with writing as a métier. The letters to and from Frank Thompson, who was stationed largely in the Middle East, are funny and tender, and never anything but a delight.
The letters to David Hicks are much stiffer (only initially) and are at times almost desperate (she absolutely craves his attention), but we do get a glimpse of her work with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. UNRRA sends her to Brussels, where she gets a chance to meet Jean-Paul Sartre, and later to Austria.
As someone who has long been enchanted by Iris Murdoch, this book only deepened my admiration. (I always had the idea that Iris Murdoch was a born novelist who had success from day one, but these letters reveal several frustrated attempts at writing as well as publication).
August 8, 2013
I haven't read that many collections of letters, but these letters seem extraordinarily insightful and give a lively picture of an experience of WWII we don't often hear of. It's not a survival story, not a looking into the face of evil and barely staying intact story. It's more of a bad things are happening, but mostly not to me, what does it mean story.
Murdoch discusses literature and philosophy with true insight and enjoyment. There is also a touching personal narrative revealed here.
The first section was a journal IM kept while traveling around rural England in late August 1939 with a theatrical group. It was entertaining and interesting, since I'm so obsessed with her and also a bit crushed out on her. For me this was the lightest part of the book, though entertaining for a Murdoch geek. To see the dates on her journal and know what was happening on the world stage is quite eerie, as well.
The second part, which is the exchange of letters between IM and Frank Thompson, who was killed in 1944, is brilliant. This was my favorite section, in part because Iris seems more emotionally trusting of FT and thus less prone to "constructing a self" for his approbation as she does with David Hicks. The other part, of course, is that FT's letters survived (by rather a miraculous turn of events) and he is a very interesting character in his own right. Together, the two halves of the correspondence make for a truly touching story of friendship and love and longing. I fell in love with Frank Thompson a little, myself.
The third part is Murdoch's side of the correspondence she had with David Hicks, to whom she became engaged in 1947. I so wish we had these letters also, but even without them one has the sense of Hicks being much more difficult and self-conscious in his relationships with others. Iris is on the defensive and at one point, to my delight, takes him to task for writing her what was apparently a very conceited self-involved attempt at "warning her off" romantically. Her response is funny and brave and great. It was hard to read the last letters Iris wrote to David. They were engaged and she was writing him every few days begging for letters, which were possibly delayed because of spotty mail service, but also, we suspect, he just didn't write to her enough. It's melancholy to read these increasingly pathetic appeals for news and attempts to be positive and live her own life. We know what is coming. He broke her heart.
Over all, the picture of Iris Murdoch that emerges is by no means that of a saint, but of a very smart, passionate, determined person who is both trying to see outside of herself and figure out who she is. What matters, who can one trust? She is constantly aware, in the last two sections, that her military correspondents are experiencing a life she can't imagine, and yet her descriptions of her own, less eventful civilian life in London don't seem self-indulgent but are revealing and thought-provoking in their own way.
I have cryptic notes and SO many little bits of paper marking pages I want to come back to. This book really affected me; I'm still trying to work out how and why. This book serves its purpose as an adjunct to a biography of Iris Murdoch, but it is also more than that. It is a document that gives a unique portrait of an important time in the history of nations and ideas. I highly recommend it.
Murdoch discusses literature and philosophy with true insight and enjoyment. There is also a touching personal narrative revealed here.
The first section was a journal IM kept while traveling around rural England in late August 1939 with a theatrical group. It was entertaining and interesting, since I'm so obsessed with her and also a bit crushed out on her. For me this was the lightest part of the book, though entertaining for a Murdoch geek. To see the dates on her journal and know what was happening on the world stage is quite eerie, as well.
The second part, which is the exchange of letters between IM and Frank Thompson, who was killed in 1944, is brilliant. This was my favorite section, in part because Iris seems more emotionally trusting of FT and thus less prone to "constructing a self" for his approbation as she does with David Hicks. The other part, of course, is that FT's letters survived (by rather a miraculous turn of events) and he is a very interesting character in his own right. Together, the two halves of the correspondence make for a truly touching story of friendship and love and longing. I fell in love with Frank Thompson a little, myself.
The third part is Murdoch's side of the correspondence she had with David Hicks, to whom she became engaged in 1947. I so wish we had these letters also, but even without them one has the sense of Hicks being much more difficult and self-conscious in his relationships with others. Iris is on the defensive and at one point, to my delight, takes him to task for writing her what was apparently a very conceited self-involved attempt at "warning her off" romantically. Her response is funny and brave and great. It was hard to read the last letters Iris wrote to David. They were engaged and she was writing him every few days begging for letters, which were possibly delayed because of spotty mail service, but also, we suspect, he just didn't write to her enough. It's melancholy to read these increasingly pathetic appeals for news and attempts to be positive and live her own life. We know what is coming. He broke her heart.
Over all, the picture of Iris Murdoch that emerges is by no means that of a saint, but of a very smart, passionate, determined person who is both trying to see outside of herself and figure out who she is. What matters, who can one trust? She is constantly aware, in the last two sections, that her military correspondents are experiencing a life she can't imagine, and yet her descriptions of her own, less eventful civilian life in London don't seem self-indulgent but are revealing and thought-provoking in their own way.
I have cryptic notes and SO many little bits of paper marking pages I want to come back to. This book really affected me; I'm still trying to work out how and why. This book serves its purpose as an adjunct to a biography of Iris Murdoch, but it is also more than that. It is a document that gives a unique portrait of an important time in the history of nations and ideas. I highly recommend it.
February 22, 2012
This book has three parts: a diary Iris Murdoch wrote as part of a student theatre company touring in the vicinity of Oxford just before the Second World War broke out, and correspondents with two friends during and immediately after the war -- Frank Thompson, who was perhaps in love with her, and David Hicks, to whom she was briefly engaged, until he broke it off and married someone else.
The diary is quite a lively description of a travelling theatre company and those involved in it. Though war was imminent, it doesn't seem to have had much effect on Iris, then a communist, and rather opposed to war because of the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact.
The correspondence with Frank Thompson is more interesting, however. Iris Murdoch had then left university, and begun to work in the Treasury in London, while Frank Thompson, a Captain in the British Army, was serving in "the Middle East" -- a rather vague term, reflecting wartime censorship.
For the most part we see both sides of the correspondence, though some letters are missing, and what stands out is that Frank Thompson's letters are far more interesting than Iris Murdoch's. Though the sub-title is "A writer at war", the war seems to impinge very little on her life. Her life seems undisturbed by air raid warnings, rationing, or any of the other characteristics of life in war-time London that one reads about in other books. It hardly seems to touch her at all, and her letters are quite uninformative.
Frank Thompson's, on the other hand, and very informative and interesting.
At one point he describes listening to Radio Moscow (perhaps from Tehran), in October 1942:
It's a marvellously evocative picture of one small scene during the war, but Iris provides nothing even remotely similar.
He tells entertaining stories retailed to him by an Armenian refugee who taught him Russian. On another occasion he writes:
Now that's a writer at war!
Iris Murdoch, on the other hand, just writes demanding more news, complaining that she hasn't had enough, and occasionally writes about her inner states, but rarely gives any news herself, other than that at one point she lost her virginity, and that a couple of friends got married.
Frank Thompson eventually went to the Balkans to assist the partisans on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, and was captured by Bulgarian fascists and shot.
From the few glimpses one sees in his letters, one wonders what sort of writer he might have been had he survived the war. I suspect that he might well have outshone Iris Murdoch.
The correspondence with David Hicks, towards the end of the war, is less satisfactory. We see only one side of it for the most part. Presumably David Hick's letters have been lost, except for the last, explaining why he has broken off their engagement to marry someone else.
Iris Murdoch had by this time left the Treasury, and gone to work with UNRRA, trying to sort out the lives of millions of displaced people (DPs) whose lives had been disrupted by the war. She was based first in Brussels, then in a monastery in the Netherlands, then at Salzburg, and finally at Innsbruck in Austria, where UNRRA had commandeered a hotel for its workers, halfway up a mountain, a funicular ride from the town, and a cable-car ride from the top of the mountain.
It's at this point that Iris begins to become a writer. In her letters to David, apart from her declarations of love and longing, she describes the characters in her novel and how they are developing. She complains that he doesn't write, and is unsure whether he was in Prague or Bratislava. It turns out that he was at the latter, working for the British Council. She wants to know what life is like there -- whether the trams are running, whether it is possible to buy books, and so on. But that just highlights the fact that she says nothing about whether the trams are running in Innsbruck, and she tells very little about life there. She feels sorry for a Yugoslav boy who ran away after crashing an UNRRA truck, but doesn't describe him nearly as sympathetically as Frank Thompson does the Polish refugee.
The letters become more and more impassioned with longing, while all the time one knows that David Hicks is going to jilt her. But her longing for him doesn't stop her from having an affair with a French fellow worker, which she hopes David won't mind. He probably didn't, because by the time he got the letter telling him this, he'd already written his letter breaking off their engagement.
The diary is quite a lively description of a travelling theatre company and those involved in it. Though war was imminent, it doesn't seem to have had much effect on Iris, then a communist, and rather opposed to war because of the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact.
The correspondence with Frank Thompson is more interesting, however. Iris Murdoch had then left university, and begun to work in the Treasury in London, while Frank Thompson, a Captain in the British Army, was serving in "the Middle East" -- a rather vague term, reflecting wartime censorship.
For the most part we see both sides of the correspondence, though some letters are missing, and what stands out is that Frank Thompson's letters are far more interesting than Iris Murdoch's. Though the sub-title is "A writer at war", the war seems to impinge very little on her life. Her life seems undisturbed by air raid warnings, rationing, or any of the other characteristics of life in war-time London that one reads about in other books. It hardly seems to touch her at all, and her letters are quite uninformative.
Frank Thompson's, on the other hand, and very informative and interesting.
At one point he describes listening to Radio Moscow (perhaps from Tehran), in October 1942:
...From 10:30 to 12:30 at night I can pick up Radio Moscow on the wireless. From 11 onwards it send the news at slow dictation speed, and I find I canunderstand nearly every word. The reason for this slowness is that this programme is providing front-page copy for local newspaper all over the Union, whose editors tune in and take it down word for word. It is amusing to feel oneself at one, crouching over a small wireless at midnight, with the editors, fat and bearded, spectacled and cadaverous, small and electric, of the 'Kuznetsk Kommunist', the 'Bokhara Bolshevik', and 'Tomsk Truth'.
It's a marvellously evocative picture of one small scene during the war, but Iris provides nothing even remotely similar.
He tells entertaining stories retailed to him by an Armenian refugee who taught him Russian. On another occasion he writes:
I have spent all this Sunday afternoon sitting at a cafe with a Pole, meditating on the basic sadness of life. He let me read a letter from Tosia, his fiancee, who is still in German-occupied Poland. The dry ink itself seemed to ache with restrained longing and a courage that was only maintained by the most rigid self-control. Cut out all sententiousness about strength through suffering. Think of the millions of people to whom this war has brought nothing but utter irredeemable loss. Piotr and his Tosia are both close on forty. If the war leaves them botth alive and sane, they will still find little peace in an embittered and factious post-war Europe. For us, who are young, and have the faith that we can recast the world, the struggle that comes after will be bearable. But I feel deeply for the countless peaceable people, who can never because of age, or upbringing and environement which is as fortuitous as anything else in this world, be wholly with us and will never know peace in the one short life allotted to them.
Now that's a writer at war!
Iris Murdoch, on the other hand, just writes demanding more news, complaining that she hasn't had enough, and occasionally writes about her inner states, but rarely gives any news herself, other than that at one point she lost her virginity, and that a couple of friends got married.
Frank Thompson eventually went to the Balkans to assist the partisans on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, and was captured by Bulgarian fascists and shot.
From the few glimpses one sees in his letters, one wonders what sort of writer he might have been had he survived the war. I suspect that he might well have outshone Iris Murdoch.
The correspondence with David Hicks, towards the end of the war, is less satisfactory. We see only one side of it for the most part. Presumably David Hick's letters have been lost, except for the last, explaining why he has broken off their engagement to marry someone else.
Iris Murdoch had by this time left the Treasury, and gone to work with UNRRA, trying to sort out the lives of millions of displaced people (DPs) whose lives had been disrupted by the war. She was based first in Brussels, then in a monastery in the Netherlands, then at Salzburg, and finally at Innsbruck in Austria, where UNRRA had commandeered a hotel for its workers, halfway up a mountain, a funicular ride from the town, and a cable-car ride from the top of the mountain.
It's at this point that Iris begins to become a writer. In her letters to David, apart from her declarations of love and longing, she describes the characters in her novel and how they are developing. She complains that he doesn't write, and is unsure whether he was in Prague or Bratislava. It turns out that he was at the latter, working for the British Council. She wants to know what life is like there -- whether the trams are running, whether it is possible to buy books, and so on. But that just highlights the fact that she says nothing about whether the trams are running in Innsbruck, and she tells very little about life there. She feels sorry for a Yugoslav boy who ran away after crashing an UNRRA truck, but doesn't describe him nearly as sympathetically as Frank Thompson does the Polish refugee.
The letters become more and more impassioned with longing, while all the time one knows that David Hicks is going to jilt her. But her longing for him doesn't stop her from having an affair with a French fellow worker, which she hopes David won't mind. He probably didn't, because by the time he got the letter telling him this, he'd already written his letter breaking off their engagement.
December 2, 2020
"I feel a very deep & fundamental peace, because of you. Oh darling, how I wish you were here, to quarrel with, to make love with ... please write as often as you can – I so desperately want your letters."
"I liked your description of your love for me as an act of faith ! Of course it is, on both sides, rather a leap in the dark, since we’ve seen so little of each other. Are you frightened ? I am sometimes, but not deeply."
"Sometimes I feel a sort of savagery about you & I want to shake you in the same sort of way that I sometimes want to shake myself. It’s odd how close you seem to me – considering our dissimilarities."
"I yearn for you, your hair, your eyes, your hands. I am incomplete now without you. I wonder, can you manage me, with my needs & demands – my great arrogance & my great yearning to submit ? I feel now that you & I together can compass the universe."
"My dearest, I miss you constantly, with a sort of physical pain. I love you, & I’m conscious of you all the time. I long for next year, & for the trials & the high winds of our life together !"
"I liked your description of your love for me as an act of faith ! Of course it is, on both sides, rather a leap in the dark, since we’ve seen so little of each other. Are you frightened ? I am sometimes, but not deeply."
"Sometimes I feel a sort of savagery about you & I want to shake you in the same sort of way that I sometimes want to shake myself. It’s odd how close you seem to me – considering our dissimilarities."
"I yearn for you, your hair, your eyes, your hands. I am incomplete now without you. I wonder, can you manage me, with my needs & demands – my great arrogance & my great yearning to submit ? I feel now that you & I together can compass the universe."
"My dearest, I miss you constantly, with a sort of physical pain. I love you, & I’m conscious of you all the time. I long for next year, & for the trials & the high winds of our life together !"
August 28, 2011
I love all things Dame Murdoch but this is a curious book. It is composed of letters written to two lovers during WWII. So, they are from her BEFORE she became a writer. The closest you get to insight into her supernal novels are comments about a novel she is writing that is going poorly. This collection is edited by Peter Conradi, who wrote a masterful biography of Iris Murdoch, so one can only hope that a Collected Letters is to follow, which would have a little more meat to it.
August 12, 2018
Was pleased to find her young and conceited – letters laced with ‘mon dieu!’s and ‘passim’s and ‘ye gods!’es.
To my shame, these people are all always learning five languages at once, wittily discussing the exigencies of Turkish declaratives.
Interesting how comfortable Conradi is to contradict her – apparently she excised quite a lot from her archive, mostly on sex. Some fuckups despite his breadth (: Thompson’s last letter is dated ’43 here!) and one piece of gratuitous dramaturgy: he includes only one reply from David Hicks, making him seem sadistic rather than grudging and aloof. Her generosity / terrible co-dependence in the face of Hicks’ brutal breakup is too moving.
Note: in this period, Murdoch copied many Treasury documents and passed them to the Soviets. How much harm this did is arguable, but it doesn't speak well of her political sense.
To my shame, these people are all always learning five languages at once, wittily discussing the exigencies of Turkish declaratives.
Interesting how comfortable Conradi is to contradict her – apparently she excised quite a lot from her archive, mostly on sex. Some fuckups despite his breadth (: Thompson’s last letter is dated ’43 here!) and one piece of gratuitous dramaturgy: he includes only one reply from David Hicks, making him seem sadistic rather than grudging and aloof. Her generosity / terrible co-dependence in the face of Hicks’ brutal breakup is too moving.
Note: in this period, Murdoch copied many Treasury documents and passed them to the Soviets. How much harm this did is arguable, but it doesn't speak well of her political sense.
January 7, 2018
The three sections almost seem to be written by three different people, which is interesting in itself.
There are fascinating comments, especially in the letters to David Hicks, about her writing. For example, "My characters seem to me a lot of silly, spoilt, nervy pseudo intellectuals without any real joy or any real Angst in them," which I certainly felt at some points in what I've read of her work so far! Also, 'In my own work I do seek formal perfection and economy."
Her work with UNRRA must have been fascinating but this emerges in just one small anecdote.
I was very interested in the historical context. The thought of writing passionate love letters to someone who has already written to you to finish the affair but you haven't received their letter is appalling; strange now to think of letters taking so long and the post being so unreliable. The Magpies section gives a vivid picture of pre-war England.
There are fascinating comments, especially in the letters to David Hicks, about her writing. For example, "My characters seem to me a lot of silly, spoilt, nervy pseudo intellectuals without any real joy or any real Angst in them," which I certainly felt at some points in what I've read of her work so far! Also, 'In my own work I do seek formal perfection and economy."
Her work with UNRRA must have been fascinating but this emerges in just one small anecdote.
I was very interested in the historical context. The thought of writing passionate love letters to someone who has already written to you to finish the affair but you haven't received their letter is appalling; strange now to think of letters taking so long and the post being so unreliable. The Magpies section gives a vivid picture of pre-war England.
August 26, 2019
An intriguing introduction to Iris Murdoch's inner life. She seems an extraordinary person and I was quite impressed by how well-read she was. The letters are peppered with snippets from different languages.
The first part covers her experience as part of an amateur theatre troupe in the lead-up to WW2, the second - her letters to Frank Thompson who I hadn't heard of before. An interesting man who became a resistance hero in Bulgaria. The book concludes with her correspondence to David Hicks. Her work also brings her to Brussels and Austria and there is some interesting insight into the places she frequented and people she met. She was in love with both men and speaks candidly about her other relationships and affairs about trying to write and being very critical of her writing. She was a person with the strength of will and a curiosity about life and people before her time. I am eager to start reading her work.
The first part covers her experience as part of an amateur theatre troupe in the lead-up to WW2, the second - her letters to Frank Thompson who I hadn't heard of before. An interesting man who became a resistance hero in Bulgaria. The book concludes with her correspondence to David Hicks. Her work also brings her to Brussels and Austria and there is some interesting insight into the places she frequented and people she met. She was in love with both men and speaks candidly about her other relationships and affairs about trying to write and being very critical of her writing. She was a person with the strength of will and a curiosity about life and people before her time. I am eager to start reading her work.
August 28, 2018
A poor sort of book, a pastiche of fragments of little interest. Certainly not enough to tempt me into reading her works which is why I bought this book. Not worth the candle..
January 3, 2020
It wasn’t really me unfortunately but still an okay read
June 27, 2011
I love reading never-before published letters from writers of any age. These letters written by the British author Iris Murdoch are especially interesting as they come during a life-changing time in history: just before and during World War II when Iris was only in her early twenties. This book is neatly divided into three section: (1) Murdoch's diaries written prior to the war during a youthful summer jaunt around Britain acting in make-shift plays produced by herself and her friends/fellow actors (2) letters to and from her friend/romantic admirer Frank Thompson, a soldier who would die in the war (3) letters to (and one from) David Hicks, another soldier in the war who she becomes engaged to and then dumped by during the course of the letters.
For me, the letters to and from Frank are the most interesting. You see a lot more of Iris's intellectual and vibrant self in this section. Her letters to David -- mostly after Frank's death -- are more agonizing to read as Iris tries to draw the attention of a man who is evidently more interested in himself than her. You feel almost pleased by the end that she does not marry him; you feel certain they would have lead a Zelda/F. Scott Fitzgerald existence of constant fights and displeasure if they had. Unfortunately, you can only conjecture about David's involvement in Iris's life as only one letter of his is printed in this book. This is shortly after their courtship is cut off and he announces to Iris his intentions to marry the woman who would become his wife. I wonder if the letters David wrote to Iris still exist and if they do why they were not printed here. There is an unevenness to the third part of the collection because we only have Iris's portion of their correspondence.
Iris to Frank:
A letter from you, my old friend, has arrived, lamenting lost opportunities for youthful nihilism -- wrongly, I feel sure. A healthful nihilism can flourish at any age -- but only for the very young do certain aspirations & idealisations attain their perfect roundness & brilliance. We shall never feel complete that way again -- but it is good to have felt so -- tubers, perhaps, stored against this lean season when we are growing hard fibres & impenetrable bark.
(May 31st 1943 -- pg. 142)
For me, the letters to and from Frank are the most interesting. You see a lot more of Iris's intellectual and vibrant self in this section. Her letters to David -- mostly after Frank's death -- are more agonizing to read as Iris tries to draw the attention of a man who is evidently more interested in himself than her. You feel almost pleased by the end that she does not marry him; you feel certain they would have lead a Zelda/F. Scott Fitzgerald existence of constant fights and displeasure if they had. Unfortunately, you can only conjecture about David's involvement in Iris's life as only one letter of his is printed in this book. This is shortly after their courtship is cut off and he announces to Iris his intentions to marry the woman who would become his wife. I wonder if the letters David wrote to Iris still exist and if they do why they were not printed here. There is an unevenness to the third part of the collection because we only have Iris's portion of their correspondence.
Iris to Frank:
A letter from you, my old friend, has arrived, lamenting lost opportunities for youthful nihilism -- wrongly, I feel sure. A healthful nihilism can flourish at any age -- but only for the very young do certain aspirations & idealisations attain their perfect roundness & brilliance. We shall never feel complete that way again -- but it is good to have felt so -- tubers, perhaps, stored against this lean season when we are growing hard fibres & impenetrable bark.
(May 31st 1943 -- pg. 142)
August 21, 2010
Oh my, it's hard to review this miscellany!
I am a very big Iris Murdoch fan - read all of her novel, and most of her philosophy - so I find the subject matter intrinsically interesting. That said, I found this book to be poorly edited, misleadingly titled, and often quite disappointing. And there's no index!
But I still "liked it."
First the diary: it's really just a two-week long journal from late August 1939, about Murdoch's experience with a semi-professional theatrical troupe when she was just twenty. Not terribly interesting, either.
Then there are separate "runs" of letters from Murdoch to two of her lovers and intimate friends during the Second World War, Frank Thompson and David Hicks. Instead of "integrating" the sequences, they are presented in different "chapters" of the book - even though Murdoch's relationship with them overlapped - as would happen often throughout her long and varied romantic life. It's a peculiar editorial choice, and I think it doesn't really serve the reader - or Murdoch - well.
Actually, many letters of Thompson _to_ Murdoch are reproduced in the book as well - perhaps a few more than letters of Murdoch _to_ Thompson. These are somewhat interesting in themselves - as Thompson was a soldier and a poet and a Communist and is regarded as a great hero in Bulgaria (where he assisted the anti-Nazi Resistance movement) - but they don't really contribute much to an understanding of Iris Murdoch.
The most interesting part of this book was the concluding "chapter," the section of letters to David Hicks, a fellow writer and intellectual with whom she battled verbally, but who became engaged to her for a short while in late 1945/early 1946. She and Hicks saw each other only briefly in the period in question, so the affair was indeed carried out mostly in letters - and letter overwhelmingly from Murdoch. The authorial voice of Murdoch begins to emerge in these contradictory, frustrating, emotional, intelligent and brilliant missives.
I am a very big Iris Murdoch fan - read all of her novel, and most of her philosophy - so I find the subject matter intrinsically interesting. That said, I found this book to be poorly edited, misleadingly titled, and often quite disappointing. And there's no index!
But I still "liked it."
First the diary: it's really just a two-week long journal from late August 1939, about Murdoch's experience with a semi-professional theatrical troupe when she was just twenty. Not terribly interesting, either.
Then there are separate "runs" of letters from Murdoch to two of her lovers and intimate friends during the Second World War, Frank Thompson and David Hicks. Instead of "integrating" the sequences, they are presented in different "chapters" of the book - even though Murdoch's relationship with them overlapped - as would happen often throughout her long and varied romantic life. It's a peculiar editorial choice, and I think it doesn't really serve the reader - or Murdoch - well.
Actually, many letters of Thompson _to_ Murdoch are reproduced in the book as well - perhaps a few more than letters of Murdoch _to_ Thompson. These are somewhat interesting in themselves - as Thompson was a soldier and a poet and a Communist and is regarded as a great hero in Bulgaria (where he assisted the anti-Nazi Resistance movement) - but they don't really contribute much to an understanding of Iris Murdoch.
The most interesting part of this book was the concluding "chapter," the section of letters to David Hicks, a fellow writer and intellectual with whom she battled verbally, but who became engaged to her for a short while in late 1945/early 1946. She and Hicks saw each other only briefly in the period in question, so the affair was indeed carried out mostly in letters - and letter overwhelmingly from Murdoch. The authorial voice of Murdoch begins to emerge in these contradictory, frustrating, emotional, intelligent and brilliant missives.
July 3, 2011
This was a fast but an interesting read as an Iris Murdoch fan and someone interested in first-hand accounts of large historical events. I think I may go right into reading "Austerity Britain" now - Iris's journal excerpts and letters to two different friends really show people's changing attitudes to war as an observer (not a participant) and how one deals with that when writing to a participant, as well as someone who had a definite political point of view that wasn't synching with reality very well (she was a Communist Party member). She comes across as engaging, funny, smart, needy, loving - such an insight into someone who was emotionally honest and expressive.
October 12, 2012
Very interesting. Letters and journals from her years post Oxford but before becoming a writer. You can see from her sharp observations of others and most notably herself the novelist she would become. Very odd to hear her describe a brief love affair with Michael Foot, forever ingrained in most people's memories as the old decrepid leader of the Labour Party who stood against Thatcher in the 1983 election. But everyone was young and foolish once...
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May 4, 2013Interesting ... intimate ...
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