From the Bookshelf of The Obscure Reading Group…

The Sea, the Sea

Iris Murdoch

Start date: October 1, 2023

Finish date: October 31, 2023

Why we're reading this: October's Discussion Book…more
[close] October's Discussion Book

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Oct 17, 2023 Kathleen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophical, setting-england, women-writers

“Who is one’s first love?”

Charles Arrowby, a moderately famous playwright, has retired to an old house on the edge of the sea and intends to write of Clement, the much older actress and former love who made him famous. She is one of many former loves he discusses, one of many theater people involved in the web of his life. Here in isolation, he considers them all, considers himself.

In the first section he is only musing to himself, but in the second, these people emerge onto the scene and in a “Who is one’s first love?”

Charles Arrowby, a moderately famous playwright, has retired to an old house on the edge of the sea and intends to write of Clement, the much older actress and former love who made him famous. She is one of many former loves he discusses, one of many theater people involved in the web of his life. Here in isolation, he considers them all, considers himself.

In the first section he is only musing to himself, but in the second, these people emerge onto the scene and in a series of strange coincidences we begin to see how the truth of his life is something more complex. Charles unexpectedly meets his long-lost first love, and his quest for her is central to the story.

“She was a part, an evidence, of some pure uncracked unfissured confidence in the good which was never there for me again.”

We may not all be famous and have dramatic friends, but like Charles, we are the stars of our own lives. And we often act as such, as if we were the center of everything.

“How important it seems to continue one’s life by explaining oneself to people, by justifying oneself, by memorializing one’s loves.”

Charles is flagrantly selfish, and we see his faults clearly as we read. He is so easy to mock, yet there is something there, something relatable, something so human in that selfish human way we all have.

Or perhaps it isn’t Charles at all, but Murdoch and her writing skill. You wouldn’t think these self-obsessed ramblings and unlikely events would be interesting, but I found it gripping--all 500 or so pages. I found in each character a fully-formed, uniquely interesting (if often baffling) individual. His cousin James provides a whole philosophical subplot, and the photograph of James’ parents dancing, described with such subtle and tender detail, is something I see perfectly, and won’t soon forget. So writing, writing, writing is the key to why this novel succeeds.

Still, throughout the book, I kept wanting to know what was real, who to believe. I wanted illusions corrected somehow. But I don’t think the author is concerning herself with realism here. She’s laying out a landscape of our fickle minds.

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher novelist, and in this book she took that combo to an amazing height. I’ve enjoyed the three of her books I read previously but this … This one is special. It’s a wonderful convergence of character and subject matter and setting. The sea! It is tumult and danger, calming and healing, mysterious and unknowable. As complex as we are, as we think we are anyway. It reflects what’s going on in the sky, and like the never-ending conversation inside our heads, it unceasingly clamors on and on. ...more

46 likes · Like · see review

Oct 18, 2023 Dawn Tessman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The story of Charles Arrowby who retires to the sea from a career in the theatre and is unexpectedly reacquainted with a long lost love whom he immediately attempts to woo and “save.” This book is a challenging read, as it follows Charles’ scheming thoughts and actions in diary-form, which are insufferable and infuriating at times, while his introspections specifically with regard to Hartley, his love interest, begin to become ploddingly tiresome and overdone by the end of the novel. At the same ...more

Like · see review