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What Members Thought
I liked it a lot more than I thought I would when I first started it...the humor is subtle and quite clever; the characters are ridiculously human. To imagine the storyline as real-life events, or a movie, had me giggling. By the end, I'd found that the main character had grown on me, I think, because in some ways, he is the ambivalent form of a part of all of us. I will definitely be reading more of Murdoch's novels in the near future.
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Murdoch's sense of humor is such a delight and it makes her one of the most readable of the "important" authors - I just can't picture the wacky hijinks that happen in this book in one by, say, Ian McEwan. Jake is such an interesting character to me because he's a schlub, and he knows he's a schlub, but at the same time he's still so completely oblivious. Playful and enchanting, but still with something serious to say about human relationships.
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This was Murdoch's first novel, and she could write some amusing bits. But about a hundred pages into this I began to notice...that...there...was...no...plot...
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Dec 19, 2010
Daisy
marked it as to-read
Apr 14, 2011
Juliana Philippa
marked it as to-read
Jan 16, 2012
Nanosynergy
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
fiction-1950s
Sep 18, 2012
Sam
marked it as to-read
Oct 09, 2012
Mary
marked it as to-read
Jan 08, 2013
Terri
marked it as boxall-s-1001
Dec 08, 2013
Chris Hammer
marked it as to-read
Feb 20, 2020
Ginger
marked it as to-read
Dec 19, 2020
Danise
marked it as to-read
Jun 10, 2023
Kathy Jo
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-before-you-die,
wanna-read-maybes
Aug 11, 2024
Rajivi
marked it as to-read
