Halloween Reads
A Goodreads user asked this question about The Sea, the Sea:
One of my reading goals for this year is to read an Iris Murdoch. <i>The Sea, The Sea</i> seems to be her most lauded, but for Murdoch fans: is this your favorite, or the best place to start for a newby?
Paul I started with A Fairly Honourable Defeat and I LOVED it so much, it's shorter and more accessible than The Sea, The Sea, so I'd firmly recommend that…moreI started with A Fairly Honourable Defeat and I LOVED it so much, it's shorter and more accessible than The Sea, The Sea, so I'd firmly recommend that one. She takes a small cast of characters and somehow makes a very trivial threat to their happiness seem like an incredibly tense thriller.

That said, I do think The Sea, The Sea is really quite special, but it starts out (about the first 10%) deliberately slow and deceptive - much like a treacherous low tide, now I think about it, I wonder how deep that metaphor goes, there's some almost airless moments of calm in between some nearly unbearable storms. That 10% contains a lot of beautiful character building and sea imagery though! And there's a lot of play with the idea of an unreliable narrator who is nevertheless trying his very best to tell everything honestly, as much as his pride can take it.

Those two are the only two of the five of hers I've re-read, and I think I liked them even more the second time round, so I'm actually going to have another go at some I didn't connect with as much.(less)
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The Sea, the Sea
by Iris Murdoch
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