Under The Net

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Under the Net, from 1954, was the first published novel by Iris Murdoch, the distinguished academic, and professor of moral philosophy at Oxford University. As well as books on moral philosophy she wrote twenty-six critically acclaimed novels, one of which won the prestigious Booker prize. Yet Under the Net is sometimes dismissed as a light comic piece, in comparison with her later, lengthier novels. Certainly it can be read that way, as a humorous tale about a Bohemian young Irish man in London, Jake Donoghue, who occasionally earns a crust by translating trashy French novels, but by and large has avoided getting a job, and as the blurb says “sponges off his friends”. Murdoch's first effort here is a fine example of such blundering on -- but she perhaps remained too wary of trying harder to get close enough to "crawl under the net". All speech lies, and art is only a special form of speech, yet great art can lie its way into the truth.” Jake’s friends seem to present a paradox. Wittgenstein stated that language always imposes limitations on thought. This idea is proposed by one of the main characters, Hugo Belfounder. We hear a lot about Hugo Belfounder before he actually appears in the novel. Jake has looked up to Hugo ever since they met, at a medical research hospital, where the two of them had volunteered to be guinea pigs for a new cold remedy. Significantly, their first few days are silent, at Jake’s request, although they are roommates. It is Jake who breaks the silence, and from then on Jake is fascinated by this mild mannered and softly spoken intelligent man. The two have long philosophical discussions, which both enjoy so much that they enlist for a second medical experiment. With an immensity of pains, Jake succeeds in reaching Hugo's room shortly after one in the morning. The conversation is not at all what he expected: Hugo is not at all angry with Jake, and it turns out that while Anna is indeed besotted with Hugo, Hugo himself is in love with Sadie, and Sadie with Jake—not a love triangle, but a one-way love diamond. Hugo demands that Jake help him escape. Jake does so, but they are seen by the hostile porter, Stitch, and Jake knows that he has lost his job.

And, as a consequence of this self-scrutiny, Jake develops a little emotional intelligence; not as much as his creator had, but enough to be a decent man.He evolves from scrounging taxi-blagging laziness worthy of Skimpole in Bleak House(‘there’s nothing that irritates me so much as paying rent’) through a bleak, albeit brief, depression reminiscent of Melville’s Bartleby, turning his face to the wall, to, eventually, understanding ‘the possibility of doing better’.By the novel’s end, Jake has resolved to earn money with a sensible job, to find a place to live for him and Mars.He might even begin to write a novel, possibly this novel, because he has started to notice the world around him. Under the Net, Iris Murdoch’s first novel, might seem, at least in summary, fair game.It contains suspiciously European-sounding academics, Socratic argument, farcical semi-crimes, French translators, large affordable flats in Central London.Could anything be less attuned to this miserably populist, anti-intellectual, austerity-ridden xenophobic age?And, although its characters don’t have the establishment jobs, the beautiful gardens and romantic good fortune for which her later work is criticised, they are nonetheless fans of gauzy fabrics, Pernod and existentialism; they include a firework manufacturer, a celebrity German Shepherd, a fairly honest bookie and a taciturn taxi-driver.Everyone writes letters; the City of London is a Blitzed wasteland of rubble and fragile churches, full of willowherb and potential.What possible relevance could such a book have now? Jeeves's tone was reproachful. "Reduced to the bare essentials, sir, any work of art will look puerile. It is not what is written, but how it is written that matters in all forms of high literature. Interpolating a philosophical argument into a picaresque novel, and carrying it off without the pace flagging or the thread being lost, requires quite a deft hand. Miss Murdoch has accomplished it seamlessly, sir." I know that nothing consoles and nothing justifies except a story", Jake quotes from his own Hugo-influenced work, The Silencer. Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and was a fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford.

The Sovereignty Of Good (1970), The Fire And The Sun: Why Plato Banished The Artists (1976) and Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals (1992) have been important to theologians, to aestheticians, and moral philosophers, and seem likely to remain so. She could not believe in a personal god demonic enough to have created the world whose sufferings are so clear to us, yet wanted religion to survive, too. She took confession once, and alarmed the priest concerned with her moral passion and her vehemence. She was taught a form of Buddhist meditation also, and wanted Buddhism to educate Christianity, to create a non-supernatural religion. God and the after-life were essentially anti-religious bribes to her. Her vision of the world as sacred looks forward to ecology and the Green movement.

Visiting a cottage I share in mid-Wales in 1995, a cottage which abuts a graveyard, Iris Murdoch asked happily and with much interest: Do you know many of the dead people in your cemetery? Dying was, for her, not simply the intensely significant Wagnerian last moment that Christianity can make of it, but rather an undramatic part of everyday moral life. Redemption meant for her the Buddhist hope that one might gradually, moment-by-moment and day-by-day, learn to perceive less selfishly. We all live in the interstices of each other’s lives, and we would all get a surprise if we could see everything.” The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.Money isn't a great priority for him -- and he manages to scrape by, even though he seems terminally short of cash. During the 1930s, Iris Murdoch had read for a first degree in “Greats” (Ancient History, Classics, and Philosophy) at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, she worked as a civil servant. (It was during this time that she wrote the unpublished novels.)

Toda teorizaci��n es una huida. Debe dirigirnos la situación en sí, y eso es inexpresablemente concreto. Desde luego, es algo a lo que nunca podemos acercarnos lo bastante, por mucho que intentemos, por así decirlo, meternos bajo la red".La más humorística de las obras que hasta ahora he leído de la autora, alguien a quien admiro profundamente y a la que saboreo me hable de lo que me hable. Y aquí, en su primera novela, me ha hablado de algunas de las cosas que le importan y de las que ya me ha hablado en sus obras posteriores. Oh, no, sir," the man was all apologies immediately. "Such behaviour is furthest from my mind, I assure you." Tournament video footage of the S-serve is hard to find, but here’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvldP5KCobw>one example where both Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire, W. W. Norton, 1999. This is the second memoir written by Bayley about his wife. This one was written after her death, and many critics have highly recommended this book for its disclosure of a wonderfully warmhearted story of love.In this lightly comic novel about work, love, wealth and fame the main character is Jake Donaghue, a struggling writer and translator. He seeks to improve his circumstances and make up for past mistakes by reconnecting with his old acquaintance Hugo Belfounder, a mild mannered and soft-spoken philosopher. Murdoch fu amica di Queneau per decenni, probabilmente innamorata (almeno a giudicare dalla fitta corrispondenza) ma non ricambiata. Passione platonica, si dice. In ogni caso, grande sentimento, grande storia, grande ammirazione per lo scrittore francese.