Could I actually read it, though? I tried to reread one of her books a few years ago -- A Fairly Honourable Defeat, I think -- and just couldn't do it. All the characters seemed tiresome and obnoxious, and the authorial voice actively annoying, and I gave up after just a few pages. I used to find her books delightful. Couldn't put them down. I don't know if it was just my mood that day or some more permanent change, but it was like her spiritual wavelength and my own now differed by an augmented fourth.
With that experience in mind, I thought I'd better take down The Philosopher's Pupil now, flip to a few random pages, and see whether or not my body still rejects it.
I opened it up and found that there was a bookmark, left there by the previous owner -- a good long time ago, apparently, as when I unfolded it I found it was a receipt dated October 30, 1984:
Was I supposed to find this on Monday -- October 30, when I anticipate starting the book -- and be suitably impressed? Did I just do the synchronistic equivalent of finding one of my presents hidden in the closet a few days before Christmas?
No, synchronicities can't be spoiled "by chance," since "chance" is exactly what they ae made of. The bookmark was between pages 28 and 29, and as I type this sentence the clock in the corner of my computer screen informs me that it is precisely 12:00 midnight, the moment dividing the 28th of October from the 29th. Plus I see there's a reference to "the saucer" on p. 28, and looking back at the previous page confirms that this is indeed "an unidentified flying object, a large luminous tilted saucer." I wasn't expecting that in an Iris Murdoch novel! Curiosity status: piqued.
And now I'd better click "Publish" before it's 12:01.
3 comments:
Two hours after posting this I read a reference to Penn Station in Majestic, a flying-saucer book.
I don't know much about Murdoch, so after reading this I looked at her wikipedia page. Skimming the introduction, I thought I read "Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of unicorns."
I was pretty sure that was wrong, so I looked again and found it really said:
"Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious."
Reading further in the article, I see that Murdoch wrote a novel title The Unicorn. Although that isn't one of the novels listed in the introduction.
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