Synopses & Reviews
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors some real, some spectral that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.
Review
"Soon after this reviewer had read The Sea, the Sea, it was announced that the novel had won the most prestigious and richest prize for fiction in Britain. It was richly deserved. One has never read better descriptions of the sea in a multitude of moods, nor has it ever been used as a symbol for the embroiled thinking that we humans fall into. But the novel is contemplative, and its narrator's difficulties stem from his having cherished a boyhood love throughout his life, a love which was largely unreturned, a fact he chose to ignore. The writing is so strong that one races from word to word, while the rhythm of the book, rather like that of its namesake, moves in a ceasless ebb and flow. Miss Murdoch's novels have proved a strong training ground, for here she has used all her talent and pared away all her weaknesses." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Winner of the prestigious Booker Prize--a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a playwright as he composes his memoirs
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.
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Synopsis
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.
About the Author
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She went to Badminton School, Bristol and read classics at Somerville College, Oxford. In 1948 she returned to Oxford where she became a fellow of St Anne’s college. One of this century’s finest and most influential novelists, and a distinguished philosopher, she was published by Chatto from her first novel, Under the Net in 1954 to her last, Jackson’s Dilemma in 1995. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was made a DBE in the 1987 New Year’s Honours List. She died in February 1999.