184:
Henry begins an affair with her, and decides to marry her and take her back to the United States with him. When he tells his mother that he plans to sell the property and marry
Stephanie, she at first protests but later seems to accept the situation. Henry takes Stephanie to stay at Laxlinden Hall, where she is befriended by Lucius and Gerda. Stephanie disagrees with Henry's plan to sell everything and leave the country, telling him she would like to live at Laxlinden. Gerda tries to promote a marriage between Henry and Cato's younger sister Colette, who has been in love with Henry since she was a child. Colette writes to him, declaring her love and proposing marriage, but he professes not to take her seriously.
276:, Henry wants to renounce the world and live in the sun, while Cato, having lost his faith, is trying to return to the cave. Cato's sudden conversion is described in Platonic terms, as he feels "as if he had not only emerged from the cave, but was looking at the Sun and finding that it was easy to look at". Suguna Ramanathan, in her study of Murdoch's fiction, observes that this description points to a lack of authenticity in his conversion. In Plato's account, the Good, of which the sun is a symbol, is painful to look at unless one has prepared oneself by long and serious effort. "In this case, either it is not the sun, or Cato is looking at it through the protecting glass of his romantic nature".
392:, Suguna Ramanathan maintains that goodness is "the central preoccupation of the later novels". Brendan Craddock, Cato's friend and fellow priest, is a seemingly minor character who represents "a clearly defined good figure". Some critics have suggested that Murdoch relied too much on such characters as spokesmen for her own ideas. On the contrary, Ramanathan argues that Brendan's character is the "deep structure on which the novel rests". His role is not just to give spiritual counsel and advice which Cato is unable to take, but by his own behaviour as a priest to provide a contrast with the ego-driven actions of Cato.
381:. The chapter title points to the fact that each of the novels is written in a "consciously deliberate" narrative style, in which the reader is reminded that "a story is being told". In this novel, this is accomplished by the third-person double narrative and the chiasmus noted by Conradi, in which "the overtly good" (i.e. Cato the priest) "moves toward evil and the apparently bad" (i.e. Henry the iconoclast) "strives towards good". This narrative style does not prevent the reader from becoming absorbed in the plot, however, and Spear suggests that
327:"Murdoch's finest novel to date, and surely one of the major achievements in fiction in recent years". Because the characters and plot are convincing the ideas and themes are realistically "embodied in the narrative", which is not always the case in Murdoch's novels, according to Oates. Broyard found that "just about every major character ... comes off as successful", while Sage takes particular note of the minor character Lucius Lamb as a "horribly sympathetic and funny creation".
192:
for £100,000. Henry delivers part of the amount, and Joe demands that he bring the rest, after wounding him on the hand with a knife. Later, Joe gets Cato to summon his sister
Colette, and when she arrives he tries to rape her, cutting her face with his knife when she resists. Hearing her cries, Cato manages to escape from an adjoining room where he has been locked up, and hits Joe on the head, killing him. Colette survives the attack, and she and Cato are rescued.
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life, and Henry sends him the money. However, Joe turns against Cato, refusing to go with him and telling Cato that he wants nothing to do with him now that he has left the priesthood. "I cared for you once, Father, but I cared for the other you, the one that wore a robe and had nothing, not even an electric kettle." In despair, Cato returns to
Pennwood, his father's house. His father is delighted that he has lost his faith and intends to become a schoolmaster.
29:
183:
When going through his late brother's possessions, Henry discovers that Sandy had a flat in London. He visits the flat and finds a woman named
Stephanie Whitehouse living there. Stephanie tells Henry that she was Sandy's mistress, and that she is a former sex worker, both stripping and full service.
175:
Cato Forbes is a Roman
Catholic priest living in a mission house in a poor area of London. Cato is the son of an atheist university professor and the older brother of Colette, who has left college and returned to her father's home. At the beginning of the novel the mission has been officially closed
171:
Henry is the younger son of a wealthy landowner. On his father's early death, Henry's elder brother Sandy inherited all the property, including the family home, Laxlinden Hall. Henry went to the United States as a graduate student and then taught art history at a small midwestern college. When Sandy
154:
Set in London and the
English countryside, the plot centres on two childhood friends who have not seen each other for several years. Henry is an art historian who returns to England from the United States upon inheriting his family estate, and Cato is a Roman Catholic priest who is losing his faith
167:
The two main characters, Henry
Marshalson and Cato Forbes, were childhood friends who grew up as neighbours in the English countryside. As the novel begins, they are in their early thirties, and have not seen each other for several years. Their stories are presented separately at first but converge
191:
After a few days Cato goes back to the mission house in London, hoping that Joe will return. Joe does return, but kidnaps Cato and holds him for ransom in an abandoned air raid shelter, telling Cato that he is working for a dangerous gang of criminals. He forces Cato to write a letter asking Henry
366:
as an "extraordinary, accomplished mixture of farcical comedy and melodrama". His discussion of the novel takes doubleness to be the main theme, and more specifically "chiasmus", in that the stories of the two men increasingly intersect and mirror each other. In her study of
Murdoch's work, Hilda
187:
Against the advice of his friend and fellow priest, Brendan
Craddock, Cato decides to leave the priesthood and go away with Joe. He obtains a job teaching at a school in Leeds, and plans to support Joe while he gets an education. Cato asks Henry to lend him £500 to help him get started in his new
179:
Henry resolves to sell all his inherited property and give away the proceeds. Henry intends for his mother to live in a cottage in a nearby village, also part of the
Marshalson estate. Her friend Lucius Lamb, a poet who has been living at Laxlinden Hall for several years, and whom Henry dislikes,
207:
At the beginning of the novel each of the two main characters is at a turning point in his life. Their stories overlap and intertwine throughout, as the third-person narrative focusses alternately on Henry and Cato. The complex structure is supported by formal symmetries in the characters'
208:
situations. For example, Henry and Cato's parents are a widow and a widower respectively, Henry had an older brother and Cato has a younger sister, and Henry is sexually attracted to an older woman with whom he plans to share his life, while Cato is similarly attracted to a young boy.
358:
found the plot entertaining but unconvincing and "less psychologically interesting than one could wish". On the other hand, he called her descriptive passages "truly entertaining and permanently valuable" and the book as a whole "an engaging and striking work".
158:
The complex story is supported by formal plot symmetries and doubleness is an important theme throughout. The plot, which involves a violent kidnapping, has elements of the thriller genre. The book was generally favourably received by contemporary reviewers.
176:
and the derelict house from which it operated has been condemned. Cato is in the process of losing his faith, and has secretly fallen in love with a seventeen-year-old boy called Beautiful Joe, who claims to be a petty criminal and an aspiring gangster.
311:
countered the suggestion that Iris Murdoch "writes too many novels and they are all the same" by saying that "having mastered her particular form and style", Iris Murdoch should continue to work in the same vein as long as it suited her to do so.
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remarks in her review of the novel that this deployment of "multiple contrasts and operlaps of its two heroes' careers" is "a technique at which Miss Murdoch has become so carelessly expert that one soon loses sight of its crude binary origins".
180:
will have to find a new home on his own. Henry first confides his plans to Cato, whom he visits in the mission, and Cato tries unsuccessfully to dissuade him. Their conversation is overheard by Joe, who questions Cato about Henry's wealth.
621:
I don't see how we can have too many novels of people in significant and universally appealing crises finding themselves forced to make a philosophic leap of some sort that will illuminate their whole lives.
195:
Back at Laxlinden Hall, Stephanie decides to return to London rather than marry Henry and go to the United States. Henry decides not to sell Laxlinden after all, but to live there and develop a
262:
by the hair. The tapestry is taken down in preparation for being sold when Henry plans to get rid of his inheritance, and is replaced at the end after he changes his mind.
333:
review singled out the strong female characters for mention. Supposedly secondary characters, Gerda, Stephanie and Colette "imprint their will on the two men".
28:
316:
remarked that Murdoch's large and regular output demonstrated her "gift for making the variety of possible plots and characters seem inexhaustible".
287:
was Iris Murdoch's eighteenth novel, and several reviewers addressed possible objections arising from her prolific output and continuity of themes.
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and has secretly fallen in love with a seventeen-year-old boy . Their stories, separate at the beginning of the novel, converge as it progresses.
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is killed in a car accident, Henry is his sole heir. Henry returns to Laxlinden, where his mother Gerda is living, to claim his inheritance.
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on his property. At the end of the novel, Henry has married Colette, and Cato is on his way to Leeds to take up his teaching job.
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242:. Henry admires Beckmann's "vast self-confidence, that happy and commanding egoism". Beckmann's 1940 painting
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231:. Later, Cato is kidnapped and held prisoner, and there are several acts of criminal violence in the book.
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review approvingly compared her "essentially 19th-century way of writing and working" to that of
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Visual art is an important theme in the novel. Henry has been making a living teaching
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227:, which we later find out belonged to Joe, by throwing it off a bridge into the
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provides the novel's central metaphor for vision and moral change. According to
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Weeks, Brigitte (9 January 1977). "Weaving the tapestry of the prodigal sons".
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Less positive contemporary reviews also remarked on the characters. Writing in
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528:(2 ed.). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
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acknowledged the "narrative skill" and "intelligence" displayed in
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The Saint and the Artist: a Study of the Fiction of Iris Murdoch
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is one of several Murdoch novels that borrows elements from the
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250:. Part of Henry's inheritance is a seventeenth-century Flemish
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688:(2 December 1976). "On Murdoch's sexual merry-go-round".
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in the library at Laxlinden Hall. It depicts the goddess
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genre. The opening scene describes Cato getting rid of a
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was used for the cover of the first English edition of
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as the last of a group of four novels, beginning with
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151:. Published in 1976, it was her eighteenth novel.
1027:The Three Arrows & the Servants and the Snow
319:The critical response was generally favourable.
301:"another star for her literary firmament". In
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238:, and is supposed to be writing a book about
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385:is among Murdoch's most accessible novels.
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703:Pritchard, William H. (16 January 1977).
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615:(7 January 1977). "Books of The Times".
556:(3rd ed.). London: Harper Collins.
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492:(1977). "The pursuit of imperfection".
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705:"Murdoch's eighteenth: Henry And Cato"
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894:The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
280:Literary significance and reception
508:10.1111/j.1467-8705.1977.tb01613.x
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641:"Sacred and profane Iris Murdoch"
1121:Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals
588:. New York: St. Martin's Press.
1043:Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues
469:. Washington, D.C. p. 137.
674:. London, England. p. 11.
1:
782:The Flight from the Enchanter
619:. New York, N.Y. p. 56.
586:Iris Murdoch: figures of good
390:Iris Murdoch: Figures of Good
1097:Sartre: Romantic Rationalist
1014:(with J. B. Priestley, 1964)
950:The Book and the Brotherhood
415:Highlights of the Collection
1129:Existentialists and Mystics
1022:(with James Saunders, 1969)
670:Gillott, Jacky. "Fiction".
584:Ramanathan, Suguna (1990).
1178:
870:A Fairly Honourable Defeat
552:Conradi, Peter J. (2001).
441:. New York: Viking Press.
411:"Acrobat on Trapeze, 1940"
33:Cover of the first edition
1162:Chatto & Windus books
958:The Message to the Planet
168:as the novel progresses.
26:
524:Spear, Hilda D. (2007).
409:Saint Louis Art Museum.
362:Peter Conradi describes
1105:The Sovereignty of Good
934:The Philosopher's Pupil
1157:Novels by Iris Murdoch
846:The Time of the Angels
433:Murdoch, Iris (1977).
377:, in a chapter called
1078:Poems by Iris Murdoch
854:The Nice and the Good
838:The Red and the Green
16:Novel by Iris Murdoch
1113:The Fire and the Sun
639:(18 December 1978).
352:William H. Pritchard
270:Allegory of the Cave
1152:1976 British novels
942:The Good Apprentice
467:The Washington Post
290:The Washington Post
71:Chatto & Windus
23:
814:An Unofficial Rose
692:. Toronto, Canada.
690:The Globe and Mail
686:Laurence, Margaret
637:Oates, Joyce Carol
495:Critical Quarterly
379:Metaphors for Life
356:The New York Times
339:The Globe and Mail
304:The New York Times
244:Acrobat on Trapeze
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1073:(1978, rev. 1984)
993:Something Special
974:Jackson's Dilemma
926:Nuns and Soldiers
878:An Accidental Man
344:Margaret Laurence
321:Joyce Carol Oates
140:
139:
87:Publication place
49:Cover artist
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1051:The Black Prince
1019:The Italian Girl
966:The Green Knight
918:The Sea, The Sea
886:The Black Prince
830:The Italian Girl
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711:. New York, N.Y
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713:. Retrieved
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53:Max Beckmann
43:Iris Murdoch
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822:The Unicorn
490:Sage, Lorna
236:art history
1146:Categories
1089:Philosophy
715:20 January
655:20 January
595:0312045042
448:0670366978
396:References
314:Lorna Sage
210:Lorna Sage
121:0701121955
757:Works by
672:The Times
330:The Times
135:644376533
100:Hardcover
67:Publisher
995:" (1957)
798:The Bell
260:Achilles
258:seizing
252:tapestry
225:revolver
221:thriller
59:Language
323:called
98:Print (
62:English
1132:(1997)
1124:(1992)
1116:(1977)
1108:(1970)
1100:(1953)
1081:(1997)
1062:Poetry
1054:(1987)
1046:(1986)
1038:(1980)
1030:(1973)
977:(1995)
969:(1993)
961:(1989)
953:(1987)
945:(1985)
937:(1983)
929:(1980)
921:(1978)
913:(1976)
905:(1975)
897:(1974)
889:(1973)
881:(1971)
873:(1970)
865:(1969)
857:(1968)
849:(1966)
841:(1965)
833:(1964)
825:(1963)
817:(1962)
809:(1961)
801:(1958)
793:(1957)
785:(1956)
777:(1954)
766:Novels
592:
560:
532:
445:
256:Athena
229:Thames
39:Author
1003:Plays
266:Plato
107:Pages
717:2015
657:2015
590:ISBN
558:ISBN
530:ISBN
443:ISBN
163:Plot
129:OCLC
116:ISBN
82:1976
504:doi
388:In
354:in
268:'s
110:340
1148::
707:.
643:.
628:^
604:^
572:^
544:^
516:^
500:19
498:.
475:^
457:^
423:^
413:.
342:,
307:,
991:"
750:e
743:t
736:v
719:.
659:.
598:.
566:.
538:.
510:.
506::
451:.
417:.
102:)
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