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The Philosopher's Pupil
At an imaginary English spa, Professor Rozanov settles down to write his great book and his former student, George McCaffrey, decides their teacher-pupil relationship is a life-long one
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Iris Murdoch
120books2,404followersDame Jean Iris Murdoch
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.
"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
May 18, 2020
This is my 21st of Iris Murdoch's 26 novels, and reading them is always a pleasure. This one alternates between the serious and the farcical - one of the main characters is an eminent philosopher which allows Murdoch to indulge in plenty of philosophical and religious conversation and speculation, but the human comedy is never far away.
The book is narrated by the mysterious N, who plays a minor role in the story but seems to exist mostly to witness events and absorb gossip. He calls the setting Ennistone (from N's town), and although this sounds Irish as do many of the characters' surnames, the setting is a spa town in South East England.
The pupil of the title is George McCaffrey. In the opening scene George has an argument while driving with his wife, prompting an apparent accident in which the car ends up in the canal. He escapes before the car falls, but his wife is trapped inside, and George may have pushed the car in, but is unable to remember clearly. So he is something of a local demon figure.
George's old professor John Robert Rozanov, a former Ennistone resident now resident in America, returns to the town, but wants nothing to do with George, who he has told to abandon philosophy, a blow which George never recovers from.
Much of the story revolves around Rozanov's plot to get George's younger half-brother Tom to marry his young granddaughter Hattie, who has been installed in a house belonging to and in the garden of George's mother Alex. [Alex is one of several characters whose names are sexually ambiguous, others include George's sister-in-law Gabriel and Tom's male friend Emma (short for Emmanuel)].
Among the other weirder elements are a bizarre escapade in which Alex becomes trapped in the bowels of the spa, and a flying saucer which several characters see above a stone circle on the town's common.
Overall I found this one of Murdoch's more entertaining novels.
The book is narrated by the mysterious N, who plays a minor role in the story but seems to exist mostly to witness events and absorb gossip. He calls the setting Ennistone (from N's town), and although this sounds Irish as do many of the characters' surnames, the setting is a spa town in South East England.
The pupil of the title is George McCaffrey. In the opening scene George has an argument while driving with his wife, prompting an apparent accident in which the car ends up in the canal. He escapes before the car falls, but his wife is trapped inside, and George may have pushed the car in, but is unable to remember clearly. So he is something of a local demon figure.
George's old professor John Robert Rozanov, a former Ennistone resident now resident in America, returns to the town, but wants nothing to do with George, who he has told to abandon philosophy, a blow which George never recovers from.
Much of the story revolves around Rozanov's plot to get George's younger half-brother Tom to marry his young granddaughter Hattie, who has been installed in a house belonging to and in the garden of George's mother Alex. [Alex is one of several characters whose names are sexually ambiguous, others include George's sister-in-law Gabriel and Tom's male friend Emma (short for Emmanuel)].
Among the other weirder elements are a bizarre escapade in which Alex becomes trapped in the bowels of the spa, and a flying saucer which several characters see above a stone circle on the town's common.
Overall I found this one of Murdoch's more entertaining novels.
April 23, 2015
Philosopher Iris Murdoch indicts philosophy -- or some of its (mis)uses. She shows how corrupting an obsession with abstractions can lead to lack of involvement with the real world. Her characters are, as always, complex. She points out that individual people are more unique than any philosophy or social science dreams of. Her books are all worth reading, and this is one of her best.
September 4, 2019
Absolutely wonderful. A stunning novel. `The Philosopher's Pupil' is a Dante-esque tale of love - in which numerous types of love are evoked, from dishonest to honourable, self-defeating to masochistic, platonic to deviant, and never ever simply just one type at any one time.
Set in Ennistone, a town renowned for its natural hot water springs/baths, it's also filled to the brim with the heat of gossip, anger, passions, and small-minded mischief makers.
This review is not about the plot, as that's for you to enjoy in your own time. This is an homage to the truly marvellous characters that Murdoch's genius has given life to in this novel.
Murdoch has a mature nineteenth century novelist's depth to her characters; she is easily a match for Tolstoy, Trollope and Eliot, to name some of the giants of fiction. Her fictional beings are beautifully detailed, fully realised in scope and complexity. Each draws you into their own personal world view, reasoning and often troubled emotional life, and you are captivated in your watching and listening to them live and breathe and assert themselves in their muddled worlds.
Her dialogue alone is worth the price of the novel - and the prologue, relating the car `accident' (for it really isn't one, but an incident resulting from a violent action), is a tour de force.
This event introduces us to George, the novel's devil in (barely) human form. But he is scarily human. For this reader, he's the most vivid, fully realised, horribly convincing, nightmarish psychopath and sociopath I have ever read in fiction. Far scarier than Hannibal Lecter as a fictional creation, and more believable than a real-life monster like Ed Gein. With his extreme ranting and raving, his sheer loathing and violent, misogynistic fantasies (as well as behaviour), he is apocalyptic in tone and revenge. Yet he could just as well be one of your neighbours who has become utterly mad, yet within a framework of apparent sanity at the same time.
He is the strongest case and example - though there are several others in this novel - of Murdoch's tremendous ability to create flesh-and-blood human beings that convey her passionate intellectual and creative interests, while never failing to be merely conduits or foils for her fictional plotting. There's never any sense of Deus ex Machina at work, here - her creatures spring from the page, and are all tremendously individual in language, thought and action.
As if psychotic George wasn't enough for one novel, there's also the philosopher of the novel's title as well, John Robert Rozanov (George was once one of John's pupils). He's manipulative, amoral, uncaring, soul-less, intellectual and emotionally moribund. In many ways, in fact, he's far more of a devil than George (though never committing physical acts of violence, or verbal, as George does with such relish and ease).
Then there are the brothers to George: Brian, who is just the most miserable, endlessly complaining and always irritable sod - and relentlessly funnily drawn through his dialogue and through whom a lot of the novel's humour is brilliantly played out; and Tom, the youngest of the brothers, at university. For most of his life, to his teenage years, he's naive, delightfully happy and at one with his world and his peers, until corrupted by a Faustian task that John compels him to take up.
You'll also have the joy of being entertained by Brian's put-upon wife: poor, defeated Gabriel, always tearful, always troubled, and ready to blubber at the drop of the proverbial hat.
Then there's the intellectual, yet remote, and incredibly martryrish Stella, wife of the monstrous George. (To give him credit where it's due, besides his murderous rage and violence and misogyny, he does save Zed - probably one of fiction's most charming, delightful and convincing portraits of a clever little doggie, who is Zen-like and always understanding, even when he's clueless; both part of the natural world, and yet connected with his human peers.)
You also have the joy of meeting another marvel: the boy Adam, one of Murduch's beguiling saint-like mysticaal figures. He's offspring to Gabriel and Brian, and is Francis of Assisi-like, as well as Buddhist, in his immediate and deep empathy with all living things. Murdoch clearly knows her Varieties of Religious Experience.
And if Gabriel, Stella and Zed weren't enough, you also have Father Bernard, an Anglican priest who's also an atheist, who believes ultimately that the only hope and saviour for the world is religion without god, and ends up preaching like some sort of ethereal combo ascetic-Russian hermit/-ancient Desert Father-type to remote Greek island kindly peasants (and otherwise local birds who'll hang about, and the sea and the rocks).
In short, I loved, loved, LOVED, this novel. It's PHWOR, and fab, funny and dark, with substance, yet as light as a perfect soufflé.
There's also plenty here for lovers of Plato and Dante, for example, and yet such references are never done in an ostentatious way, but flow seamlessly with the events and thinking of the novel and her characters.
And all these riches are carried through with zest right to the end and beyond, with you being totally immersed in and absorbed by the mess and muddle of these human lives (a true Murdochian talent).
You're left joyous and breathless and happy and utterly, utterly impressed by Murdoch for her philosophical wisdom, her mischievous wit, her darkness and light, her psychological insights, her innate appreciation of what it means to be human. She is a novelist extraordinaire.
�
Set in Ennistone, a town renowned for its natural hot water springs/baths, it's also filled to the brim with the heat of gossip, anger, passions, and small-minded mischief makers.
This review is not about the plot, as that's for you to enjoy in your own time. This is an homage to the truly marvellous characters that Murdoch's genius has given life to in this novel.
Murdoch has a mature nineteenth century novelist's depth to her characters; she is easily a match for Tolstoy, Trollope and Eliot, to name some of the giants of fiction. Her fictional beings are beautifully detailed, fully realised in scope and complexity. Each draws you into their own personal world view, reasoning and often troubled emotional life, and you are captivated in your watching and listening to them live and breathe and assert themselves in their muddled worlds.
Her dialogue alone is worth the price of the novel - and the prologue, relating the car `accident' (for it really isn't one, but an incident resulting from a violent action), is a tour de force.
This event introduces us to George, the novel's devil in (barely) human form. But he is scarily human. For this reader, he's the most vivid, fully realised, horribly convincing, nightmarish psychopath and sociopath I have ever read in fiction. Far scarier than Hannibal Lecter as a fictional creation, and more believable than a real-life monster like Ed Gein. With his extreme ranting and raving, his sheer loathing and violent, misogynistic fantasies (as well as behaviour), he is apocalyptic in tone and revenge. Yet he could just as well be one of your neighbours who has become utterly mad, yet within a framework of apparent sanity at the same time.
He is the strongest case and example - though there are several others in this novel - of Murdoch's tremendous ability to create flesh-and-blood human beings that convey her passionate intellectual and creative interests, while never failing to be merely conduits or foils for her fictional plotting. There's never any sense of Deus ex Machina at work, here - her creatures spring from the page, and are all tremendously individual in language, thought and action.
As if psychotic George wasn't enough for one novel, there's also the philosopher of the novel's title as well, John Robert Rozanov (George was once one of John's pupils). He's manipulative, amoral, uncaring, soul-less, intellectual and emotionally moribund. In many ways, in fact, he's far more of a devil than George (though never committing physical acts of violence, or verbal, as George does with such relish and ease).
Then there are the brothers to George: Brian, who is just the most miserable, endlessly complaining and always irritable sod - and relentlessly funnily drawn through his dialogue and through whom a lot of the novel's humour is brilliantly played out; and Tom, the youngest of the brothers, at university. For most of his life, to his teenage years, he's naive, delightfully happy and at one with his world and his peers, until corrupted by a Faustian task that John compels him to take up.
You'll also have the joy of being entertained by Brian's put-upon wife: poor, defeated Gabriel, always tearful, always troubled, and ready to blubber at the drop of the proverbial hat.
Then there's the intellectual, yet remote, and incredibly martryrish Stella, wife of the monstrous George. (To give him credit where it's due, besides his murderous rage and violence and misogyny, he does save Zed - probably one of fiction's most charming, delightful and convincing portraits of a clever little doggie, who is Zen-like and always understanding, even when he's clueless; both part of the natural world, and yet connected with his human peers.)
You also have the joy of meeting another marvel: the boy Adam, one of Murduch's beguiling saint-like mysticaal figures. He's offspring to Gabriel and Brian, and is Francis of Assisi-like, as well as Buddhist, in his immediate and deep empathy with all living things. Murdoch clearly knows her Varieties of Religious Experience.
And if Gabriel, Stella and Zed weren't enough, you also have Father Bernard, an Anglican priest who's also an atheist, who believes ultimately that the only hope and saviour for the world is religion without god, and ends up preaching like some sort of ethereal combo ascetic-Russian hermit/-ancient Desert Father-type to remote Greek island kindly peasants (and otherwise local birds who'll hang about, and the sea and the rocks).
In short, I loved, loved, LOVED, this novel. It's PHWOR, and fab, funny and dark, with substance, yet as light as a perfect soufflé.
There's also plenty here for lovers of Plato and Dante, for example, and yet such references are never done in an ostentatious way, but flow seamlessly with the events and thinking of the novel and her characters.
And all these riches are carried through with zest right to the end and beyond, with you being totally immersed in and absorbed by the mess and muddle of these human lives (a true Murdochian talent).
You're left joyous and breathless and happy and utterly, utterly impressed by Murdoch for her philosophical wisdom, her mischievous wit, her darkness and light, her psychological insights, her innate appreciation of what it means to be human. She is a novelist extraordinaire.
�
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2019
4.5. Stars
Set almost entirely in the wonderfully described town of Ennistone England, The Philosophers Pupil focuses on several of its most prominent inhabitants but particularly on the McCaffrey family and the titular philosopher himself, John Rozanov, a renowned man of learning who seems to entrance the town despite any apparent social skills and with whom George McCaffrey is obsessed. It is George who opens the novel in dramatic style and who continues to be a figure of intrigue throughout, thoroughly dislikable and perhaps slightly insane, George seems to take pleasure in his identity as aggressive and off kilter, Murdoch writes, ‘Pride and vanity and venomous hurt feelings obscured his sun. He saw the world as a conspiracy against him, and himself as a victim of cosmic injustice.�
George has a brother Brian, a dour rude man and a half-brother Tom who is young and sunny natured while his mother Alex rules the roost in true lady of the manor style. The complexity of the relationships between the McCaffreys and those who inhabit their world shifts as they interact with the other characters including the two older brothers wives, Gabriel and Stella as well as a servant, Ruby, a mistress, Diane, and a companion, Pearl, who are all from gypsy blood. There are Tom’s bisexual best friend Emma with his stunning singing voice, Father Bernard, another Iris Murdoch religious person struggling with the loss of faith and of course Rozanov and his granddaughter Hattie who has been cloistered away in schools and foreign climes for most of her seventeen years. Tying these all together is the ostensible narrator ‘N� who describes himself as ‘an observer, a student of human nature, a moralist, a man� and who is somehow privy to everything that is thought and said by all. Murdoch does address this omniscience tongue in cheek at the end of the novel with the line from N, ‘It is my role in life to listen to stories. I also had the assistance of a certain lady.�
It is the relationship between Rozanov and the McCaffreys that propels much of the story, with George being constantly rejected by the philosopher and Tom McCaffrey being lured into a scheme which clearly won’t be straightforward. Tom is often the source of the humor of the novel with his ambition to form a pop group with Em, terrible songs about Jesus and general childish clumsiness in whatever he undertakes while Rozanov, in contrast, is a slightly creepy control freak who wants to keep his granddaughter in a ‘magic circle� while he writes his last great work. As in most Murdoch novels, the drama of the novel is all centered on relationships, with hidden and forbidden love, rejection, instant and inappropriate love while in this small town, gossip and the local newspapers play the part of disseminating information which often skirts the truth.
Much of the gossip takes place in an elaborate hot spring spa and swimming pool which the whole town frequents and there are evocative descriptions of this throughout from the steam in winter obscuring the swimmers, the private rooms where the water continually runs into large bath tubs, the jet of scalding hot water that spurts geyser like in the grounds to eventually a dramatic scene of the innards of the whole operation. It’s the place to meet and greet and there are lots of instances of avoidance, spying and flirting, the spring also has a slightly sinister side to it and our narrator writes, ‘A vague feeling persists to this day that the spring is in some way a source of a kind of unholy restlessness which attacks the town at intervals like an epidemic,� leading to immorality and sightings of flying saucers!
To add to the sometimes unreal quality of the novel there is the personification of Adam’s dog Zed, a tiny Papillion whose thoughts we are privy to and who provides some funny and heartfelt moments in the book particularly in the one occasion the family go to the sea and when he encounters the foxes that live in Alex’s garden, foxes that are imbued by both Alex and Ruby with some significance and who very nearly destroy their relationship.
In Murdoch novels it often seems as though there are aspects such as the mystery of the foxes which are never really explained and we are left to draw our own conclusions with other mysteries including what is Mrs. Bradstreet’s secret? What really happened at the bridge? What is the source of the Ennistone spring? What did our narrator do in the war? All this and more are weaved into a novel that shows a complex world condensed into the life of a small town, a world that you are drawn into by the machinations of the characters and by Murdoch� consummate skill in writing.
Some favorite Lines
‘It might be as if, morality being tiring, a holiday from it had at certain intervals to be decreed, at least ostensibly, by some covert social complicity,�
‘George was an accomplished narcissist, an expert and dedicated liver of the double life, and this in a way which was not always to his discredit.�
‘As for the incidental information that Tom’s companion at Travancore Avenue was a male, Alex welcomed it. She affected to share the family anxiety about Tom’s tendencies, but secretly she hoped that he was homosexual, Alex did not care for daughters-in-law.�
‘George kept his head slightly turned, his wide-apart eyes skewed round towards his brother but not looking at him. Tom had an odd impression, rather like a memory, of a madman in a cupboard. He felt intensely, what he had in the past more vaguely felt, George’s uncanny quality, unpleasant like the smell of a ghost.�
‘In the Quaker meeting house, a profound silence reigned. Gabriel McCaffrey loved that silence, whose healing waves lapped in a slow solemn rhythm against her scratched and smarting soul.�
Set almost entirely in the wonderfully described town of Ennistone England, The Philosophers Pupil focuses on several of its most prominent inhabitants but particularly on the McCaffrey family and the titular philosopher himself, John Rozanov, a renowned man of learning who seems to entrance the town despite any apparent social skills and with whom George McCaffrey is obsessed. It is George who opens the novel in dramatic style and who continues to be a figure of intrigue throughout, thoroughly dislikable and perhaps slightly insane, George seems to take pleasure in his identity as aggressive and off kilter, Murdoch writes, ‘Pride and vanity and venomous hurt feelings obscured his sun. He saw the world as a conspiracy against him, and himself as a victim of cosmic injustice.�
George has a brother Brian, a dour rude man and a half-brother Tom who is young and sunny natured while his mother Alex rules the roost in true lady of the manor style. The complexity of the relationships between the McCaffreys and those who inhabit their world shifts as they interact with the other characters including the two older brothers wives, Gabriel and Stella as well as a servant, Ruby, a mistress, Diane, and a companion, Pearl, who are all from gypsy blood. There are Tom’s bisexual best friend Emma with his stunning singing voice, Father Bernard, another Iris Murdoch religious person struggling with the loss of faith and of course Rozanov and his granddaughter Hattie who has been cloistered away in schools and foreign climes for most of her seventeen years. Tying these all together is the ostensible narrator ‘N� who describes himself as ‘an observer, a student of human nature, a moralist, a man� and who is somehow privy to everything that is thought and said by all. Murdoch does address this omniscience tongue in cheek at the end of the novel with the line from N, ‘It is my role in life to listen to stories. I also had the assistance of a certain lady.�
It is the relationship between Rozanov and the McCaffreys that propels much of the story, with George being constantly rejected by the philosopher and Tom McCaffrey being lured into a scheme which clearly won’t be straightforward. Tom is often the source of the humor of the novel with his ambition to form a pop group with Em, terrible songs about Jesus and general childish clumsiness in whatever he undertakes while Rozanov, in contrast, is a slightly creepy control freak who wants to keep his granddaughter in a ‘magic circle� while he writes his last great work. As in most Murdoch novels, the drama of the novel is all centered on relationships, with hidden and forbidden love, rejection, instant and inappropriate love while in this small town, gossip and the local newspapers play the part of disseminating information which often skirts the truth.
Much of the gossip takes place in an elaborate hot spring spa and swimming pool which the whole town frequents and there are evocative descriptions of this throughout from the steam in winter obscuring the swimmers, the private rooms where the water continually runs into large bath tubs, the jet of scalding hot water that spurts geyser like in the grounds to eventually a dramatic scene of the innards of the whole operation. It’s the place to meet and greet and there are lots of instances of avoidance, spying and flirting, the spring also has a slightly sinister side to it and our narrator writes, ‘A vague feeling persists to this day that the spring is in some way a source of a kind of unholy restlessness which attacks the town at intervals like an epidemic,� leading to immorality and sightings of flying saucers!
To add to the sometimes unreal quality of the novel there is the personification of Adam’s dog Zed, a tiny Papillion whose thoughts we are privy to and who provides some funny and heartfelt moments in the book particularly in the one occasion the family go to the sea and when he encounters the foxes that live in Alex’s garden, foxes that are imbued by both Alex and Ruby with some significance and who very nearly destroy their relationship.
In Murdoch novels it often seems as though there are aspects such as the mystery of the foxes which are never really explained and we are left to draw our own conclusions with other mysteries including what is Mrs. Bradstreet’s secret? What really happened at the bridge? What is the source of the Ennistone spring? What did our narrator do in the war? All this and more are weaved into a novel that shows a complex world condensed into the life of a small town, a world that you are drawn into by the machinations of the characters and by Murdoch� consummate skill in writing.
Some favorite Lines
‘It might be as if, morality being tiring, a holiday from it had at certain intervals to be decreed, at least ostensibly, by some covert social complicity,�
‘George was an accomplished narcissist, an expert and dedicated liver of the double life, and this in a way which was not always to his discredit.�
‘As for the incidental information that Tom’s companion at Travancore Avenue was a male, Alex welcomed it. She affected to share the family anxiety about Tom’s tendencies, but secretly she hoped that he was homosexual, Alex did not care for daughters-in-law.�
‘George kept his head slightly turned, his wide-apart eyes skewed round towards his brother but not looking at him. Tom had an odd impression, rather like a memory, of a madman in a cupboard. He felt intensely, what he had in the past more vaguely felt, George’s uncanny quality, unpleasant like the smell of a ghost.�
‘In the Quaker meeting house, a profound silence reigned. Gabriel McCaffrey loved that silence, whose healing waves lapped in a slow solemn rhythm against her scratched and smarting soul.�
July 1, 2022
The philosopher's pupil is you.
April 1, 2013
Very mixed feelings about this one. If I promise a proper review later, that probably won't happen. Whatever I'm going to say, I have to say now. I appreciated the depth and variety of characterization here, but felt the writing was pretty heavy-handed. Interesting meditations on God, philosophy, psychology. It really was the narrative voice that bothered me. It is very much a conceit here. The narrator introduces himself, calls himself N, names the whole town after himself (Ennistone - ha ha), and then proceeds to show us the deep inner workings of every single person's head. Which is hard enough to pull off when it's simply the Magical Omniscient Author doing it, but outright weird when it's a person in the story, tangential to the events, doing it. Also: flying saucer. I have to admit, that didn't make a lot of sense to me. So yes, of the two Murdoch books I have now read, I preferred the other.
May 9, 2016
The greatest shortcoming of this book is its terrible lack of ECONOMY. I have to confess to a morbid fascination with it, even though there is much to detest about Murdoch's style, her content and especially her characters. The only saving grace I've discovered in this collection of unpleasant people is their vaunted cleverness -- which renders them even more abhorrent. And there are so damn MANY of them: Murdoch gleefully explores the entire family history of each resident of her screwball imaginary town, back to at least two or three generations, whether they have any relevance to the narrative or not. Add to that her irksome la-di-dah interjection of bon mots à la française and parenthetic asides and it's hard for me to explain why I continued to wade through about 265 pages of "set-up" before her narrative finally got going. I kept hoping that at least one sympathetic character would emerge out of this menagerie of misanthropes, sycophants, schemers, sociopaths, misfits, social climbers, whiners, poseurs .... you get the picture. Or that someone would do the right thing and murder George, the disgusting, drunken psychopath before long even though he appeared to be the main protagonist. Murdoch spends nearly a hundred pages exploring George's personality and motives, even though her one sentence "He saw the world as a conspiracy against him and himself as a victim of cosmic injustice" probably would have sufficed.
Bottom line: Murdoch's self-indulgence (permitted by her editors, to their discredit) impairs what could otherwise have been an engrossing story, namely the complex relationship among George, Tom, Hattie and Rozenov.
Bottom line: Murdoch's self-indulgence (permitted by her editors, to their discredit) impairs what could otherwise have been an engrossing story, namely the complex relationship among George, Tom, Hattie and Rozenov.
November 8, 2020
Могъщо творение е The philosopher's pupil, могъщо и ураганно, мащабно, мощно, представете си още много подобни думи, които са толкова силни, че изобщо не присъстват дори в моя речник. В главата ми гърмят фойерверки от екстатика, още съм твърде афектирана, че да разсъдя свястно, без нечленоразделни изблици и конвулсии. Толкова дълбока и разтърсваща литература ме превръща в безчувствено изчадие с уклон към абсолютни творчески и мисловни перверзии, а те от своя страна водят след себе си и действия, които сериозно увреждат целостта на социалната ми интеграция. Честно казано очаквах, че Айрис Мърдок ще ми допадне, но наистина не бях подготвена за подобно нещо.
Книгата не е за хора, които обичат да стоят в границите на комфорта. Нито за хора със слаба степен и способност на себепознание.
Книгата не е за хора, които обичат да стоят в границите на комфорта. Нито за хора със слаба степен и способност на себепознание.
July 21, 2024
This is my third novel by Murdoch. Apart from the complexity of human psyche she limns out, what makes her interesting to me is the geographical setting she chooses to tell the story. Aptly dubbed as Prospero's island in one of the endorsements in the blurb, she creates a world which is spatially alienated and self-contained. The novel is set in the fictional and charming town of Ennistone (also known as the spa town), to where the distinguished philosopher John Robert Rozanov returns with his granddaughter and her maid. At the centre of the novel is the tumultuous relationship between Rozanov and his former pupil, George McCaffrey where tyrannical and Prospero-like Rozanov despises latter's obsessive need for dependence.
From the three novels I've read so far, I like Murdoch for so many reasons: her flawed and vulnerable characters who, in their conflicts with morality and obsession, push themselves to reveal the ends of their depravity, her depiction of the impossibility of being good, her engagement with religion and freedom, her reflections on the Good and the God, her subtle use of an element of fantastic, her recurring symbols of nature etc. But in this case, what put me off was the way women characters were written. Of course female characters could be written as flawed, evil, subservient etc. But to portray the womenfolk, both within and outside the family(mostly marginalized in their own ways) to be charmed and driven by the demonic male characters, looks reducing them to disposable narrative tools to me.
Even though she denies her novels to be 'philosophical novels', I feel that Murdoch hides two separate voices in her narrative. A literary voice meticulously sketching out every detail about the characters' voices and appearances and a contemplative philosophical voice trying to merge with the former. Between the voices, the characters are not held back by the author. Author just sits back and the characters are given a free reign. Probably thats what I like about Murdoch's craft.
From the three novels I've read so far, I like Murdoch for so many reasons: her flawed and vulnerable characters who, in their conflicts with morality and obsession, push themselves to reveal the ends of their depravity, her depiction of the impossibility of being good, her engagement with religion and freedom, her reflections on the Good and the God, her subtle use of an element of fantastic, her recurring symbols of nature etc. But in this case, what put me off was the way women characters were written. Of course female characters could be written as flawed, evil, subservient etc. But to portray the womenfolk, both within and outside the family(mostly marginalized in their own ways) to be charmed and driven by the demonic male characters, looks reducing them to disposable narrative tools to me.
Even though she denies her novels to be 'philosophical novels', I feel that Murdoch hides two separate voices in her narrative. A literary voice meticulously sketching out every detail about the characters' voices and appearances and a contemplative philosophical voice trying to merge with the former. Between the voices, the characters are not held back by the author. Author just sits back and the characters are given a free reign. Probably thats what I like about Murdoch's craft.
August 20, 2014
This review is from a reread, a strange trip back to the 1980s. The passages I loved are still there. I had forgotten about Adam and his dog Zed and that came as a pleasant surprise. And the Spa and the Slipper House are still a pleasure. But this time I was annoyed by George, the Philosopher's Pupil himself. This badly behaving male is a constant recurring character in Murdoch. When I first read this book I think it was the first time I had come across him and I was charmed. Now, references to his domestic violence are shocking and so out of place and outdated that Murdoch's gentle tolerance shown towards him is disconcerting. Murdoch has so many tricks and twitches that become irritating and repetitive. I remember now that is why I gave up on her. But there is pure gold in there too.
November 29, 2010
In this one the power of the Dark Lord (one theme in Murdoch is a magnetic character) is not erotic but intellectual. Is there any more miserable creature in the world than a rejected graduate student? Like an abandoned child endlessly searching for his father's approval, the philosopher's pupil seeks for the formula that will unlock the Great Philosopher's treasury of blessings (which as only the reader can see, may not exist). Why Murdoch chose to set this story perched over the monstrous and dangerously aging pipe room, in the steamy chambers of Bath's baths, is a little bit of a mystery to me. Probably some kind of symbolism.
April 15, 2021
Unbelievable characters, practically all quite vile, behave in incomprehensible ways, motivated by obscure and inscrutable emotions.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
July 13, 2024
I am not cool and artsy enough to understand and enjoy this book properly. sorry natasha :(
I loved about half of the characters—pearl, hattie, tom, and emma were standouts. everyone else was a mystery to me, and some were downright painful to read about. perhaps I am too young to understand the complicated emotions of older people. on the other hand, it can’t possibly be the case that everyone over forty wants to sleep with a family member. I wouldn’t know—I’m not over forty yet.
the writing itself was gorgeous and iris murdoch is a genius for being able to hold this whole village in her head, and tell compelling stories about so many people at once. I just can’t get over how much I hate john robert (the philosopher) and george (the pupil). this book made me believe that I was not like the other girls for real because I canNOT fix them and I am not interested in trying!!
I loved about half of the characters—pearl, hattie, tom, and emma were standouts. everyone else was a mystery to me, and some were downright painful to read about. perhaps I am too young to understand the complicated emotions of older people. on the other hand, it can’t possibly be the case that everyone over forty wants to sleep with a family member. I wouldn’t know—I’m not over forty yet.
the writing itself was gorgeous and iris murdoch is a genius for being able to hold this whole village in her head, and tell compelling stories about so many people at once. I just can’t get over how much I hate john robert (the philosopher) and george (the pupil). this book made me believe that I was not like the other girls for real because I canNOT fix them and I am not interested in trying!!
February 17, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which wrapped the story of a small town life and a family saga in a cerebral observation. The truly mad characters were those interested in philosophy, the others were living their lives and presenting an example for the philosophers. But the philosophers were too caught up in their minds to notice or learn.
September 21, 2019
I finished my first Iris Murdoch, "The Philosopher's Pupil". I liked it, even if it baffled me sometimes.
Murdoch gives a voice to all characters, even the most secondary, and that gives strength to the "small town where everyone knows and is connected to everyone" vibe, but the main characters are clearly George and Rozanov: the (ex) philosopher's pupil, and the philosopher. That focus means that, in the end, this is a book about two deeply flawed men. George is bitter and violent, and he tries to compensate his self-loathing by being utterly unapologetic about his violence, rationalizing it as a sort of moral high ground (a "we are all nasty deep down, the only difference is that I'm honest about it and you lot aren't" kind of thing). Rozanov is tyrannical and he despises everyone as inferior to himself. Maybe we should pity them, but the stubborn pride they take in their own faults, and the contempt they feel for everyone else, makes it impossible. This way of presenting the characters doesn't bother me; in fact, I think it makes them much more believable than if Murdoch tried either to crucify them, or to justify them, and they are the most well written and embodied characters.
What I couldn't understand was the way Murdoch writes about everyone else's relationships to these characters. Every single person wants to save George (especially the women...) and everyone is defenseless against Rozanov's aura of authority. I get that this happens in real life: people get ensnared by lost causes like George; and I do know how tyrannical narcissists like Rozanov are scarily good at crushing other people's will before they realize what's happening. What baffled me was the unshakable feeling that Murdoch wasn't just describing people that fell for that, but almost stating it as an universal truth - that bad men are naturally alluring, and that (mostly) women naturally just go for that sort of thing; as it if were a natural, inescapable phenomenon, and not a consequence of the way we have been building our society all these centuries.
Maybe I'm reading way too much into Murdoch's intentions, but I just don't find it believable that not one single character calls these men on their bullsh*t, not a single one is immune to them. It makes for a good example of what happens when people are ensnared by toxic people, but the total lack of opposition made it less believable and actually less relatable, even when one has been in a similar situation. And it's a shame, because Murdoch writes really well; her psychological descriptions are some of the best I've read in years, and some of her insights will stay on my mind and my writing for quite sometime. I want to give her books another try, so let's see what I might think of the next one.
Murdoch gives a voice to all characters, even the most secondary, and that gives strength to the "small town where everyone knows and is connected to everyone" vibe, but the main characters are clearly George and Rozanov: the (ex) philosopher's pupil, and the philosopher. That focus means that, in the end, this is a book about two deeply flawed men. George is bitter and violent, and he tries to compensate his self-loathing by being utterly unapologetic about his violence, rationalizing it as a sort of moral high ground (a "we are all nasty deep down, the only difference is that I'm honest about it and you lot aren't" kind of thing). Rozanov is tyrannical and he despises everyone as inferior to himself. Maybe we should pity them, but the stubborn pride they take in their own faults, and the contempt they feel for everyone else, makes it impossible. This way of presenting the characters doesn't bother me; in fact, I think it makes them much more believable than if Murdoch tried either to crucify them, or to justify them, and they are the most well written and embodied characters.
What I couldn't understand was the way Murdoch writes about everyone else's relationships to these characters. Every single person wants to save George (especially the women...) and everyone is defenseless against Rozanov's aura of authority. I get that this happens in real life: people get ensnared by lost causes like George; and I do know how tyrannical narcissists like Rozanov are scarily good at crushing other people's will before they realize what's happening. What baffled me was the unshakable feeling that Murdoch wasn't just describing people that fell for that, but almost stating it as an universal truth - that bad men are naturally alluring, and that (mostly) women naturally just go for that sort of thing; as it if were a natural, inescapable phenomenon, and not a consequence of the way we have been building our society all these centuries.
Maybe I'm reading way too much into Murdoch's intentions, but I just don't find it believable that not one single character calls these men on their bullsh*t, not a single one is immune to them. It makes for a good example of what happens when people are ensnared by toxic people, but the total lack of opposition made it less believable and actually less relatable, even when one has been in a similar situation. And it's a shame, because Murdoch writes really well; her psychological descriptions are some of the best I've read in years, and some of her insights will stay on my mind and my writing for quite sometime. I want to give her books another try, so let's see what I might think of the next one.
April 17, 2019
As it was my first Murdoch novel � I knew a bit about Murdoch the author -- I didn't know what to expect (though I suppose I did enter with some preconceptions). The title intrigued me, being a student of philosophy, so I was hooked.
Published in 1983, it reads to me much older, more at home with authors like Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Tolstoy who populated their novels with hordes of deeply complex characters, working out through the pages all manner of human obsessions, foibles, hopes and dreams. THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUPIL surprised me � it is not the novel I expected. While the philosopher and his pupil of the title are important characters, it is not their story alone. Murdoch gives us a universe full of deeply-drawn characters, all flawed to one degree or another.
It's a sprawling, complex novel, set in the fictional English village of Ennistone, narrated by a mysterious character, N, who seems to have intimate knowledge of just about everyone in town. Into this dysfunctional cast of characters enters the prodigal son -- now senior -- the Great Philosopher, John Robert Rozanoz, returning to his home. But to what purpose? To complete his “great book� summarizing his lifetime of philosophical thought, as Alex McCaffrey assumed? To mend fences and reconnect with his former pupil, George McCaffrey, whom he had castigated as unfit to do philosophy, thereby ruining George’s life (at least according to George)?
In fact, just about everyone in Ennistone thinks Rozanov’s return has something to do with them. Oh, the vanity!
It’s a great novel, full of ideas, full of interesting characters, twists, turns, and an unforgettable ending.
Published in 1983, it reads to me much older, more at home with authors like Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Tolstoy who populated their novels with hordes of deeply complex characters, working out through the pages all manner of human obsessions, foibles, hopes and dreams. THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUPIL surprised me � it is not the novel I expected. While the philosopher and his pupil of the title are important characters, it is not their story alone. Murdoch gives us a universe full of deeply-drawn characters, all flawed to one degree or another.
It's a sprawling, complex novel, set in the fictional English village of Ennistone, narrated by a mysterious character, N, who seems to have intimate knowledge of just about everyone in town. Into this dysfunctional cast of characters enters the prodigal son -- now senior -- the Great Philosopher, John Robert Rozanoz, returning to his home. But to what purpose? To complete his “great book� summarizing his lifetime of philosophical thought, as Alex McCaffrey assumed? To mend fences and reconnect with his former pupil, George McCaffrey, whom he had castigated as unfit to do philosophy, thereby ruining George’s life (at least according to George)?
In fact, just about everyone in Ennistone thinks Rozanov’s return has something to do with them. Oh, the vanity!
It’s a great novel, full of ideas, full of interesting characters, twists, turns, and an unforgettable ending.
April 8, 2008
I think this is the first Iris Murdoch book that I didn't just thoroughly enjoy reading. Story was of a series of families in this one little town with a hot springs that is the local gossiping joint. There are many main characters: the famous philosopher and his young adult grand-daughter. The the McCaffrey's: matriarch Alex, sons George & Brian and 'stepson' Tom, and their spouses, servents, mistress and friends. In the typical Murdoch way, they all tangle with each other and the story mill within town flies amazingly well. The interesting points to me were how the two brothers: George and Tom basically trade personalities for awhile. It shows how we can be infected by others. The other one was the way the philosopher controlled every aspect of his granddaughter's life to the extreme. Maybe it wasn't just his granddaughter but particularly so. The reviews all describe this one as comic, but I did not experience this one as comic. There was too much struggling for control of self and others.
December 7, 2009
Everything a novel should be. I love the way she takes you inside each of the characters thoughts, and that the setting and people are given time to breathe, to really come alive. When the actual plot does take off though (after about page 300) things seem to happen fast. A real joy, I didn't want to finish it.
October 27, 2012
I can't believe I stuck with it. The author is talented in drawing out character and use of language, but geez, I could not have cared less about the story or the characters. Well, I could have cared less - I did finally finish the book, after all.
July 5, 2014
I felt very meh about this one. I usually love Murdoch, but this one I really struggled to finish.
December 15, 2014
long long long book about moneyed Brits with not enough to do.
October 13, 2020
An odd novel, but then what book by Iris Murdoch isn't odd? Ennistone is a village outside of London steeped on ancient lore and mythic properties thanks to an ancient spring/baths where its residents congregate regularly. The novel features an ensemble cast in Ennistone that circulates around a returning philosopher, John Robert Rozanov. John Robert Rozanov is Ennistone's only "celebrity" and tends to leave a wake of chaos behind him. Three brothers, George, Brian and their younger half-brother Tom, take up much of the plot. George is demonic, nearly psychotic with his wish to kill anyone who has the nerve to challenge his fragile authority on basically anything. He's a rotten person, seething with anger and resentment throughout the story. The novel kicks off with him trying kill his wife Stella by driving their car into a canal after they have an argument. He then grouses about Ennistone trying to win respect from Rosanov who'd rejected him years before as a budding student of philosophy. His brother Brian is angry and abusive toward his wife and mother, and youngest brother Tom is possibly in love with his college pal Emma, who may or may not be gay. Tom is given a proposition by Rosanov to woo and marry Harriet Maynell, his granddaughter. Harriet is a doll-like waif, kept sheltered from the world by her domineering grandfather Rosanov because he's in love with her himself. Diane, a former prostitute, is George's mistress. She spends her days pining for George, waiting for the day he'll drop his wife and run away with her to Spain. All the sordid affairs within the story are told to the reader by a mysterious narrator known only as "N."
A long novel, yet compelling throughout. However, I would not recommend it to readers who have not read anything else by Iris Murdoch. There is a hurdle in the beginning of the novel that will probably have uninitiated readers bailing out. It's a book that demands patience. And it contains characters that you don't particularly want to root for. Still there is enough humanity within them that you end up grudgingly hoping that everyone gets their stuff together and that it all works out for them.
A long novel, yet compelling throughout. However, I would not recommend it to readers who have not read anything else by Iris Murdoch. There is a hurdle in the beginning of the novel that will probably have uninitiated readers bailing out. It's a book that demands patience. And it contains characters that you don't particularly want to root for. Still there is enough humanity within them that you end up grudgingly hoping that everyone gets their stuff together and that it all works out for them.
August 28, 2021
Не дано всем писателям писать одинаково хорошо. Это и к лучшему. Поскольку не каждый читатель согласится читать то, что кому-то кажется прекрасным образцом художественного слова. Ведь одни читатели требуют увлекательного сюжета, другим подавай мешанину. Но и с писателями случается странное: сегодня они пишут книгу в одном стиле, через несколько лет � в совершенно ином. И читатель, ранее обжёгшийся на знакомстве с автором, либо его искренне полюбивший, при очередном чтении находит далеко не то, чего ожидал. В том и заключается проблема литературы � невозможность заранее понять, стоит ли браться за чтение книги. Про переводы � совсем отдельная история, так как даже талантливо написанную книгу может испортить человек, не обладающий точно такой же степенью таланта, чтобы донести до читателя содержание произведения. Впрочем, раз разговор зашёл о творчестве Айрис Мёрдок, то сомнительно, будто её литературные труды могут спасать или уничтожать переводчики, поскольку нельзя испортить то, к чему нужно подходить с особой осторожностью. Проще говоря, Мёрдок писала тяжёлым для усвоения стилем, более утопая в собственных размышлениях, чем позволяя событиям продвинуться хотя бы на сантиметр.
February 19, 2025
What a complete mess. After 4 books I think I should have left it at The Black Prince. She has no gift for composition. She can elicit a chuckle and is excellent at the sentence level but this chimerical behemoth (why is it so long?!?!) is just too aimless and filled with blather and constant description. There are some beautifully human observations on the inner lives of the characters but these grace notes happen only a handful of times. The rest of the time the prose is DOA.
Why do people think her novels are philosophical? Philosophy doesn't come in. The one conversation Rozenov has with the priest is boring and unstimulating. Neither character stakes out a believable position and they simply don't have anything interesting to say. I've read a good portion of her book on philosophy and it was twaddle, more or less (I got so bored I chucked it). She is a scholar and gives a veneer of scholasticism to her works that are really just about desire. But it's just that, a veneer. There are no real ideas but everyone feels the need to dress these things up as sophisticated, deep texts when they're just muddled, soapy potboilers.
I may give her one more chance but I think you only need to read The Black Prince. One of the more overrated 20th century writers.
Why do people think her novels are philosophical? Philosophy doesn't come in. The one conversation Rozenov has with the priest is boring and unstimulating. Neither character stakes out a believable position and they simply don't have anything interesting to say. I've read a good portion of her book on philosophy and it was twaddle, more or less (I got so bored I chucked it). She is a scholar and gives a veneer of scholasticism to her works that are really just about desire. But it's just that, a veneer. There are no real ideas but everyone feels the need to dress these things up as sophisticated, deep texts when they're just muddled, soapy potboilers.
I may give her one more chance but I think you only need to read The Black Prince. One of the more overrated 20th century writers.
March 20, 2024
What a great book - so different from what I have been reading! Her obituary in The Guardian said that "Her best novels combine Dostoevsky with Shakespearian romance and love-comedy." And how true! Funny, recognizable, eccentric, smart ... I don't yet have a good sense of what her concerns are as in why does she write novels? but I will be reading more of her novels and very much looking forward to it. One specific point: I appreciate the time that Murdoch takes in letting her characters think and explore their ideas and motivations, the behavior of others, their place in their society. Her writing is so good that she can let a character muse for a couple of pages about a passing glance on the pool deck. Good stuff!
April 17, 2019
Kažkokia Dostojevskio "Brolių Karamazovų" parodija, bet susiskaitė visai neblogai.
March 16, 2023
This may be Murdock's most unusual -- even peculiar -- novel. but it is oddly gripping, a philosophical page-turner, filled with the vivid descriptions and witty dialogue that a reader expects in her novels.
October 25, 2020
Having started reading Murdoch earlier this year, I am closing in on the last 5 of her novels. This one, along with “The Sea,The Sea� and “Nuns and Soldiers� are too long. Pupil is my favorite of the three, the characters a bit more engaging and the story moving along at a quicker pace, still about 200 pages too long.
May 3, 2015
What an impressive book. In short it's about love, religion, philosophy and relationships.
There's a lot of back story and very detailed character descriptions. It takes about 100 pages to set the scene, but if you're willing to make the effort you will be amply rewarded. The characters are all complex people who seem to be at a stage where they've mislaid their lives and can't seem to move on. They are not who they want to be. Only Tom is happy, but he does get lost as the book progresses.
Really very little happens and yet the plot is both tense and interesting. The juxtaposition of demonic George and the selfish philosopher Rozanov is interesting. I can't work out which one of these characters I dislike the most. The descriptions of George are subtle, but manages to make him out to be a complete madman and Rozanov is depicted as a revolting man. And yet everyone seem to be in love with one or the other.
The baths, which is a focal point in the novel where characters interact and meet, is a place that I wish existed here. They sound incredible.
And last, but not least, there's N, the narrator. A conceited figure who proceeds to name the town after himself (Ennistone) and who can hear and see everything. A very difficult trick to pull off, but it worked for me.
There's a lot of back story and very detailed character descriptions. It takes about 100 pages to set the scene, but if you're willing to make the effort you will be amply rewarded. The characters are all complex people who seem to be at a stage where they've mislaid their lives and can't seem to move on. They are not who they want to be. Only Tom is happy, but he does get lost as the book progresses.
Really very little happens and yet the plot is both tense and interesting. The juxtaposition of demonic George and the selfish philosopher Rozanov is interesting. I can't work out which one of these characters I dislike the most. The descriptions of George are subtle, but manages to make him out to be a complete madman and Rozanov is depicted as a revolting man. And yet everyone seem to be in love with one or the other.
The baths, which is a focal point in the novel where characters interact and meet, is a place that I wish existed here. They sound incredible.
And last, but not least, there's N, the narrator. A conceited figure who proceeds to name the town after himself (Ennistone) and who can hear and see everything. A very difficult trick to pull off, but it worked for me.
January 10, 2012
I knew Iris Murdoch was a writed with phenomenal power in explaining and expressing human typology.
I had, though, no idea her books could be so powerful.
"The Philosopher's Pupil" surprised me in many ways, but the best thing about it were by far the characters.
Usually, my rating for a book is by how good the action/plot was. In this book, I had to change my ways. Loved loved loved the characters. I especially enjoyed Tom, George and Diane, even though they were not the only ones to be presetend as important characters. Of course, I thought all of them were really well constructed, even Ruby, who at first I thought was plain boring. I liked some of the comparisons that took place in the book, as well as some part of the drama of the big and all-mighty philosopher, John Robert Rozanov, but I thought his actions were a bit fake and his thinking a bit plain.
No worries, though, I had a very fine time reading this book.
I had, though, no idea her books could be so powerful.
"The Philosopher's Pupil" surprised me in many ways, but the best thing about it were by far the characters.
Usually, my rating for a book is by how good the action/plot was. In this book, I had to change my ways. Loved loved loved the characters. I especially enjoyed Tom, George and Diane, even though they were not the only ones to be presetend as important characters. Of course, I thought all of them were really well constructed, even Ruby, who at first I thought was plain boring. I liked some of the comparisons that took place in the book, as well as some part of the drama of the big and all-mighty philosopher, John Robert Rozanov, but I thought his actions were a bit fake and his thinking a bit plain.
No worries, though, I had a very fine time reading this book.
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