Open Writing

Last week I wrote about my new Kindle, the e-book reading device which has a Text-to-Speech capability for blind readers. Actually, the Text-to-Speech feature is for anyone who wants to listen to, rather than read, the book he has downloaded from the Amazon store. At any rate, it served me well as I listened to my first e-book, a $9 novel by Iris Murdoch.

I chose Iris Murdoch because I particularly love her in-depth character portrayal and because my library for the blind stocks very few of her works. A philosopher by profession, she always has something thought-provoking to say about the meaning of life. The motivations of her characters are also complex and somewhat mysterious, a combination of rational thought and passion. She uses the element of contingency to great effect, throwing in unexpected twists to the plot that sometimes support the main themes and sometimes throw them into question. Thus, the reader finds himself pausing at intervals to consider what he knows thus far and what the character may do to resolve a particular difficulty.

The novel I read was The Unicorn, a fascinating story about a young woman who goes as a tutor to a remote castle on the west coast of Ireland. She arrives to find that her student is a woman older than herself. The woman is a recluse with a quality of extreme serenity that causes everyone in the household and surrounding countryside to treat her like a sort of angel. Yet she is not a woman of virtue. She once attempted to murder her husband and, now that he has left her to her own devices, consumes an inordinate amount of whiskey. Still, those who know her regard her as goodness personified. She is youthful and charming, loves everyone, is generous to a fault, and appears to hold no grudges.

The story is rich with insight about human nature. Just as people need a scapegoat to blame for life's unpleasantness, so they look for a saint to venerate for life's joys. The whimsical unicorn possesses magical qualities because others choose to bestow them. To have something rare and beautiful in one's midst is an opportunity for peaceful contemplation and gratitude.

Yet the impression of rare beauty is not real. it is like a spell that can be broken. When the visitor views the woman as ordinary and treats her like a prisoner who needs to escape, she loses her aura of other-worldliness and appears tired and pathetic. Thus, the spiritual recluse and the victim of circumstance are revealed as two versions of the same thing. Both suffer, but are perceived differently. The spiritual recluse suffers purposefully for the sake of redeeming others, while the victim of circumstance suffers without purpose and against her will.
This, in turn, raises the intriguing question of whether the spiritual recluse/victim of circumstance is a tragic figure or simply stupid. Is there such thing as redemptive suffering? Can we make our lives more meaningful if we superimpose a purpose on our suffering? Ought we to console and support the person who is cut off from society? Or should we intervene and do everything we can to integrate her into normal life? Iris Murdoch forces us to think about these things and to acknowledge that there are no simple answers.

Of particular interest to me was a scene in the book where one of the main characters faces imminent death in a bog. This particular section is both gripping and illuminating. The author draws on her substantial knowledge of states of consciousness and depicts in great detail a near-death experience. Again, this involves the reader on an extraordinary level. Glimpses into the world beyond are somewhat familiar to us from our dream life, yet not many of us have actually encountered death close-up. Doing so through the eyes of a sympathetic character makes a deep impression.

Iris Murdoch is no longer with us, but she has left a treasury of timeless stories for us to learn from and be affected by. Her style of writing is formal but easy to follow. Descriptions of landscapes, buildings and objects of art always have exquisite bearing on the action - if not by mirroring its mood then by providing a counterpoint to it - so that the texture of the story is magnificently enriched.

Thanks to my Kindle, I was able to read The Unicorn within the space of one week, relishing a beautifully-told story while comforted by a flickering fire and many cups of tea. On completing it, I recalled that a previous Iris Murdoch novel which I'd read impressed me so much that I set about writing a novel of my own. That one is now finished and ready for publication. Maybe it's time I got going on another.

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