Losing the Plot: Rereading, Forgetting, and Iris Murdoch

I’ve always thought rereading favourite novels is a great pleasure, though not everyone agrees. A good friend of mine never returns to a novel once read, believing life is too short and there are too many other good books out there calling for attention. I understand this point of view, but also think it ought to be possible to make time for both old and new reading.

I’m a music enthusiast too and wouldn’t dream of buying an album I like and only playing it once. I know my favourite Bob Dylan records back to front and inside out, with all the lyrics embedded in my consciousness, but the pleasure of listening to them again never diminishes. It’s the same with the films and novels that I love.

Now is perhaps the time to confess that I have also watched the entire Twin Peaks TV series (including of course Twin Peaks: The Return) so many times that I’ve lost count. Every few years the urge comes to go back to that place. Knowing what’s going to happen – and sometimes not knowing what’s happening – doesn’t make it any less special. The experience changes each time, and I find more nuance and changing perspectives as my own life hurries on.

Anthony Powell’s 12-volume novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time is another example of a piece of literary art I have revisited regularly since I first devoured it decades ago, and it caused me to become a founder member of the Anthony Powell Society. In 1986 I sent a fan letter to the author and in his reply, Powell wrote: “I am delighted you like my books, especially to the extent of rereading, which is, I am sure, the real test of a novel.”

So, I have Anthony Powell on my side. But if it’s a test, not all authors stand up to it. I went back to reread William Faulkner a while ago and, apart from one novel, found it all much less impressive that I did the first time. Worse still was Joseph Conrad, who seemed to have changed into the most tedious bore. My subjective opinion only, I know. On the other hand, my mind has turned Carson McCullers into a goddess, and her superb writing just gets better with every reread.

How about Iris Murdoch? I first read The Bell in the early 1980s, and it was my introduction to her works. I eventually went on to read all the other novels and her philosophy too, while moving from the UK to Japan along the way. Then I read some of the novels again. And then, after my early retirement, a move to Okinawa, and quite a lengthy hiatus from the Murdoch world, I was able to read all her novels again, this time in random order.

I had not particularly looked forward to rereading The Red and the Green (all right, I was dreading it) and had memories of The Sandcastle being somewhat dated. The Italian Girl seemed too slim for Iris to get her teeth into. However, I was surprised on going back to them later just how well they stood up to my own test of time. While not in any way being favourites, they are all considerably better than I first thought.

A special mention too for Bruno’s Dream. This was a novel that made little impression on me the first time around. I couldn’t even remember its plot or any of its characters. Now, after this later reading, it has risen considerably in my personal ranking of Murdoch favourites.

I have also come to the realisation that as far as plots and their outcomes are concerned, forgetting some of the details is inevitable with the passing of time. Far from being a nuisance, this has become a great joy! It means that for the pure enjoyment of reading Murdoch as literary entertainment I can go through this marvellous experience all over again with each reread and after a suitable gap. And she was such a prolific novelist that I am spoilt for choice.

Putting aside Murdoch’s philosophical or moral concerns, the storytelling in her novels relies quite heavily on plot and this makes them very different from A Dance to the Music of Time. In Powell’s magnum opus, many of the same characters appear over the course of each volume and, as some of its detractors might say, nothing much happens for about sixty years. That isn’t really the case, of course, but secrets and sudden revelations, and the resolving of complex plots is not the stuff of Dance. One of the great satisfactions of reading Dance comes instead from the slow build-up of characters who we become familiar with over a long period of time set against the unfolding backdrop of events in twentieth-century England. Going back to it again is like meeting up with old friends.

By contrast, the plot resolutions of many of Murdoch’s novels are sometimes revealed as if anew when I revisit them, as I had forgotten them, except for those few favourites that are so familiar from my regular reads over the years. Even then there are always fresh delights and different perceptions that become evident each time.

Of course, Murdoch isn’t just about plot revelations. The crime fiction novelist P.D. James, a contemporary of Murdoch, has been likened to her because of her literary style and strongly developed characters. In the few James books that I’ve read there is wonderful craft on display, but I was never completely satisfied as, for me, it was too much about what happens. Like Murdoch yes, but with the important moral and philosophical bits missing. My fault again, I know.

Now to what has over time become a strong contender for my favourite Murdoch novel of all – A Word Child. On my very first reading, I found it enormously enjoyable and compelling, despite the dark foreboding tone of its narrator Hilary Burde. I underrated it for several years though, simply because the events unravelling in the story, the coincidences and repetitions, seemed just too incredible to be believed. With the benefit of age perhaps, I was able to get over these misgivings and to understand what a great novel it is.

The big secret and great reveal of why Hilary Burde is the way he is comes not at the end but about a third of the way through the novel. It’s a revelation after the build-up of mystery and tension and is very definitely not something that I could forget. It ought to mean that my pleasure from rereading the story is diminished as I remember the ‘plot spoiler’, but this never happens.

Why not? I can only imagine it’s because Murdoch is about much more than ‘what happens’. In A Word Child she addresses the question of how to live with the knowledge that you have done something so terrible, and have caused so much suffering, that redemption or returning to any kind of normal existence is going to be extraordinarily difficult. Placing characters in these impossible situations, these moral dilemmas, is something Murdoch does with relish and no little expertise. Haven’t we all done things of which we’re ashamed or feel regret? I certainly have. Magnify these as she does in A Word Child and notably again in her later novel The Good Apprentice and we are in a familiar Murdoch landscape where these issues are played out on a grand scale with intricate plotting and room for characters to breathe.

In Hilary’s case he decides to live a life of both self-abnegation and self-absorption in a mundane job far beneath his expected capabilities. He numbs himself by riding the London Underground and drinking, while incapable of simply looking at the truth with clarity and humility. He routinely divides his week into ‘days’ with a rigidly organised timetable of meetings with people, including one for his sister Crystal. He never sees others as whole or separate from himself. And then it all happens again.

The other characters in the book are memorably drawn – even the comparatively minor and initially mysterious Biscuit has a crucial part to play in Hilary’s first-person narration (another aspect Murdoch does convincingly), and the evocation of London always make me feel as if I’m there, whether it be at the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens or the bar at Liverpool Street station.

Peter Pan isn’t there by accident either and subsequent readings of the novel have revealed its importance to me in relation to Hilary’s arrested emotional development. T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, invoked towards the end, is another significant presence, the relevance of which escaped me until a later reading.

The end of the novel remains inconclusive. Hilary may be a bit wiser, and have gained some much-needed self-knowledge, but his future is still uncertain. This ending only rewards many readings. The revelation of his great secret much earlier is not what really matters after all, and these events took place before our story began. It’s what happens during the novel’s time frame and what might occur afterwards that is more important, and it’s possible to see the ending in a different light each time.

It’s a testament to Murdoch’s skill and power as a novelist that it isn’t just about the surprises. She creates delicious suspense and complex plots but is much more than a teller of entertaining stories. While plots are wonderful things, and Murdoch is a great plotter, my not remembering some of them over the decades has only led to a joyful rediscovering each time I open one of her books.