Iris Murdoch, Seccond Edition: The Retrospective Fiction

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Abbreviations......Page 10
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Preface to the Second Edition......Page 13
Preface to the First Edition......Page 16
1 Revisiting the Sublime and the Beautiful: Iris Murdoch’s Realism......Page 20
Murdoch’s ‘aesthetic of the sublime’:realism and the modernist inheritance......Page 23
Putting the real into realism: philosophy and fiction......Page 29
Liberal postmodernism/postmodern liberalism......Page 37
‘A sort of post-Freudian Henry James’: Murdoch and the liberal soul......Page 43
2 The Insistence of the Past......Page 48
Nostalgia: The Book and the Brotherhood......Page 53
Jackson’s Dilemma: making sense of the past......Page 57
Redemption, spiritual and secular: A Word Childand The Good Apprentice......Page 60
3 Narrative as Redemption: The Bell......Page 68
‘Outside inwards’/‘inside outwards’......Page 70
‘We never discuss our past lives here’:the rational and the uncanny......Page 73
Narrative acts......Page 76
4 Author and Hero: Murdoch’s First-Person Retrospective Novels......Page 83
Dramatizing narrators......Page 86
Writing in retrospect......Page 94
Recovering the past: two kinds of retrospective novel......Page 101
5 Reading Past Truth: Under the Net and The Black Prince......Page 106
‘Some things can’t be unravelled…’: reading Under the Net......Page 108
The framing of Bradley Pearson: The Black Prince......Page 114
6 The Writing Cure: A Severed Head and A Word Child......Page 127
The textual uncanny: A Severed Head......Page 132
Narrative exchange: A Word Child......Page 140
‘Ambiguously ever after’......Page 146
7 The Ambivalence of Coming Home: The Italian Girl and The Sea, the Sea......Page 149
A strange memory: The Italian Girl......Page 150
A demon-ridden pilgrimage: The Sea, the Sea......Page 155
Murdoch’s ambivalence......Page 164
8 Philosophy’s Dangerous Pupil: Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Derrida and The Philosopher’s Pupil......Page 169
Philosophy and literature: Murdoch and Derrida......Page 173
Philosophical anguish: The Philosopher’s Pupil......Page 180
The currency of ideas......Page 184
Postscript: Reading Iris Murdoch......Page 186
Authorship as masochism......Page 189
Monsters and mothers: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine......Page 194
Notes......Page 198
Select Bibliography and References......Page 209
Index......Page 216