The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Splendid Re-issue of a Classic; Regrettable Introduction
Review: Congratulations to Penguin on including the late Dame Iris Murdoch's novel The Black Prince to their Paperback Classics series. Now in print 30 years, this novel, to my mind one of the finest of the 20th century in English, certainly deserves the honor. It is a multi-layered page-turner, both exciting and dramatically profound.

What it doesn't deserve, however, is Martha C. Nussbaum's quite misleading introduction-and this is the reason I cannot teach the book in my college classes, as an introduction by a scholar is tacitly seen as somehow "correct" in its claims and observations, almost an appendage to the text it introduces, especially to students. Nor is there a forum for readers to write letters of rebuttal to an introduction, outside of what I am doing now.

But while Nussbaum's background is in philosophy, as was Murdoch's, this is a novel, a work of imaginative literature. Nussbaum treats the text as an expression of Murdoch's own philosophical beliefs. This is problematic in theory, and can be almost ridiculous in practice, as it becomes here-I wonder why Nussbaum (not a literary critic or novelist herself) was chosen to write the introduction in the first place?

Iris Murdoch's novels are "philosophical", but not in the way Ms. Nussbaum would have it-in short, she makes the cardinal error of attributing to Murdoch's characters the author's own philosophical convictions. The protagonist, Bradley Pearson, is in many ways a quite disturbed man, whose critisism of the work of Arnold Baffin is parodic of the negative reviews Murdoch herself received during the 60s (for her work as a prolific, popular novelist). But Pearson's litanies on platonic love in Part Two are not "philosophy"--they are the histrionic ramblings of a failed writer having a psychological breakdown.

I could go on, but my point is that Ms. Nussbaum's observations are akin to someone writing about Shakespeare's Philosophy of Art, Love and Humanity using quotes from Iago or Richard III as if they were the playwright's "own" carefully measured words.

While disquieting that such an esteemed publisher would have allowed this, and that someone as astute in philosophy as Ms. Nussbaum would write it, the book itself remains what it is: a true 5-star classic.

Rating:
Summary: life changing
Review: Firstly, there are many fuller (& better) reviews of this novel elsewhere on this page. I would just like to say that this was the first Murdoch novel I ever read, & I've obsessively tracked down all the others since, although I'm afraid symptoms of her disease were becoming apparent from The Message To The Planet onwards. I have never read an author with such an ability to make unsympathetic characters interesting, or go so deep, but what really did it for me was the way that everything that occurs seems to be totally arbitrary & completely inevitable; i.e. real. This provided me with the final piece in my philosophical jigsaw. Nothing comes of nothing. Every action is contigent on every other action & the world is the consequence of googolplexes of such interactions. Free will is an illusion brought about by a complexity which is indivisible (even theoretically), with all the implications that has for guilt, innocence & morality in general

Rating:
Summary: Unreadable, implausible, heavy-handed
Review: I got about half-way through the book and had to stop. This has to be one of the most unreadable and worthless books I have ever touched.

The narrative was utterly implausible. A variety of unbelievable characters crash down the front door of a foreboding self-styled intellectual on the very day he planned to escape to a remote location to finish his magnum opus. His friend had beaten his wife. His ex-wife's brother wants him to get her to give him money, and to say that his ex-wife has come looking for him. His sister leaves her husband, whom she claims has tried to poison her. This has the air of a farce and never loses it.

Murdoch never establishes any proper characterization of these people, all who are obvious archetypes for this or that kind of person that Murdoch wants to treat in her didactic Chicken Soup for the Philosopher's Soul. The protagonist's ruminations are unbearably repetitive--he goes on and on about art while piling up metaphors that don't mix.

Worse still are the breaks in the narrations in which the protagonist directly addresses the reader. As if the dialogue between the characters was not a thin enough veneer to cover Murdoch's moralizing, here the reader is directly confronted with all kinds of platitudes about friendship, art, and more art. It is perfectly obvious that the end of the book will see the protagonist revealed as a disgusting human being who should have loved his neighbor.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his postscript to Lolita: "I presume there exist readers who find titillating the display of mural words in those hopelessly banal and enormous novels which are typed out by the thumbs of tense mediocrities and called "powerful" and "stark" by the reviewing hack. There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and ... Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what some call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical trash coming in huge blocks of plaster that are carefully transmitted from age to age until somebody comes along with a hammer..." ("On a book entitled Lolita," (New York: Vintage, 1997), 314-15).

Rating:
Summary: A mesmerising tale of despair in the human condition
Review: I read Iris Murdoch's "The Sacred and Profane Love Machine" a year ago and didn't much like it. Too much talk, too little action and a plot surrounding a cast of strangely unsympathetic characters that goes nowhere. I thought I was in the same rut for much of the first third of "The Black Prince", when out of the blue, the black arrow of Eros struck and permanently altered the course of the novel. The unexpected change of pace and sudden focus on Bradley Pearce's relationship with the object of his desire at the expense of the adult (and mostly tiresome) characters was a clever Murdoch device that drew me inexorably into the plot. There was no let up in action from there on - the story played relentlessly to its dramatic but tragic conclusion. You see through the eyes of Bradley and form your judgement based on his version of the motives and designs of the unsavoury characters which envelop him but are thrown off guard by the radically different perspectives of the other players (shades of "Rashomon") in the postscript. You get the feeling that nobody's version encapsulates the whole truth (is there such a thing ?) and that everybody creates a best-fit truth that assuages his conscience. Murdoch is heavy on dialogue (nothing wrong with that) but there is a tendency for it to be repetitive (her characters are overly talkative) which can be hellavu irritating. I found that in The Sacred and Profane Love Machine too - must be a Murdoch trait. But whereas the latter is limp and soggy, The Black Prince has a highly intriguing plot and all the elements of a kitchen sink drama-cum-thriller that makes it a winner. A really great read.

Rating:
Summary: Not her best, but still well worth reading.
Review: Iris Murdoch's books aren't for everyone: they are written for sensitive, intellectual, and introspective readers. The Black Prince is a very intelligent, well-crafted book. However, I think the 2 Forewords would have been better left out, as they refer to characters and events we know nothing of yet. Moreover, I found it regrettable that the novel only seems to really begin at about half-point. The first half tends to lack intensity and direction, but then the story finally takes a decisive - if no longer expected - turn for the more interesting. The second half is vintage Iris Murdoch, with several strong scenes. There's an abrupt surprise in store at the end, but the other surprises lurking in the Postscipts may be perceived as a bit unpleasant and excessive. Not Murdoch's best (I prefer The Sacred & Profane Love Machine), but still well worth reading.

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Summary: And Funny, Too.
Review: Just adding to the plethora of reviews and putting in my two or three cents. Dame Iris is said to have possessed a prodigious and heavy intellect. And one can see, in reading her works, that this is very true. She is able to see into all the various emotional responses of myriad characters, and to do so faultlessly. Yes, we say, this is true! This is the way he would think and act (or the way I would think and act.) She is mercilessly honest in her descriptions, whether they be of thoughts or actions. And I found the book very humorous. Our hero, Bradley, is himself a humorous character, so serious and caught up in himself. He is a buffoon who constantly makes the wrong choices, yet intellectualizes everything and rationalizes everything to suit himself. I think this is quite an amazing book. As one reviewer who didn't like the book remarked, it is a farce. And yes, it is a farce. But there are nonetheless deep truths running around in here. Dame Iris had this incredible ability to see through people, to put herself in their places and understand just what they would do in any given circumstance. Her characters are so impeccably drawn that we know them utterly.
To be able to weave a good story is one thing, that makes a good story-teller. To be able to create characters which live and breathe is yet another thing, and many writers base their works on this alone. But to be able to write impeccably precise prose , create living characters, tell a great story, and have a moral imperative is what makes great literature.
The Black Prince is worth a read. This is great literature, and a whole lot easier than all those Russian guys.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: Regarding a previous review: Perhaps some of the characters are a bit prolix but this is not necessarily a defeat is it? And thank God Murdoch was no Dostoesvsky, should she have been? I think one was quite enough. Bradley Pearson is a pleasant, at least pleasantly readable, incarnation of some of Murdoch's philosophy without being overbearing or esoteric. One need not always read about self-castigation and repentence to know that suffering has variegated coats and one need not do away with one's landlady to find guilt, perhaps it accrues. Bradley Pearson is a certain type of protagonist. Perhaps some will relate and others won't, its not necessary anyway. The dialogue and inner-dialogue is enough to pique and provoke. The "Black Prince" is a good read and should be taken as such, I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid Re-issue of a Classic; Regrettable Introduction
Review: self absorption and its consequences was a major theme in my perception of the characters with the strong exception of one character Julian. Lunacy Idiocy and general carryings-on covered hidden depths of emotional failure.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging
Review: The Black Prince tells the story of Bradley Pearson, an aging writer with few publishing credits to his name. He feels a masterpiece within him, but finds his efforts to focus on his work thwarted by pressures from the women in his life: his sister, his ex-wife, and his best friend's wife and daughter. Murdoch introduces Pearson as a reserved, self-indulged, and solitary man, committed to producing his life's masterpiece and averse to involve himself in others personal affairs. Reluctantly, he comes to the aid of those who seek him out each time he tries to depart for a quiet space in the countryside, further delaying the creation of his masterpiece.

The story starts out slowly. Pearson's self-absorption and righteousness do not inspire the reader's sympathy nor do the other characters, who privately abuse, cheat, or wish death upon their loved ones while maintaining respectable public appearances. Murdoch intersperses this introduction to the dual-natured main characters and their immediate crises with a great deal of philosophy about the nature of love, art and truth. These issues were Murdoch's passion as a philosopher, but the frequency with which she raises such difficult questions detracts from the story line.

Midway through the book, the pace picks up rapidly. Murdoch successfully involves the reader in the passion -- referred to as the black Eros -- that could awaken Pearson's creativity, causing lasting consequences and turning the relations between English intellectuals into a literary thriller. Murdoch twists and turns the story in a way that makes the reader care for and even sympathize with each character as they struggle with aspects of love and human emotion. The narrative journey encompasses lust, violence, psychosis and adultery, as well as youth, vitality, trust and new beginnings. Combining murder, love and the relationships among a small group of aging Englishmen and women, Murdoch infuses psychological and philosophical tension into a classic tale of love and murder.

Cutting down on the amount of philosophizing would have strengthened the story line. But despite Murdoch's refusal to allow editing of her work, The Black Prince made the shortlist for the Booker Prize. A timeless story that unravels timeless emotions, The Black Prince grips the reader with its surprising finale and the talons of Murdoch's writing.