Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 April 2008 07:35:44
Today I am taking a break from bringing down walls by banging my head against them to review Iris Murdoch A Life by Peter J. Conradi.
As ever, with my reading, not a new book but an interesting one. Murdoch was a moral Philosopher aswell as a novelist. It's therefore not surprising that in reading this book, which seems to focus largely on relationships, that one feels they are engaging with an episode of the moral maze at times. During the earlier part of her life Murdoch embrassed the boho lifestyle as, what I guess these days would be described as, a polyamarous bisexual before settling down into happy hetro monogomy.
The historical setting of much of the early part of the book and indeed much of her young adulthood is the world on the brink of and then suffering the Second World War. Therefore it is a book in which one encounters situations and choices which in our day seem largely unimaginable. It is a book which will make you stop and think and realise that whilst we grope around for black and white answers the best solutions often come in an awkward form of grey.
I would recommend this as a book to anybody who wants an interesting read but also to anybody who wants to be challenged to open their brain to wrestle with what is / was morally right and wrong. It is also an important book to be read by those who want to see how life, politics and morality don't stay static over time. We are changed by our experiences and by what we read, talk about and choose to engage with.