Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135356 in Books
• Published on: 1977-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From AudioFile
In Iris Murdoch's 1954 debut novel, Jake Donaghue is an engaging young writer. In his overintellectualized angst, Jake details a convoluted romantic impossibility--he loves Anna, who loves Hugo, who loves Sadie, who loves Jake. His betrayal of his best friend's trust, his emotional indifference in most of his relationships, and his failed first book eventually leave Jake in existential hell. Samuel West's performance is nicely understated. His intelligent reading turns Jake and Hugo's somber discussions of philosophy and metaphysics into exercises in wit. Jake offers that everything "is made up of moments, which pass and become nothing." West delivers Jake's discoveries, not as grim, but as the ramblings of a young artist in search of himself. Murdoch fans will be pleased. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Clever, Intelligent, and Funny
I read this book because it's on the Modern Library's Top 100 list, and I really enjoyed it. Murdoch is a talented and intelligent women, and she shows it in this book. It takes immense creative genius to write a philosophical fiction novel and make the story interesting to read too, but I think Murdoch has done it in this book.

She writes in a way that you can read the story and not notice the philosophical implications, but if you do, it only adds to the depth of the plot and characters.

And although I think the philosophical ideas contained throughout the novel are flawed, it doesn't discredit her intelligence. I can see why this novel is on the list, and I will probably be reading more of Murdoch's books in the future.

Her best
Iris Murdoch started her career with one brilliantly funny novel, Under the Net. From then on, it was downhill all the way.

Under the net of language lies the truth
In his early period (specifically, in "Tractatus"), the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the "net" of language both separates us from and connects us to the world: it simultaneously impedes and determines our understanding of life. He furthermore concluded that anyone who finally comprehended the meaning behind the language of "Tractatus" would realize that its arguments were senseless; to quote the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, the reader can "throw away the ladder after climbing up on it" and experience the world directly through contemplation rather than through philosophical discussion. "Under the net" of language, then, lie the truths of the world.

Yet it's not essential to have an understanding of Wittgenstein to enjoy the zany farce of Murdoch's novel, whose characters are hunters of truth in its pure manifestations (love and freedom), as well as its illusory aspects (money and success). The chief seeker is Jake Donaghue, short of cash and without much prospect for any meaningful source of income. Jake has been freeloading in a friend's apartment; when she becomes engaged to be married, he's homeless as well as poor. Along with his sidekick, Finn (who serves as a less dependable Jeeves to Jake's ungentlemanly Wooster), he sets out in search of a new home and instead embarks on a series of adventures: a peek at a bizarre theatrical performance by mimes, a night of pub-crawling, a day at the races, a dog-napping, and a visit to a film studio whose riotous outcome prefigures, as much as anything, the finale of "Blazing Saddles."

During his journey, Jake runs across three old acquaintances: a former girlfriend; her sister, a famous actress; and most important, Hugo Belfounder, who had been a fellow patient at a clinic testing inevitably unsuccessful cures for the common cold. During alternating bouts of deliberately induced illness, the pair held philosophical conversations, to which Hugo contributed nearly all of the original thoughts. Jake in turn converted these pronouncements into a book, "The Silencer," published without telling his new friend. Only after he'd finished the book, however, did Jake realize that the profundity of Hugo's opinions had been frustrated by his own attempt to render them into words. Jake's embarrassment over both his deceit and his failure had caused him to break ties unceremoniously with Hugo, who has since become a filmmaker. (Although this suggestion of truths masked by language is one of the more overt allusions to "Tractatus," biographer Peter Conradi points out that the character of Hugo is based not on Wittgenstein but on a Cambridge friend of Murdoch's who was the philosopher's star pupil.)

There are a number of wildly unpredictable and often absurd subplots involving the four old friends, all based on the miscommunication that results because each of them is in love with another, but none of them is in love with each other. It's a circle of love right out of an Elizabethan drama.

In spite of its philosophical borrowings, Murdoch's first novel is her most fast-paced--and it's certainly her wackiest. At times, it's even downright silly, and looking for meaning in the fun is like tracking down the literary references in a Buster Keaton film (they exist--but does it really matter?). Once you get past the surface trappings of its metaphysics, you can simply enjoy the screwball comedy of "Under the Net."