The Sea, the Sea

The first section of this novel, "Prehistory," seems interminable at times. The British director Charles Arrowby has retired to a drafty old house by the sea to write his memoirs. He begins in diary form, relating his daily regime, detailing his fastidiously prepared meals, recalling with fondness (and condescension) people in his life, dismissing others who have crossed him, and reminiscing about the one "true love" of his life, who inexplicably left him when he was a youth. With the exception of one or two mysterious incidents (at one point, he thinks he sees a dragon in the sea), so little happens in the first 87 pages that anyone will wonder, why am I reading this?It's a set-up. After this lengthy prologue, people from Arrowby's past begin arriving at his doorstep or in the nearby village, shattering the tranquil atmosphere of his retirement and belying the gist of his memories. As the one character who Arrowby had earlier described as "very attached to me" says in anger: "You're an exploded myth.... You never did anything for mankind, you never did a damn thing for anybody but yourself." The reader quickly realizes that Arrowby is an egotistical boor who, under the guise of "love," wielded power and fear over the people in his life. Then, as the horde of Londoners from his past continue to invade his new home and complicate his life, he unexpectedly runs into his adolescent flame--and he convinces himself that, trapped in a marriage he regards as repulsive, she still has feelings for him. What follows is both hilarious and heart-rending--and often excruciating to read. Charles Arrowby is not a likeable character; he is, in fact, detestable. And the life he remembers is not how his "friends" recall it. As his cousin asks him, "What is the truth anyway...? As we know ourselves we are fake objects, fakes, bundles of illusions." In the scene previous to this conversation, Arrowby is in a museum, examining Titian's "Perseus and Andromeda," which depicts Perseus rescuing Andromeda from a dragon. Murdoch's novel asks (and here I oversimplify): who's really the monster? who's the rescuer? who indeed needs to be rescued? and at what expense?Be warned: For this Penguin edition Mary Kinzie has provided one of those annoying introductions that would make an excellent afterword. Much of her essay is incomprehensible unless you've read the novel, and it gives away many important plot elements, including the pivotal climax. Happy is the reader who waits until finishing the novel to read this incisive summary.

The Sea, The Sea has become one of my top five favorite books and Iris Murdoch one of my favorite authors.In The Sea, The Sea, we meet arrogant, snobbish Charles Arrowby, a retired London theatre director. Charles has recently bought a house by the sea where he hopes to finish his pretentious autobiography. Many things happen, however, to disrupt this enterprise.First, Charles discovers that one of the small town's inhabitants is his very first love, a love who disappeared from his life in his teens. Believing her to symbolize his lost youth and innocence, Charles becomes obsessed with her almost to the point of madness.Iris Murdoch's books are all excellent studies of relationships and The Sea, The Sea is certainly one of her best. In it, the character of Charles lies at the center of a vast network of complex relationships and interpersonal interactions. Much of the novel is an exploration of how we, ourselves, influence what others eventually come to see about people and how they relate to them.Although relationships take center stage in this novel, there is much symbolism and even a little of the supernatural. The sea is so ever-present in this book that it almost seems to be a character in and of itself. Charles reacts to the sea in many ways, some benign, some not so benign. The sea, itself, is portrayed as something that is untimately not able to be understood or controlled, much as is life.Although this book is passionately moral, it is definitely not a treatise on how to behave in a moral fashion. In fact, many of Murdoch's characters could be said to be anything but "moral." The values and consequences portrayed in this book are done with such a skillful hand, that The Sea, The Sea sits head and shoulders above Murdoch's other books, good as they are.Just like the theatrical world it explores, The Sea, The Sea, is a showy, dramatic and powerfully effective book. It is Iris Murdoch's masterpiece and a huge reward for any reader.

I read "The Sea, The Sea" during my Christmas break. I started out of a sense of duty. I had never read Murdoch, but knew that one ought to. A friend bought me a box set of Booker prize winners and, lured by a front cover that featured a moody, brooding seascape, I launched into the opening chapters. I had to work hard at first. As with so many "worthy" writers, Murdoch doesn't molly coddle the reader with early gratification. There is seductively beautiful description of a coastline that should be perfect, but is uncomfortably tainted in a way you can't quite put your finger on. A fictional world of theatreland populated by highly strung, egocentric luvvies is not immediately appealing. DON'T SKIP THIS PART THOUGH - it is vital to the completeness of the novel.Part 2 begins on page 91. The gentle swell of Part 1 erupts into violent, threatening waves full of eddies and currents that shock, surprise, delight and toss you about disconcertingly like a piece of flotsam. At this point in the novel, I was drawn into Murdoch's world like a frightened child being drawn into a deep dark forest full of demons - terrified, but unable to conquer an overiding need to explore further.The next two days of reading were the most unsettling I can remember since adolescence. There is a truth , a clarity of understanding of the destructive egoism in human nature that is truly chilling in its impact. The novel genuinely upset me in the way it peeled away the comforting skin of self delusion without any anaesthetic. One character alone, James, rises above a cacophony of self-centred, emotionally moribund personalities that are frustrated in their search for happiness by their inability to communicate. What is so depressing is that it all rings so true. Grand themes of morality, happiness, suffering, belief and almost anything else you can think of in the human condition are handled with astonishing assurance and understanding.READ THIS NOVEL. It is upsetting, but it is also beautiful. It is big, it is gripping and you come away from it feeling you understand life a bit better than you did before. I can honestly say it has been the most significant book I have read since I first encountered "Moby Dick" twenty years ago! It has the same enormity of sweep and, like "Moby Dick", it luxuriates in the seemingly endless metaphorical possibilities and unlimited power of The Sea as an image.

I started reading The Sea, The Sea, and halfway through, my boyfriend left it on a plane. I couldn't find another copy for almost a year, but meanwhile I read some of Murdoch's other novels, which I enjoyed. I've now read about 10 of her books, and The Sea, The Sea was by far the best-written and most moving. Murdoch closely scrutinized the minutiae of everyday life and managed to make it beautiful and worthy of consideration and appreciation. After finishing this book, I was unable to read her other novels for a while, because I thought so highly of it, but luckily I'm over that now. This novel may not appeal to some because Charles can be an infuriating and unsympathetic narrator, but ultimately his pure intentions redeem his extreme actions.