Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea (1978)

There are many books that have been a real pleasure for me to read.  I derive a great deal of enjoyment from reading, or else I would not have embarked on this project (or stuck with it for so long!)There have also been some books that are mediocre, which I would not say I have enjoyed, and which I would not read again – ones that are written in a not very interesting way, or where the plot is fairly predictable and not very exciting.  Then there are a small number of books which I enjoyed reading for the elegance of their prose, the creativity of their story and the contemplation of ideas that they evoke, but which nonetheless contain characters that are so repulsively vile as to leave the reader with little or no sympathy for them.  The Sea, The Sea is one of those novels that falls into the latter category.

It took me several months to read The Sea, The Sea.  That does not mean that I did not enjoy it, but it was not an easy novel to read.  A combination of dislikeable characters and unhappy events populate the narrative, while its dense descriptive paragraphs and long chapters require commitment and concentration.  Charles Arrowby, the narrator of the tale, moves from London to a little-visited coastal community, in order to escape his past as a well-known theatre director.  The book consists of long but elegantly written analyses from Arrowby’s point of view, where he makes plenty of erroneous assumptions about the people who have populated his life.  He tries to think through his concerns rationally and methodically (Murdoch’s academic career as a philosopher shows throughout this work) but his thoughts are frequently overruled by his strong emotions.  His delusions and fantasies about his previous life are harmless enough initially, but these develop into a maniacal obsession after someone from his past unexpectedly appears.

Murdoch uses the theatre as a metaphor throughout the work, with almost the entire story taking place on the “stage” of his house at Shruff End and a dramatis personae of Arrowby’s friends and former stage colleagues appearing and leaving again at regular intervals.  The story is always from Arrowby’s point of view, so it is as if these characters have left the stage when they leave the house.  Arrowby compares himself to Shakespeare’s Prospero from The Tempest, forsaking the fame and trappings of his previous career in favour of a supposedly simpler life.  Indeed, Murdoch writes Arrowby writing his memoirs with a sense of his own theatricality, as if she is constructing him in the process of constructing a character for himself.

Arrowby’s memoirs and thoughts indicate to the reader that he is not a reliable narrator, drawing as he does remarkably inaccurate inferences of the intentions and behaviours of those around him.   His obsessive jealousy leads to his flawed assumptions about the various other characters who populate the tale.  In addition, he experiences a number of troubling visions, which are never satisfactorily explained; he sees a face on the other side of an internal window when he knows no-one else is there, and he witnesses a dreadful sea monster on a couple of occasions.  Arrowby is just one of a panoply of flawed characters however, all with underlying agendas, and most of whom demonstrate vanity, jealousy and a lack of compassion.  Mary Hartley Fitch is histrionic, her adopted son Titus lacks direction and Arrowby’s terrifying former lover Rosina Vamburgh is portrayed like a vengeful harpy.  These characters are contrasted with Charles’ only remaining blood relative, his cousin James, a mysterious character who has spent time in the military and has extensive knowledge of Tibet and Buddhist practices.  He maintains a Zen-like calm whenever he appears, and acts as a counterbalancing force throughout the novel.  Arrowby finds him superior and is clearly jealous of the cousin who enjoyed a much happier childhood than his own.  Murdoch uses James’ portrayal to demonstrate a different philosophical outlook to Charles – whereas he seeks sensual pleasure and is utterly selfish, James seemingly desires nothing but to help others and to seek true inner knowledge of the world.

What do we learn from The Sea, The Sea?  Iris Murdoch was a philosopher as well as a writer, who spent considerable time thinking about the nature of morals.  The French philosopher Simone Weil, who greatly influenced Murdoch, believed that evil is spread from person to person, and the only way to stop it is for people to selflessly absorb it without passing it on.  We can apply this idea to the novel, where we can think of Charles as the creator of evil, with his disruptive jealousy and covetous personality, and his cousin James as the absorber, who tries to prevent the seeds of his destruction from taking root.  Arrowby is an anti-hero, a character so pompous, selfish and ridiculous that it is easy to consider him a caricature of a certain type of London theatre personality.  Murdoch makes him thoroughly dislikeable, but this does not impair on the enjoyment of the novel.  His attempts to flee his past life fail because of his earlier selfish actions, which come back in the form of his old flames to avenge themselves upon him.  Murdoch’s ultimate philosophical message to be taken from the novel, if there is one, is one that James would recognise from his Buddhist teachings: that of the concept of karma, that every action has a consequence.