Hello Gentle Reader
To summarize my experience with Iris Murdoch with her novel “The Black Price,” it would be: disappointing. The main character Bradley Pearson was not a solid character. Neither was Arnold, Rachel or Julian Baffin – though Julian at least was able to get away with her emotional characteristics and dropping of them, for a whole ‘other persona. Francis Marloe never had much time to really change his own persona. He was always in some way or another, a snivelling character. A sponge to the extreme. The lost and homeless cat, which no one wants to take in, and yet reluctance to the homeowner somehow found himself, snuggled up by the hearth of the home – however he is stereotyped as a typical homosexual man. Then, enters the middle aged and broken sister of Bradley Pearson Priscilla whose emotional well-being has been destroyed. A homemaker, now middle-aged and who doubts she’ll ever be loved again only cares about her jewels, enamel picture, mink stole, and other odds and ends of superficial materialism. She leaves her husband a slimy creature Roger who has been having an affair with a younger woman by the name of Marigold and is no pregnant and together have found true happiness. Priscilla’s infectiveness as a character and her constant emotional state and melodrama make her the only character that makes sense in her issues to a degree – but for the most part when she turned up and till the end she was a bothersome creature. A big fat fruit fly buzzing around the seams. In and out in and out. Enter Christian the ex-wife of Bradley Pearson, self-described enlightened guru on eastern philosophies and religion and all around manipulative conniving, whose piousness and treacherous behaviour was just more salt added to an already over salted group of characters.
Ugly characters are rather easy to deal with. They are simply exaggerations of the horrible traits hidden within all of us. That was not the problem. The problem was, is that the novel was told in the first person narration. By an emotionally cold pretentious character (Bradley Pearson) who fancies himself a writer. All he does though his bore one with his long monologues on the nature of art, and how if one needs to do art, they must suffer in life and reap the glories in death. He despises his friend, and nemeses as well as more successful writer Arnold Baffin who writes terrible talentless dribble. Pumping it full of eastern mystic philosophies and self-discovering texts, and then shoveling it out once every year. He lives in a borough of London called Earling. There he appears to enjoy martial success, finical success, literary success, and is doing quite well. He is everything that Bradley is not. In many ways I theorize that he has everything that Bradley wants. Why on earth, had Bradley done what he had done? He had an affair with Arnolds wife, on her own insistence as well as falling madly in love with his daughter. Do I sense in some ways as well some homoeroticism between Arnold and Bradley. That’s where the novel became derailed.
If Bradley Pearson was supposed to be such a emotionally cut of person from everyone else, the reason being his desire to flee form the city and his rather treacherous friends and realities, as well as the surrounding people, then why on earth was he so emotionally manipulated and involved with two other characters. Why did he I continue in his contact with Christian, and allowing her in his life, why did he not leave when he should have left to complete his ‘masterpiece,’ as he told himself quite frequently. Instead Bradley was indecisive, mixed with Iris Murdoch’s horrible inability characterize any of the characters properly it was just a melodramatic waste of time of sensational plot twists and written in pretentious prose.
Others have shared the same opinion with me on this piece of work. Some readers have taken it with a grain of salt. Contemplating as a lunatic farce. The characters being a comedy of manners and errors. Personally it was a soap opera of horrible people, playing out their emotional problems and needs with each other and against each other. Rachel and Priscilla are the worst characters for this:
“I’ll never forgive you for this!” being one of Rachel’s favourite lines when she becomes in an emotional state. Among constant repetitions of the same old story over and over again. Pricilla constantly says that she must go back to Roger. How he needs her. How she needs to clean up the house and how Roger and her can fix everything. Of course that’s not going to happen. Roger was going to marry his impregnated mistress. Who is also a dentist; and once again the complete opposite of the supressed and now mentally unstable Priscilla. Who is unskilled and middle aged, and faces the fact and reality of her own age, and mortality.
The icing on the cake though, besides the discussion of art and about artist. Oh how Bradley and Arnold discuss art and artists. How they are such sensitive creatures, who cannot take criticism, and any criticism given is out of line and not necessary because they have already torn their own work to shreds before revealing it to anyone else. Then of course comes the psychological discussion that Francis Marloe and Bradley have, where the first discussion about Arnold and Bradley’s homoerotic relationship. To which Francis outs himself. Then there is a discussion of Bradley having a possible Oedipus complex. Freud references didn’t stop there though. The Post Office tower of London (now called the BT Tower) and its sexual reference to a man’s penis, and its fascination with the main character Bradley. None of this really worked thought. It all felt like a smash up, crash up, shoveled together, and tossed a side piece of work. I was greatly disappointed in it.
Maybe Iris Murdoch is a great novelist. Perhaps this was not the best work by her. Better yet Iris Murdoch and I may not be a pair. We may not be a reader and writer who can see eye to eye on the matter of novels. Well at least not hers anyway.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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M. Mary
