Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The opening scenes of this charged and potent novel, Murdoch's 23rd, are flooded with gaily bedizened dancers at an Oxford Midsummer Night's ball. Couples in Shakespearean disarray chase and lose one another through the gardens. Gradually, a design becomes visible in the dense, chaotic weave of a slowly gathering fictional world. A male and female ``brotherhood,'' bookishly inclined, give financial support to one of their number, the fanatic, red-haired, possibly mad writer Crimond. The friends worry about Crimond's mysterious, ongoing book. Is he a ``maverick Marxist,'' urging terrorism to revolutionize the world? Crimond, strangely attractive to both men and women, while scorning and exploiting the ``old dreamy continuum'' of the brotherhood (which resembles the human condition), seems evil incarnate. Jean adores him, however, and leaves her bear-like, devoted husband for him. The lovers are less hilariously depicted than the similarly self-glorifying adulterers in The Good Apprentice. Here the satire is somber, the sense of character both sinister and muffled. But religious myths, theatrics and games offer salvation in the rising spirit of glee that marks the novel's latter portion. The couples' joyous pairings and recovery of serene, humorous domesticity re-enact the solutions of dark comedy. Fertile in the arts of language, story and philosophy, Murdoch brilliantly entertains the robust reader. 35,000 first printing. (February) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Murdoch's long but moving 23rd novel follows a band of Oxford graduates who in their youth pledged monetary support to fellow student David Crimond to write a book of political philosophy. Now old age is approaching, none of the band has come to much, ``the book'' has yet to appear, and Crimond has turned out to be a moral and intellectual monster. There are fine set pieces here (a revelrous and finally sodden Oxford lawn party), but the novel's mood is chill. That Murdoch can work from the disaster and deceit at its center to a ``new space of peace and freedom'' is an inspiring achievement. Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id . (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Another Murdochian, devilishly intricate, richly resonant human comedy--which, as always, is webbed with shadowy, tantalizing philosophic/mythic inferences. Here, a circle, a ""brotherhood,"" of friends--energized by post-Oxfordian, somewhat dilettantish intellectuals, a Parnassus of cosseted sensibility and cherished interdependence--are demonically aroused by a former comrade and come to witness and participate in acts both dreadful and dreadfully stupid. ""To go near Crimond is to go near death,"" smolders smoldering Jean, who will twice leave Duncan, her wounded bear of a husband, to become the lover of the brilliant, ascetic, arrogant Crimond. Certainly Crimond, who danced ""like a god"" at an Oxford ball, is a burning, shocking problem to the brotherhood, who had long ago (years, in fact) decided to support him financially while he wrote his masterwork, a neo-Marxist global prognosis. It's Gerard (who fancies himself a ""leader and healer"") who leads the liberals' delicate campaign to find out just what is evolving in the Book--and also to return Jean to Duncan. Among those worrying and scurrying: peace-loving Rose, who has always loved Gerard--whose love has now descended on schoolmaster Jenkin. Unlike Gerard, the moral voyager, Jenkin--who roars with pleasing laughter at Gerard's courting--is one content to ""exist where he is."" There's also young Tamar, wracked by a sense of unworthiness and a horrid mother; Tamar experiences a hell of guilt after the abortion of Duncan's child, but she will be ""liberated"" via Anglican Fr. McAllister--who gasps for (as in a way the others do) Belief within non-belief. Meanwhile, perennially unemployed Gulliver and poverty-raised Lily moth about the Circle, but are blessed with a knowledge of ""ordinariness."" A terrible murder shakes all, and all feel guilt, although no one but the principals will learn of its circumstances--or the botched double-suicide plan in which two ""gods,"" in their ""impossible love,"" come a cropper. In spite of the fatuousness and foolishness, no one here is entirely a fool or a saint, or hero or victim, but a mix as baffling as the confusion of accident and that mystic ""connectedness"" that clouds the planet. One of Murdoch's finest. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
