Una testa tagliata di Iris Murdoch è un romanzo d’interni, ambientato in stanze borghesi decorate con sobrio gusto dove i dialoghi s’affastellano; eppure, non è teatrale, anche se nei toni di una commedia acida narra le vicende di una manciata di uomini e donne che si amano e si tradiscono sullo sfondo di una Londra particolarmente nebbiosa.Il punto di vista di Martin, voce narrante, lascia trasparire tutti quei segreti che il protagonista stesso finge di non sapere. Agli atti Martin è miope: viene colto di sorpresa dai sotterfugi di tutti coloro che gli sono intorno (pur avendo lui stesso una relazione extraconiugale ben consolidata). Murdoch usa la sua voce per raccontare al lettore molto più di ciò che Martin stesso crede di sapere, ma il suo stupore rimane sospetto. L’ignoranza di Martin non sembra reale; pare piuttosto il collante che tiene insieme i vari pezzi delle sue ipocrisie familiari: Martin non vuole vedere i tradimenti della moglie, e non vuole pensare che la moglie veda i suoi. In verità Martin è fatto di gomma; tutto rimbalza sulla sua superficie e non empatizza mai col dolore altrui. Quando egli stesso si sente male, ciò accade per motivi intimi ignoti alla cricca dei suoi cari. In un certo senso Martin porta avanti una piccola rivoluzione inconscia, opportunistica ma estenuante. E da rivoluzionario ipocrita ha il potere di manipolare gli altri anche quando sono loro a cercare di influenzarlo, e riesce persino a ottenere ciò che vuole prima di sapere di volerlo. Una testa tagliata è un romanzo che parla di poliamorismo, pubblicato nel 1961 ma per nulla datato. La disinvoltura e la tranquillità con cui i protagonisti affrontano i loro intrallazzi lo pongono fuori dal tempo e dalle tendenze del costume sociale. C’è qualcosa della coppia aperta anni ’70, ma manca la fricchettonaggine di contorno (l’ambientazione è ultraborghese e accademica, permeata di un’austerità poco settantesca); e la pacatezza con cui i personaggi ragionano sulle loro questioni amorose è piuttosto lontana dalle insicurezze del nostro presente – tutto sommato molto tradizionalista –, eppure (sbagliando) non la ricondurremmo mai a un mondo pre-sessantotto. È una specie di Girotondo familiare, ma vissuto soltanto dal punto di vista di Martin. Non si salta da un personaggio all’altro, come appunto nel Girotondo di Schnitzler e nell’analogo Felici i felici di Yasmina Reza, testi che svelano di volta in volta le menzogne sentimentali mostrando cosa succede quando un personaggio è calato in una situazione differente, passando poi il testimone da uno all’altro dei protagonisti. Murdoch compie un’operazione simile ma subliminale, perché la focalizzazione univoca su Martin mostra comunque in controluce gli spettri che gli si agitano attorno, lasciando decidere al lettore quale sia il vero grado di consapevolezza di Martin (paradossalmente narratore inaffidabile per se stesso, ma non nei nostri confronti).È un romanzo gradevole, caustico in punta di penna. Si fa leggere rapidamente grazie a capitoli brevi e l’uso del dialogo. Per una volta tanto troviamo personaggi borghesi sì tormentati, ma non troppo infelici, anzi: sono adulti piuttosto appagati, un po’ stronzi, forse, ma sempre ragionevoli.
It is testament to Iris Murdoch's power as a novelist that A Severed Head is a gripping and enjoyable read, despite its complete lack of a sympathetic character. Managing to combine that very British kind of sex comedy where everyone is with the wrong partner (Lucky Jim would be another, published just seven years earlier) with astute skewerings of the human condition, time spent with this novel will surprise and delight.A Severed Head perfectly demonstrates that residents of very nice Central London addresses with a taste for the finer things can treat each other as badly as the worst guests of Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer. Covering the trials of Martin – an almost permanently sloshed dilettante of a London wine merchant – and his efforts to keep the women in his life in line. These number the one he is married to, the one on the side and the one he can't live with or without. He is a man determined to have his cake and eat it, but not without throwing some of it around first. He is coddled as befits an over-indulged child, often reacting with tantrums leading to violence when it becomes clear that he doesn't control 'his' women as much as he thinks he does. From crushing his wife Antonia's hands on learning of her infidelity – while neglecting to come clean about his own – to attempting to deal with inner turmoil by punching his way out of it, this proves as effective a tactic as it would be with fog. There is one of those thick London pea-souper fogs swirling, obliterating the once-familiar terrain, akin to Martin's attempts to blunder through life 'taking it well', as per his allotted role. For all her youth and the constant patronising references to it by the others, it is Martin's mistress Georgie who seems to have the best measure of him, right at the start noting that 'you're always looking for a master'. The only question is who will be in command by the end of the novel. It is unlikely to be young Georgie herself, quite on the mark when confidently stating that 'no one is essential to anyone'.
What do You think about A Severed Head (1976)?
Without giving too much away (with such a short book, saying just about anything is giving too much away), A Severed Head is a story of a stuffy Englishman who finds himself stuck in a love-triangle when his wife admits her love for her therapist. As the therapist tries to explain to him why he shouldn’t feel remorse, more characters enter into it, and what started as a triangle becomes a square, a pentagon, and a few other shapes before it concludes. It’s a pretty scathing yet funny indictment of post-Freudian psychology, describing how proscribers end up cutting off the best parts of themselves.To read my full review, go to http://coreysbook.wordpress.com/2011/...
—Corey Pung
Oh, Iris, what have you done to me? How will I ever be able to read one of your books again? If I stop here and now it's only because of you! Remember my infatuation with Charles last summer? Of course you do, because every now and then I go back and compare male characters with him. Now, guess what? Not only I didn't like Martin (Charles' counterpart for this novel) but I didn't like any of the characters. Stop for a minute and try to imagine how awful it is for the reader to look for someone to like (identify with is so out of the question) and find no one. You could have had me, you know I have a soft spot for classy, witty, art-loving, wine connoisseur Brits, I can even indulge a little infidelity and some twisted relationships, it's not that I'm living in a bell jar, but hey, this maze was too much for me. The same 6 people bonding and breaking up between themselves, showing no remorse, but, my goodness, so much well-behaving and understanding towards each other's choices and wanting to divide their refined furniture equally so that no one is deprived of the luxury and comfort they're accustomed to. Rats! It feels like these people are devoid of the most basic human feelings ever. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I am living in a bell jar, after all.I suppose the humour is not intentional, but after a certain number of combining possibilities I found myself bursting into laughter, thinking "My goodness, Iris, this is worse than a soap opera!" :)
—Lavinia
The first ever grown-up novel I ever read was Iris Murdoch's The Philosopher's Pupil. My father had bought it, but never read it, and somehow I felt that its destiny had been stifled in being abandoned on a bookshelf unread, and I felt sorry for it. It was not a novel for children or young adults, and I must have supposed it must therefore be written in some secret code that I hadn't yet learned (it was, but I wasn't to know this at the time). I recall the feeling of near-euphoria that I could actually understand almost all of the words; and the first page, far from being prohibitively esoteric, recounted simply a car accident (if I remember correctly). Much of what I was later to read in the novel was a slog, and most of it did pass over my head, but that was the moment that set me as a reader, so I have a great fondness for Murdoch's writing, and always enjoy returning to her work. I am less green, now, however, and this is an earlier work than many of hers that I have read, published, as it was in 1961. Her skill in describing dialogue improved enormously in that time, as I found some of the conversations laughably stilted, each utterance appearing to be staged with a view to driving towards some point. It is more clear to me now that her characters are primarily philosophical and psychological vehicles. That being said, this is an intense study of intellectual, moral and psychological maturation, and what it means to be really, really, and not just apparently free. I love the way her characters think, because I see so much of my own thinking so carefully delineated, although I am not half as neurotic as her characters always seem to be. There is a surprise which nearly knocked me off my chair, and I enjoy books that left-field me like that.
—Justin Griffiths-Bell
