What do You think about The Time Of The Angels (1988)?
I'd been planing to read something of hers for a while (The Sea, the Sea, Under the Net are on my TBR list), but I bought this one very very cheap (and old, it decomposed as I read it) in Hye-on-Wye (aprox. 9 months ago) and I haven't read it until now.I thought it would be difficult and weird but it turns out it's difficult and weird and also incredibly engaging. I'm quite aware some of the philosophy escaped me, but I still devoured it and enjoyed it, and I guess that what I made of it is what matters. It was brilliant and quotable and I will definitely keep reading her books. (I apologise for this no-review, I mostly write notes to my future self to know what I thought of what I think)
—Marina
Iris Murdoch writes well. She digs into the human soul and creates striking characters. This novel “Time of the Angels” focuses on a rector who lost his belief and question the good and the bad, to believe, not to believe and wishing to believe, morality and immorality as well as his complicated relationships with other people and incest theme. His discussions on morality and God with his brother Marcus are the significant parts of the book. Carel draws attention to the irrelevance between believing God and doing good in life and makes you think on and on. He is so manipulative on the other hand, he makes all the relationships more complicated.We read the novel from the points of view of Carel’s brother Marcus, Carel’s daughter Muriel, his servant Patti and Russian emigre Peshkov. My favorite parts are the ones focusing Muriel and Patti. Peshkov’s deceitful son Leo and his actions remind me the saying, “Not knowing to do bad and not wanting to do it are two different things.” Patti and Peshkov are also the symbols of alienation in a foreign country.Climax of the events in this striking novel is another point of discussion. You still feel the ambiguity and you may think what if some events were told in Elizabeth’s point of view, the beautiful invalid and mysterious sister of Muriel. The uncanny behind the untold and unseen is told so skilfully by Iris Murdoch, Time of the Angels becomes my second favorite novel from the writer. (My number one is Black Prince.)
—Sera
This is the 10th of Murdoch's 26 novels, from 1966, though it seems to be set in a London of at least a decade earlier, amid coal smog and unreconstructed half-bombed buildings. One of the latter, the remnants of a church with a house for the rector's family but no place for any parishioners to gather, has proved to be a good place for the local bishop to warehouse an eccentric, verging on rogue, priest, along with his young female relatives (daughter and niece), his mulatto household servant (who is also his concubine), plus an old Russian emigre caretaker and his sociopathic son who come with the parish house. Part of the setting is an absence - the mother of every character died when they were young. The priest's younger brother, continually rebuffed in his attempts to visit, mirrors a common Murdoch theme of 'academic on sabbatical failing to progress on projected book' as life undercuts it at every turn. In this case, the officially agnostic younger brother clings somewhat to the comfort of religion by attempting to write a book titled "Morality in a World without God", while his elder brother proves to care about neither. Half the book takes placed during a smog of such thickness and duration, compounded by electrical outages, that the characters physically cannot see half the time. The Gothic setting does not go to waste as madness, suicide and incest become the dominant themes, amid long discussions on the death of God - admirably compact and action-packed however!
—Bob
