the unicorn #2

The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch is like Wuthering Heights by the sea. In a terrain as ancient and wild as the human brain, two houses also represent different aspects of the psyche. 'Riders' is the intellect, reason and the superego governed by a guru of classical philosophy. 'Gaze' is a compound for the elemental, violent and sexual under the control of a homosexual enforcer. Gaze is nearest the violent ocean and is continually subject to the activity of the unconscious. The other characters (and the reader) travel, physically and emotionally, between these three psychic edifices and, in doing so, demonstrate the moral basis of the novel.

Upon reflection, the heroes of the book are Alice and Dennis who are, ultimately, the only characters to follow a path of existential bravery and to know themselves. The others, embroiled in their narrow fixations, end up dead, speechless or worst of all: like Effingham - unable to free themselves from the moorings of recived wisdom.

A fascinating and instructive book which trancends the format of the novel.

The Unicorn #1

I got a chance to read a few more pages of The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch on the train this morning and I've change my view of the book's purpose somewhat. One of the (so far) minor characters says in a letter: ' Art and psychoanalysis give shape and meaning to life and that is why we adore them, but life as it is lived has no shape or meaning...'.

It occurred to me that IM might be manipulating the readers preconceived expectation of a novel's structure quite as much as she organises her characters actions and narrative. By this I mean that we (the characters and the readers) all bring preconceptions to our experience of the novel: a kind of mental map which gives shape to, and somehow, encloses in formality what we are experiencing, based on our 'knowledge' of religion, psychoanalysis or whatever. I'm sure IM disorientates us deliberately so that we question and understand better our own received wisdom. Notably the Unicorn herself has no identifiable moral or analytical core, she just is, and this is extremely attractive to the other characters. An annoying intellectual puzzle with no possible answer.

I was thinking about all this while walking on Farnhill Moor this morning. Unlike everywhere else round here it's a bit of hillside which is unenclosed and in a fairly natural state. There were so many things to see: birds, insects, trees, bracken, toadstools etc. etc. all just busy being, with or without us to see them and categorise our experience of them. From the top you can look and see all the hills around which have been walled off and the land enclosed. All very orderly, attractive and almost completely sterile. Perhaps we're just apes who have to organise things?