Iris Murdoch explores the fragility of relationships. Thirty years is plenty of time for friends to change their opinions. Not least of each other.
Iris Murdoch turns her microscopic gaze on vanity and obsession in her 19th novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1978.
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England’s theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, and to amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. But his plans fail, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of strange events and unexpected visitors - some real, some spectral - that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.
Iris Murdoch
About the Author
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin and made her writing debut with Under the Net in 1954. She wrote 26 novels and several books of philosophy.In a time when fiction seems to be growing resolutely weirder, bending and breaking the boundaries between genres, reaching for the strange and the uncanny to better understand the world we live in, Iris Murdoch is the perfect companion
Listen to an extract from The Sea, The Sea
The characters of The Sea, The Sea are brought to life by Simon Vance and Kimberly Farr in the audiobook.
PRH Audio · The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, read by Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
Iris Murdoch and James Atlas in conversation
Other nominated books by Iris Murdoch
Through the spiritual trials of two troubled stepbrothers, Iris Murdoch conducts an inventive allegorical exploration of morality.
Iris Murdoch’s 15th novel is part-thriller, part-love story: a book that explores the intricacies and inconsistencies of human relationships.
A government official lies dead - but awkward questions around his supposed suicide remain in Iris Murdoch’s thriller-meets-romantic comedy.
Obsessed with spiders and preoccupied with death, an old man lies at the centre of Iris Murdoch’s intricate web of relationships and passions.
An exploration of love and its excesses, missteps, and modest triumphs.
