A dazzling meditation on love and honor, greed and generosity, passion and death, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea
Set in London and in the South of France, this brilliantly structured novel centers on two women: Gertrude Openshaw, bereft from the recent death of her husband, yet awakening to passion; and Anne Cavidge, who has returned in doubt from many years in a nunnery, only to encounter her personal Christ. A fascinating array of men and women hover in urgent orbit around them: the "Count," a lonely Pole obsessively reliving his émigré father's patriotic anguish; Tim Reede, a seedy yet appealing artist, and Daisy, his mistress; the manipulative Mrs. Mount; and many other magically drawn characters moving between desire and obligation, guilt and joy. This edition of Nuns and Soldiers includes a new introduction by renowned religious historian Karen Armstrong.
Praise for Iris Murdoch and Nuns and Soldiers:
"Murdoch was the rare kind of great, buoyant, confident writer who could drive the whole machine. She was as in touch with animal instincts as intellectual ones. The scope of her vision makes you feel, when you are close to her fiction, that you have glimpsed the sublime." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"As with Nuns and Soldiers, so with the condiiton of love: you want to know how it will turn out, but you certainly don't want it to end." —Martin Amis, The Observer
"Few writers have been able to describe the cataclysmic and humorous experience of love as well as Murdoch." —Karen Armstrong
"Murdoch at her best . . . the novel is, like life, full of surprises, and conveys a marvelous sense of underlying order and swarming randomnes together." —A.S. Byatt, New Statesman
"Dazzling . . . Engrossing . . . Like Proust and Henry James, Murdoch transports the reader to the stylish grace of other times and ways, but cleverly never lets us forget the reality just outside the door . . . comical and pessimistic, intelligent, and eccentric . . . Iris Murdoch's novels are a bit like life: The destination is uncertain, but the journey is, after all, what matters." —Barbara Phillips, The Christian Science Monitor
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was born in Dublin and brought up in London. She studied philosophy at Cambridge and was a philosophy fellow at St. Anne's College for 20 years. She published her first novel in 1954 and was instantly recognized as a major talent. She went on to publish more than 26 novels, as well as works of philosophy, plays, and poetry.
View titles by Iris Murdoch
A dazzling meditation on love and honor, greed and generosity, passion and death, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea
Set in London and in the South of France, this brilliantly structured novel centers on two women: Gertrude Openshaw, bereft from the recent death of her husband, yet awakening to passion; and Anne Cavidge, who has returned in doubt from many years in a nunnery, only to encounter her personal Christ. A fascinating array of men and women hover in urgent orbit around them: the "Count," a lonely Pole obsessively reliving his émigré father's patriotic anguish; Tim Reede, a seedy yet appealing artist, and Daisy, his mistress; the manipulative Mrs. Mount; and many other magically drawn characters moving between desire and obligation, guilt and joy. This edition of Nuns and Soldiers includes a new introduction by renowned religious historian Karen Armstrong.
Reviews
Praise for Iris Murdoch and Nuns and Soldiers:
"Murdoch was the rare kind of great, buoyant, confident writer who could drive the whole machine. She was as in touch with animal instincts as intellectual ones. The scope of her vision makes you feel, when you are close to her fiction, that you have glimpsed the sublime." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"As with Nuns and Soldiers, so with the condiiton of love: you want to know how it will turn out, but you certainly don't want it to end." —Martin Amis, The Observer
"Few writers have been able to describe the cataclysmic and humorous experience of love as well as Murdoch." —Karen Armstrong
"Murdoch at her best . . . the novel is, like life, full of surprises, and conveys a marvelous sense of underlying order and swarming randomnes together." —A.S. Byatt, New Statesman
"Dazzling . . . Engrossing . . . Like Proust and Henry James, Murdoch transports the reader to the stylish grace of other times and ways, but cleverly never lets us forget the reality just outside the door . . . comical and pessimistic, intelligent, and eccentric . . . Iris Murdoch's novels are a bit like life: The destination is uncertain, but the journey is, after all, what matters." —Barbara Phillips, The Christian Science Monitor
Author
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was born in Dublin and brought up in London. She studied philosophy at Cambridge and was a philosophy fellow at St. Anne's College for 20 years. She published her first novel in 1954 and was instantly recognized as a major talent. She went on to publish more than 26 novels, as well as works of philosophy, plays, and poetry.
View titles by Iris Murdoch
