A Fairly Honourable Defeat (2 page)
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Authors: Iris Murdoch
Love and the search for self-identity are twin themes in many of Murdoch’s novels, including
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
“Love is the imaginative recognition of, that is respect for, the otherness of another person,” she writes in “The Sublime and the Good.” That means striving to observe and respect the separateness of others rather than projecting identities and roles upon them. Granting others their particular individuality rather than expecting them to conform to stereotypes, characterizations, or expectations that are extensions of an individual’s own formulated vision of the world also means extending them freedom. There is no room for possessiveness in this kind of love, or for self-centeredness. In Murdoch the affirmation of love often comes not in the traditional romantic “boy gets girl” but in “boy lets girl go.”
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
“Love is the imaginative recognition of, that is respect for, the otherness of another person,” she writes in “The Sublime and the Good.” That means striving to observe and respect the separateness of others rather than projecting identities and roles upon them. Granting others their particular individuality rather than expecting them to conform to stereotypes, characterizations, or expectations that are extensions of an individual’s own formulated vision of the world also means extending them freedom. There is no room for possessiveness in this kind of love, or for self-centeredness. In Murdoch the affirmation of love often comes not in the traditional romantic “boy gets girl” but in “boy lets girl go.”
The reverse of such other-respecting love is solipsism, the kind of self-centeredness that, in its extreme form, sees an individual projecting his or her own particular view onto the surrounding world and those who populate it. Life then becomes a kind of drama to the solipsist, who in effect makes other people into characters and roles to which he or she may be the central character or even author. Murdoch describes solipsism as approaching a neurotic state when “we are completely enclosed in a fantasy world of our own into which we try to draw things from outside, not grasping their reality and independence, making them into dream objects of our own” (“The Sublime and the Good”).
1
In lesser degrees, it is a common phenomenon. Experience leads people to codify what they learn into a pattern of perceptions and responses, a system of judgments, by which they interpret and respond to what life presents. One of Murdoch’s favorite situations is to bring a character to a point where his or her solipsistic set of perceptions no longer answers to reality. This failure produces some form of psychological disintegration, until a series of revelations or recognitions brings the character to a new state of self-knowledge. Variants of this pattern of experience are recurrent in Murdoch’s fiction.
1
In lesser degrees, it is a common phenomenon. Experience leads people to codify what they learn into a pattern of perceptions and responses, a system of judgments, by which they interpret and respond to what life presents. One of Murdoch’s favorite situations is to bring a character to a point where his or her solipsistic set of perceptions no longer answers to reality. This failure produces some form of psychological disintegration, until a series of revelations or recognitions brings the character to a new state of self-knowledge. Variants of this pattern of experience are recurrent in Murdoch’s fiction.
The critic James Hall has contrasted Murdoch’s method with that of the traditional British novel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There the typical plot involves taking the protagonist through a series of situations that involve making social and moral choices. Through these choices and their consequences, the hero goes through a moral and social education. In Murdoch’s novels, however, sets of characters become involved in representative situations that repeat themselves. Thus, alternative responses to repeated situations are tried out. This, Hall argues, tends to bring the novelist near to being the central character, inasmuch as she is the one who faces the alternatives, makes the choices, and is the vehicle of education (
The Lunatic Giant in the Drawing Room,
1968).
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The advantage is that Murdoch can experiment with a wider range of alternatives than in the traditional novel by using more characters and repeated situations. The disadvantage is that the plot may appear contrived and complicated, and the multiple characterizations, thinner.
The Lunatic Giant in the Drawing Room,
1968).
2
The advantage is that Murdoch can experiment with a wider range of alternatives than in the traditional novel by using more characters and repeated situations. The disadvantage is that the plot may appear contrived and complicated, and the multiple characterizations, thinner.
An interesting feature of Murdoch’s work is that while the number of characters may at first be distracting and the plot complicated, the geography is invariably precise. Locations are mapped with care, floor plans supplied graphically, and movements traced with an almost military precision. In her London scenes her characters’ movements can be followed street by street. The literalness of the geography supplies a certainty and tangibility that underpins the novel even when the plot becomes more bizarre, events fantastic, and characters drift from reality.
Yet Murdoch’s is not a strictly literal world. While her narrative technique may seem to be, in the main, that of the traditional realist, in fact it makes frequent departures from that mode. Despite her emphasis on social interactions, her method is not consistently mimetic. For instance, it is metafictional in the way that she incorporates into the narrative the recognition of the author’s role in manipulating the characters and circumstances of his or her fictional world. In
A Fairly Honourable Defeat
there is no shortage of people—Julius being the most conspicuous—anxious to manipulate or manage the lives of others and to create situations through their interpretation of or intervention in events. Julius may be alone in calling people “puppets,” but he is not alone in treating them as such or in imagining plots for them. There are other metafictional hints, such as the obvious echoes of Shakespeare’s malignant Iago in the actions of Julius, who is just as invariably called “honest.” The level of contrivance—in this novel the broken telephone, the car that will not start, the purloined letters—may exceed normal expectations of plausibility. Even elements of the fantastic are not unusual in Murdoch’s novels.
A Fairly Honourable Defeat
there is no shortage of people—Julius being the most conspicuous—anxious to manipulate or manage the lives of others and to create situations through their interpretation of or intervention in events. Julius may be alone in calling people “puppets,” but he is not alone in treating them as such or in imagining plots for them. There are other metafictional hints, such as the obvious echoes of Shakespeare’s malignant Iago in the actions of Julius, who is just as invariably called “honest.” The level of contrivance—in this novel the broken telephone, the car that will not start, the purloined letters—may exceed normal expectations of plausibility. Even elements of the fantastic are not unusual in Murdoch’s novels.
Murdoch’s geography may also have symbolic function. In
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
for instance, the ethnically mixed and turbulent Notting Hill that Tallis inhabits contrasts with the middle-class serenity of Hilda and Rupert Foster’s home in S.W. 10. The drowning of the hedgehog may be a traditional foreshadowing of a later event, but if one notes the English country folklore that hedgehogs kill snakes, then its death presages the exposure of the Fosters’ Edenic garden to the serpentine Julius. Scenes such as Julius in the pool, with the roiling black water and the supernaturally red mouth, or Morgan’s nightmarish descent into the Underground in pursuit of a pigeon border on surrealism.
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
for instance, the ethnically mixed and turbulent Notting Hill that Tallis inhabits contrasts with the middle-class serenity of Hilda and Rupert Foster’s home in S.W. 10. The drowning of the hedgehog may be a traditional foreshadowing of a later event, but if one notes the English country folklore that hedgehogs kill snakes, then its death presages the exposure of the Fosters’ Edenic garden to the serpentine Julius. Scenes such as Julius in the pool, with the roiling black water and the supernaturally red mouth, or Morgan’s nightmarish descent into the Underground in pursuit of a pigeon border on surrealism.
Those two fantastic scenes, of course, also have their comic side, and it is well to remember that Murdoch
is
a comic novelist. The comedy is often, as noted earlier, a comedy of the bizarre, a comedy of the “absurd” more in the existential sense than the farcical. In
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
for instance, there are Julius’s sinister manifestations, noticed first in a darkening of the room. Or there is the dilemma of being trapped naked in someone else’s locked flat—and then doing the same thing to another person! Leonard’s bitter commentaries are comic in their misanthropic hyperbole. And there are Hilda and Rupert planning to help Morgan “pick up the pieces”; instead, Rupert picks up Morgan, and Hilda goes to pieces. Murdoch sees people as having the propensity to get into situations that become jokes on themselves, though they often arrive there with good intentions. Consequently her comedy of human folly, however penetrating, remains compassionate.
is
a comic novelist. The comedy is often, as noted earlier, a comedy of the bizarre, a comedy of the “absurd” more in the existential sense than the farcical. In
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
for instance, there are Julius’s sinister manifestations, noticed first in a darkening of the room. Or there is the dilemma of being trapped naked in someone else’s locked flat—and then doing the same thing to another person! Leonard’s bitter commentaries are comic in their misanthropic hyperbole. And there are Hilda and Rupert planning to help Morgan “pick up the pieces”; instead, Rupert picks up Morgan, and Hilda goes to pieces. Murdoch sees people as having the propensity to get into situations that become jokes on themselves, though they often arrive there with good intentions. Consequently her comedy of human folly, however penetrating, remains compassionate.
Part of the reason why people get themselves into such fixes, Murdoch suggests, is the allure of “pistol shots and anger.” People
like
drama, can be thrilled by violence, and find the distractions of confrontation easier than the quiet effort of communication. Aggression often triumphs over Eros in Murdoch. The explosion excites more than the step back from the brink. The stimulation of entering the new and perilous overwhelms good sense’s warnings of the consequences. Such responses abound in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
As Julius observes, “Put three emotional fairly clever people in a fix and instead of trying quietly to communicate with each other they’ll dream up some piece of communal violence.” Julius is proved right not only in estimating the allure of “communal violence,” especially to Morgan and Peter, but also in recognizing the reluctance to simply communicate. Characters hold back out of fear that the other will misunderstand—or will understand all too well. They resort to indirection, they spare imagined feelings of the other party, and they write when they should speak. Rupert tells his wife to wait and read his book about love, and writes a letter to his son instead of simply speaking to him. At the conclusion, Tallis’s action in leading Julius “straight to the telephone” demonstrates effectively how forthright communication might have alleviated many of the “honourable defeats” brought about by the greater appeal of dramatics.
like
drama, can be thrilled by violence, and find the distractions of confrontation easier than the quiet effort of communication. Aggression often triumphs over Eros in Murdoch. The explosion excites more than the step back from the brink. The stimulation of entering the new and perilous overwhelms good sense’s warnings of the consequences. Such responses abound in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
As Julius observes, “Put three emotional fairly clever people in a fix and instead of trying quietly to communicate with each other they’ll dream up some piece of communal violence.” Julius is proved right not only in estimating the allure of “communal violence,” especially to Morgan and Peter, but also in recognizing the reluctance to simply communicate. Characters hold back out of fear that the other will misunderstand—or will understand all too well. They resort to indirection, they spare imagined feelings of the other party, and they write when they should speak. Rupert tells his wife to wait and read his book about love, and writes a letter to his son instead of simply speaking to him. At the conclusion, Tallis’s action in leading Julius “straight to the telephone” demonstrates effectively how forthright communication might have alleviated many of the “honourable defeats” brought about by the greater appeal of dramatics.
If the novel’s various defeats are indeed “honourable,” or “fairly” so, it is because at least some of them are motivated by good intentions. Rupert and Hilda, jointly and separately, want to help Morgan, Simon wants to spare Axel’s feelings, Morgan at least tells herself she is helping first Peter, then Rupert, and so on. Julius perhaps convinces himself that he is doing a kindness by making people confront reality. Murdoch’s “nice” people are often vulnerable because their seemingly altruistic behavior may be at heart egocentric. It is easy to succumb to what a character in her novel
The Bell
calls “the second best act.” This occurs when someone becomes more fascinated by his or her own responses to a given situation than to the particularity of the situation itself. As Kaehele and German wrote in discussing
The Bell,
“By making moral decisions complicated, the individual is likely to become so engrossed in his own personality that instead of performing the better act, he chooses the more interesting one.”
3
A new situation, the possibility of playing a new role, offers the chance to experience new feelings, a new sense of oneself. If the situation provides the opportunity to participate vicariously in the life of another, its allure may be the stronger. Sometimes there is the pious satisfaction of believing one is acting out of the other’s need, as seen with Rupert, Hilda, and Morgan in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
Frequently, Murdoch suggests that the ulterior motivation in such actions is the appeal of managing or controlling others.
The Bell
calls “the second best act.” This occurs when someone becomes more fascinated by his or her own responses to a given situation than to the particularity of the situation itself. As Kaehele and German wrote in discussing
The Bell,
“By making moral decisions complicated, the individual is likely to become so engrossed in his own personality that instead of performing the better act, he chooses the more interesting one.”
3
A new situation, the possibility of playing a new role, offers the chance to experience new feelings, a new sense of oneself. If the situation provides the opportunity to participate vicariously in the life of another, its allure may be the stronger. Sometimes there is the pious satisfaction of believing one is acting out of the other’s need, as seen with Rupert, Hilda, and Morgan in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat.
Frequently, Murdoch suggests that the ulterior motivation in such actions is the appeal of managing or controlling others.
The attraction of exerting power over others appears frequently in Murdoch’s novels. In some cases, power is wielded by a seemingly weak character, as with Morgan or Peter in this novel, exploiting the conscience or charity of others. More notable, however, are those powerful figures who tend to recur in Murdoch’s fiction whose domination or control of others seems sinister. At times, their power is less real than perceived, as in
Under the Net
(1954), where the protagonist Jake becomes convinced that the movie magnate Hugo Belfounder is manipulating events when in fact he is not. Sometimes their menace is felt, although in the case of Julius in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
only Simon initially fears him, while others ironically believe that his only threat lies in his being bluntly honest. Julius is a variant of the “Enchanter,” to borrow from Murdoch’s second novel,
The Flight from the Enchanter,
a character who dominates and manipulates largely by an inhumanly detached ability to perceive and exploit the vulnerabilities of others. Julius speaks of “human beings” as if they were another species he disdains, and he manipulates human nature as clinically as a hunter exploits the instinctive behavior of the animals he hunts.
Under the Net
(1954), where the protagonist Jake becomes convinced that the movie magnate Hugo Belfounder is manipulating events when in fact he is not. Sometimes their menace is felt, although in the case of Julius in
A Fairly Honourable Defeat,
only Simon initially fears him, while others ironically believe that his only threat lies in his being bluntly honest. Julius is a variant of the “Enchanter,” to borrow from Murdoch’s second novel,
The Flight from the Enchanter,
a character who dominates and manipulates largely by an inhumanly detached ability to perceive and exploit the vulnerabilities of others. Julius speaks of “human beings” as if they were another species he disdains, and he manipulates human nature as clinically as a hunter exploits the instinctive behavior of the animals he hunts.
During her employment by UNRRA, Murdoch worked among the wretched human detritus of the Second World War, people one might expect to have learned compassion through their own sufferings. She discovered that there were many for whom the endured horrors had the reverse effect. The eccentric philosopher Simone Weil writes of this phenomenon in an essay that was to influence Murdoch.
When harm is done to a man, real evil enters him; not merely pain and suffering, but the actual horror of evil. Just as men have the power of transmitting good to one another, so they have the power to transmit evil. One may transmit evil to a human being by flattering him or giving him comforts and pleasure; but most often men transmit evil to other men by doing them harm.
4
Only at the very end of
A Fairly Honourable Defeat
—which an introduction should not betray—does the relevance of this observation become apparent.
A Fairly Honourable Defeat
—which an introduction should not betray—does the relevance of this observation become apparent.
Weil goes on to say that the transmission of evil is ended only by a person willing to sacrifice her- or himself by absorbing evil and suffering without passing them on to others. The long-suffering Tallis, abused by his father, deserted by his wife, exploited by Peter, used by multiplying immigrants, and haunted by what happened to his sister, represents this kind of figure. He is a shabby saint, muddling through in a haze of fatigue and distraction. His lifestyle may be modeled on that of Simone Weil herself, who refused to be an ivory-tower academic philosopher, worked in a factory, and devoted herself to charity work, her eventual death seemingly due to exhaustion. Tallis lives, to use that tired expression, in the “real world.” The physicality of his domain’s sticky floors, scuttling parasites, putrid odors, and mildewed leftovers contrasts with the cocktail-anesthetized order of the Fosters’ home. His immersion in the muddle of the quotidian stands opposed to Julius’s cool detachment or Rupert’s theorizing.
Iris Murdoch herself seems to have lived not in Tallis’s squalor but at least in work-focused disarray. In
Iris and Her Friends
, John Bayley recounts an amusing anecdote that illustrates this. On one occasion they had brought home a high-quality pork pie from “some superior delicatessen.” The pie was set down on the kitchen table as they entered, but when suppertime arrived, there was no sign of it, and its disappearance was never solved. From then on, whenever something became mislaid, they would say it had probably “Gone to Pieland.”
5
The domestic muddle of Murdoch and Bayley, however, was a consequence of two very productive intellectuals leading busy lives. And in all his muddle, Tallis focuses on work, on trying to help others in practical ways, and he avoids judging or categorizing others. He holds on to the tangible, literally so, as he repeatedly is seen gripping the edge of the table.
Iris and Her Friends
, John Bayley recounts an amusing anecdote that illustrates this. On one occasion they had brought home a high-quality pork pie from “some superior delicatessen.” The pie was set down on the kitchen table as they entered, but when suppertime arrived, there was no sign of it, and its disappearance was never solved. From then on, whenever something became mislaid, they would say it had probably “Gone to Pieland.”
5
The domestic muddle of Murdoch and Bayley, however, was a consequence of two very productive intellectuals leading busy lives. And in all his muddle, Tallis focuses on work, on trying to help others in practical ways, and he avoids judging or categorizing others. He holds on to the tangible, literally so, as he repeatedly is seen gripping the edge of the table.
Murdoch’s fiction frequently offers work as the way out of the self-serving fantasies of solipsism, even simple labor proving therapeutic. In her first novel,
Under the Net
, in which many of the patterns that will be elaborated in her later fiction are laid out with clarity, the protagonist has all his preconceived visions of his world shattered. Desolate, he spends days in a state of symbolic death, then begins a resurrection through a job as a nurse’s aide. He learns to accomplish simple tasks, to follow a regimen, and to pay attention to the physical objects with which he works. Likewise, in
The Bell,
the leading female character, Dora, shows a fondness similar to Morgan’s for “pistol shots and anger.” After her reckless grand schemes collapse, she, too, begins her recuperation with simple physical labor and learning to swim. No one other than Tallis seems very seriously engaged in work in this novel, unless it is Axel. Rupert’s comfortable routine seems indulgently dilettantish, a comfortable home away from home with a secretary to wait on him in place of Hilda. Small wonder that something mildly conspiratorial and with a whiff of danger has appeal for him.
Under the Net
, in which many of the patterns that will be elaborated in her later fiction are laid out with clarity, the protagonist has all his preconceived visions of his world shattered. Desolate, he spends days in a state of symbolic death, then begins a resurrection through a job as a nurse’s aide. He learns to accomplish simple tasks, to follow a regimen, and to pay attention to the physical objects with which he works. Likewise, in
The Bell,
the leading female character, Dora, shows a fondness similar to Morgan’s for “pistol shots and anger.” After her reckless grand schemes collapse, she, too, begins her recuperation with simple physical labor and learning to swim. No one other than Tallis seems very seriously engaged in work in this novel, unless it is Axel. Rupert’s comfortable routine seems indulgently dilettantish, a comfortable home away from home with a secretary to wait on him in place of Hilda. Small wonder that something mildly conspiratorial and with a whiff of danger has appeal for him.
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