Fionnáin reviewed The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch
Complex Stories about Longing
4 stars
I recently read some of Iris Murdoch's philosophy books and this prompted me to want to read more of her fiction. I started with The Nice and the Good because we had it on the bookshelf. Like everything Murdoch wrote, it is heavily layered, and sympathetic toward all manner of ways of living in this world.
The characters are part of a group that acts as a family (and some of them are related), all joined together by a country estate outside London, and their entangled histories in the city itself. The story revolves around their motivations in love, and their moral stances on good behaviours. Their world is based in hippie-adjacent culture in England, supported by the posh gentry who own the estate. Behaviours that were probably outrageous to many in the 1960s when it was first published. In fact, they would be outrageous to many today, but …
I recently read some of Iris Murdoch's philosophy books and this prompted me to want to read more of her fiction. I started with The Nice and the Good because we had it on the bookshelf. Like everything Murdoch wrote, it is heavily layered, and sympathetic toward all manner of ways of living in this world.
The characters are part of a group that acts as a family (and some of them are related), all joined together by a country estate outside London, and their entangled histories in the city itself. The story revolves around their motivations in love, and their moral stances on good behaviours. Their world is based in hippie-adjacent culture in England, supported by the posh gentry who own the estate. Behaviours that were probably outrageous to many in the 1960s when it was first published. In fact, they would be outrageous to many today, but they are normalised and flattened by Murdoch, who is sympathetic to queer worldviews, complex love, and nuanced ways of being in the world. Most of the characters are suffering from a longing for love of another, made impossible either by societal norms or unrequited love.
It's a brilliant, honest book for exploring this, and a credit to a great author who also keeps tension and intrigue in a story that is in many ways just about being alive.