just amazing! the story is simply fun, but the real pleasure here is in the joyful play with the English language, and how the most simple of things can be described with such exquisite prose- not in Jakes fusion of lawlessness and admirable honour, though as stated that is also very enjoyable. What an amazing gift! ( )

Iris Murdoch manages to cram the most of profound meanings into a sentence, or a paragraph. I can see how this will frustrate readers, but Under The Net is one of those books where you have to read bits of it, close the book and drown in it for a while. ( )

holy crap, that was wonderful.

I felt physically sick several times due to the sheer amount of booze they were drinking and how wonderfully precisely the feeling of extreme drunkenness was written.

will read again. ( )

The plot is from "Wacky Racers", but none the less Murdoch's characters do the usual thing of going through the tumble-dryer and emerging as clearer headed and wiser.

I enjoyed this so much more the second time around. And I use the word enjoyed, rather than liked, on purpose—it was a thoroughly fun read and I did like it, but I'm also fascinated by Murdoch's talents for: plotting (especially set pieces), description, evoking characters (I won't say character development because most of them don't develop anywhere, but she certainly can set them up), and one of the best dog/human relationships I've read in a while. You could say that's actually the central love story, since Murdoch's human affairs aren't particularly touching—think Shakespeare's characters all running around in the woods hooking up with the wrong people (thanks, Iris Murdoch Fan Girls Book Club, for that image). And the nominal sex is awful. But everything else is pretty wonderful, and it's interesting to see how Murdoch pieces all together. The ending is more uplifting than I remembered, too, and sweeter in general.

Though speaking of pacing, one thing that I get a kick out of is the way she interjects these little philosophical treatises into the narrative. It reminds me, if Ms. Murdoch will beg my pardon, of the way middling erotica is set up: you have the story line, and then the doorbell rings and it's the plumber, which sets the scene so everyone can have sex, and then they're done and the rest of the story goes ahead until there's another bit set up for the express purpose of more sex—or in Murdoch's case, more philosophical discussion—etc. It's quite charming. ( )