Another Iris Murdoch book, with many of the usual themes - a curious collection of people fall in and out of love and get into some unlikely situations. There is a lot of hand-wringing about religion and loss of faith, as well as about an unexpected inheritance and the characters are on the whole quite an endearing bunch. ( )

Cuando Henry Marshalson y Cato Forbes se encuentran en Inglaterra después de varios años sin verse, su existencia no se halla en un momento precisamente fácil. Tras la muerte de su hermano mayor, Henry regresa de los Estados Unidos convertido en el heredero de una fortuna que no desea, de modo que decide deshacerse de todos sus bienes para disgusto de su madre. Cato, por su parte, se ve inmerso en una profunda crisis de valores que le lleva a replantearse cada una de sus creencias tras haberse enamorado de un seductor muchacho del barrio marginal de Londres en el que ejerce el sacerdocio. De manera inesperada, las vidas de estos dos hijos pródigos vuelven a mezclarse en una espiral de despropósitos y venganzas que van a desembocar en una sorprendente verdad: ninguno de los dos puede huir de sí mismo.

Takes about 2/3s of the book to get "good". But then takes off. The coda is a little long, but by that time the characters are so endearing you want to know what happens.

There's never just one way to look at an Iris Murdoch novel. There are some wonderful conversations about religion here, as Murdoch finds beautifully elegant ways of expressing her contention that real faith requires a harsh, unadorned abandonment of personal pride. There are acute psychological studies of both love and cruelty. There are lovely descriptions of the English countryside and an argument against late modernism's attempt to force people into unnatural living spaces. And there's a bit of sex here, too. I don't think I've ever read a female writer who's so good at assuming the male gaze: seeing women the way that straight men do.

Really, everything I've ever read by Murdoch deserves a few readings, but since you can't focus on everything at once, I got particularly interested in what might be called a kind of theodicy that runs through "Henry and Cato." When the book starts both of the book's title characters are in their thirties, frustrated and morally adrift. They both seem to have trouble coping with the inequality and evil present in the world, and much of the book is concerned with following their unsuccessful efforts to cope psychologically with these these unpleasant realities. Some of these arguments seem dated by the fall of communism, but, as the world still contains plenty of nastiness and injustice, much of their sold-searching, while occasionally frantic and annoyingly self-centered, still rings true.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend any of Murdoch's books to readers who insist that the novels they read be realistic. Like her other books, "Henry and Cato" makes no real pretense at showing the world exactly as it is. But Murdoch's got that same talent that Evelyn Waugh had: the ability to create situations and characters that, while improbable in their specificities, seem to get at a larger truth. That's sort of out of fashion these days, but it's still the mark of real writing talent. And Iris Murdoch's talent is certainly on display here. Recommended to those who know what they're getting into. ( )

Brilliant, complex, philosophical novel from the mid-70s. In some ways it echoes the standard “impotent middle-aged male academic” novels of the period, but, as you’d expect from Iris Murdoch, there’s a lot more to it than that. There's a lot about the troublesome asymmetry of relationships, about the way we are always prepared to close our eyes to blindingly obvious things about other people’s lives (especially men about women), about the seductive attraction of unhappiness, about the nature of religious experience, about how violence and bullying work, and much else besides. Very impressive. ( )