4 Comments
User's avatar
Julianne Werlin's avatar

It sort of sounds like you're in furious agreement with Marx, if I follow this correctly? Not, of course, in agreement with all his self-declared followers.

I just read The Philosopher's Pupil, which I liked a lot. Interesting for thinking about how Murdoch thinks about the novel / philosophy relationship.

Mary Jane Eyre's avatar

Marx was obviously an important thinker and I can’t help but see our current predicament in Marxist terms (does that mean I agree with him?), but without much hope that his current batch of followers will improve on the old ones. Glad you enjoyed the Philosopher’s Pupil. It is especially in her ensemble novels that Murdoch carries forward the gregarious potential of the novel, often lost in philosophising. Can Marx be viewed as a poète manqué?

Julianne Werlin's avatar

I'm with you on both counts there.

Yes, it's precisely that gregarious potential that I enjoy so much. I like her novels best when they're black comedy, which they very often are. Though I've never read one I didn't like, except for Jackson's Dilemma, which isn't exactly her fault. She's the Balzac of the second half of the twentieth century in terms of sheer consistency.