The Iris Murdoch Book Club: Episode 1

The Black Prince

‘The only thing in this book that’s not white is the title.’

‘Sorry, ma’am, The Angela Davis Book Club is across the street.’

‘Zadie Smith said she has wet dreams about turning into Iris Murdoch.’

‘Can we please discuss what is in the novel rather than what is not in it?’

‘But what is not in the novel is significant — like, who is the Black Prince?’

‘Bradley Pearson: B.P.’

‘There has to more to it than that. A reference to Hamlet?’

‘Othello, surely’

‘Edward of Woodstock, son of Edward the Third, born in 1330, never ascended the throne because he died a year before his father. An existential failure.’

‘Like Bradley Pearson.’

‘What do you make of the quote on the back cover? Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their stories.’

‘That’s just Bradley’s delusional thinking. He failed as an artist so he tries to reimagine himself as this great lover instead.’

‘But the quote is not from Bradley. It’s from his editor, P.A. Lothia.’

‘Oh please. P.A. Lothia is just Bradley’s alter ego. It is says so right on page 1!’

‘Or is Bradley (whose alter ego is Arnold) the alter ego of P.A. Lothia? Of Murdoch?’

‘Bradley isn’t Murdoch any more than Arnold is. Or Rachel’

‘Je suis Madame Bovary’

‘Exactly’

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They had met twenty-odd years ago at Cambridge, all graduate students at Wolfson College (not one of the fancy old ones next to the river).

In order of appearance:

A (short for Andrew then; Araoluwa now): Chinua Achebe Chair of Black and African Studies at King’s College, Oxford. Raised by his Scouse mother, he saw his Nigerian father three brief times before the latter’s untimely death. Self-identifies as Black. Reworked his PhD dissertation into the surprise best-seller Blacks are Animals, a provocative anti-Enlightenment screed arguing that racial hierarchies are but one consequence of the deracinated dualism that whites and Asians have globalised through their religions and their philosophies, and that racialised communities should act in solidarity not just with each other but also with the entirety of the non-human world. In vain conservative critics pointed out that if a white academic had written a work of such misanthropic essentialist primitivism, he would have summarily been branded a BAP-level racist and an eco-fascist to boot. Lucrative second career as a speaker on the corporate DEI circuit.

Johann: Teacher, Sixth Form French, Lewisham High. Paternal grandfather and father both pastors in the Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Namibia. Maternal grandfather an Afrikaans mining engineer. Came to Cambridge on a scholarship to complete an MPhil in French literature, writing a thesis entitled The Eroticisation of the Coward in the work of Jean Genet. Disgusted with the politicisation of academia and unable to secure funding for a PhD, he “temporarily” got a job as a teacher to be able to stay in the country, quitting only 17 years later to pursue a full-time career as a writer (under the patronage of husband Thomas).

Colin (the artist formerly know as cumguzzler): Adult film maker and performer. Grew up in a family of sheep farmers near Cork. PhD in Gender and Sexuality Studies, dismissed as a fellow of Peterhouse College after allegations of inappropriate relations with male students. Director of the film series HOMO EROS, Homo Romanticus and HOMO GAIA, each blending homoeroticism and philosophy. Mainly earns a living producing inspirational videos under the handle @releaseyrinnergoddess.

Sita: Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College, Cambridge. From an eminent Brahmin family, her paternal grandfather had studied with Gandhi in London. Her first novel, The Burning Lotus, centred around an encounter between the 8th century crown prince of Pala, a disciple of Adi Shankara and a Buddhist missionary bound for Tibet: a tale spanning seven generations and 969 pages, attempting to reconcile the metaphysics of Kant and Hegel along the way (long-listed for the Booker, it was the kind of novel that a certain kind of college-educated professional would, for a while, prominently display on a curated bookshelf, but rarely attempt to read). Achieved real fame when, amid the Rowling trans debacle, BookTok discovered The Adventures of Hare Potta, an elaborate political satire / slash fic which she had written twenty years prior to get a break from her dissertation. Hailed as the perfect queer-centred decolonising clapback to Karens everywhere, Bloomsbury rushed to publish the seven volumes, which quickly started to outsell the originals among readers in the crucial 14-29 year-old demographic (prompting legal action by Rowling). Currently involved as script consultant on the Netflix adaptation, she also teaches a popular Masterclass called Telling Your Own Story.

Thomas: Quant at a leading hedge fund. PhD in Mathematics. Photographic memory. 6% body fat. Great host. Patience of a saint. Hung. Created by a spiteful god to make the rest of us look bad.

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‘Dinner is served, my lovelies! A Palestinian chickpea curry. In solidarity’

‘Never forget!’

‘This riesling is to die for.’

‘Is it vegan?’

‘I’m thinking of doing a film tackling the Palestinian question.’

‘An IDF soldier and a Hamas fighter discovering queer joy?’

‘That’ll bring peace to the region ’

‘Murdoch is scathing about the male libido’

‘Do you think Murdoch was non-binary avant la lettre?

‘We were all non-binary avant la lettre. La lettre ruined everything.’

‘A cis white male bored of gender. Quelle surprise!’

‘Are you doing a bump??’

‘Just a wee one — it’s a Tuesday evening after all’

‘I appreciated Murdoch’s subtle dig at hallucinogenic inspiration with BP packing belladonna for Patara’

‘BP thinks he lacks the courage to be a great artist, but he is so incurious he didn’t even know his ex-wife of five of years is half-Jewish!’

‘Murdoch lightly pokes fun at barefoot pop festivals before going straight for the egocentric heart of the counterculture. Like Blake and Krishnamurthi, she believed that the true revolution is of the spirit.’

‘She certainly throws shade at both Freud and Jung with the character of Francis Marloe, Psychological Consultant: the unhappy homosexual diagnosing every unhappiness as repressed homosexuality’

‘Only an honorary fag can get away with that.

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The idea for the Iris Murdoch Book Club came to Johann, like most of his ideas these days, when he was high. Thomas had generously taken the dogs out for the day to give him some me-time (as if you know any other time, he could hear A bitch). An hour after imbibing some mushroom tea, he was lying on the couch listening to Jon Hopkins, transfixed by the dancing dust particles illuminated by the beam of sunlight streaming in through the open window. He was transported back to his first psychedelic experience, next to Paul on Sandy Bay. He felt a bit sad realising that even his trips now routinely tended towards the nostalgic.

He still loved dinner parties with his friends (although lately he always found an excuse not to attend). He had grown weary of the predicable nature of their conversations, as if they were large language models feeding each other familiar prompts: reminiscing about when they got drunk at the May Ball, when they got stoned in ‘Dam, when they got plastered in Thailand, when they got wasted in Budapest, when they got trolleyed on the wine tram in Franschhoek; listening to Colin’s stories about getting rear-ended by dozens of anonymous men in Berlin, in Gran Canaria, in Seattle, in Rio; arguing with Sita about feminism; arguing with A about race…

He missed how fresh and new everything had felt in the days of his First Awakening. Sex and drugs, yes. But also deep, meaningful conversations, the kind that lasts until four in the morning, the kind that makes you feel seen. In his mind, he was back on that beach, next to Paul, marvelling at the sea gulls, hearing a message in the roar of the waves: the sea, the sea …

Then, as if by magic, a butterfly darted across the beam of sunlight, fluttered towards the bookshelf, and landed on the red spine of the Vintage edition of Iris Murdoch’s 1978 Booker Prize-winning novel. In a flash of insight Johann saw the perfect opportunity for reigniting the fab five’s Athenian fire. They had toyed before with the idea of starting a reading group (a book club sounded too Oprah), but they could never agree on what to read. The answer had been staring him the face!

He had picked up the loose baggy monster on a whim in a Cambridge charity shop all those years ago, the author’s name ringing a bell because he had read about, but not yet seen, the film with Kate Winslet and Judi Dench. It was love at first sight. He finished it within days and lent his copy to A and then to Colin. He urged Tom to buy and read it immediately. Sita had already read it: Sita had read everything. They all raved about it and each wanted to be the first to finish all twenty-seven novels. But they were students and so easily distracted. Johann got to five-and-a-half before his attention was pulled in other directions.

But the synchronicities convinced Johann that The Iris Murdoch Book Club would be the key to integrating his intellectual, spiritual and relational journeys. And indeed, his friends were so eager to see him engage with the world again that they didn’t need much convincing, although he did have to agree to also attend park runs with Tom, Free Palestine rallies with A, club nights with Colin and afternoon teas with Sita.

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‘I couldn’t help but notice, Monsieur, that you haven’t mentioned any personal resonance with the protagonist: an artist manqué with a feeling of murderous envy towards his friends.’

‘I’ve never envied any of you for being able to monetise your content…’

‘Easy to eschew the market when hubby is raking in the millions!’

‘…or being demographically disposed to succeed in the academic pyramid scheme.’

‘Life is a pyramid scheme!’

‘No pang of recognition when you read how BP’s quest for transcendence meant neglecting his family and friends?’

‘I never said he neglected…’

‘Attending a month-long naked yoga retreat, leaving your overworked husband with the dogs.’

‘That is between us’

‘Not showing up for birthdays, book launches, funerals…’

‘I’ve been grieving my father!’

‘You’ve been grieving your father your whole life!’

‘2005. You start a blog called Daddy Issues. Fifteen posts later you give up because it didn’t attract enough attention.’

‘Much easier to whore yourself out on the yellow facebook’

‘2010. Edinburgh Fringe. Your debut one-man show called, surprise surprise, Daddy Issues. Cancelled after opening night.’

‘Ag shame, you can’t really blame her for throwing in the towel: the four of us making up eighty percent of the audience at the start — and a hundred percent by the end!’

‘Then for a while you seemed content to teach literature, until the mushroom gods told you to quit your job and become a writer’

‘My therapist said that real magic is changing the way you think about the past so radically that it changes the effect the past has on you’

‘Is it an actual therapist this time or another witch doctor?’

‘She comes highly recommended. Apparently she’s treated quite a few members of the Royal Family.’

‘Well she defo stole that line from TikTok’

‘But have you actually written a word since you showed us a page and a half of dialogue for Mommy Issues months ago? It’s all well and good rhapsodising about Murdoch and Moshfegh and “studying the Kaballah” with a tantric masturbation coach. But what have you produced?

‘I’m in my receptive era.’

‘The only thing she’s receptive to is brown D. Unless it comes to selecting a life partner, of course.’

‘If only she was still receptive to that! She told me last week she’s worried about becoming overly textosexual. Grindr Xtra Fantasy Mode, baby, the AI never rejects your advances!’

‘That was said in confidence! Why have you all turned against me?’

‘I think the weed is making her paranoid’

‘Opposition is true friendship’

‘I did not consent to be being circled!’

‘Remember when we all sat in a circle after you gave us MD and you said it would be fun if we all made out…’

‘Did you finish that entire bottle?’

‘…and so you started kissing A and Colin started playing with Tom’s left nipple. But when I dared put my female hand on your thigh…’

‘That was half a lifetime ago!’

‘…you swatted it away like a fly. Like an insect! And when I started crying, you asked me to go to the other room… because… I was killing your vibe!’

‘Y’all need to bury the past and live in the ecstatic present!’

‘Let’s talk tomorrow when the coke’s worn off'

‘I loved you Johann. I still do! Waaahhh!

‘All right, my loves, Mother is calling a time-out! Enough trauma diving for one night. Alexa, play New Romantics (Taylor’s Version).’

‘Next time, A Fairly Honourable Defeat!’