Customer Reviews

Elegy For Iris

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you've lost a loved one to dementia, whether caused by Alzheimer's or strokes, you know that this dreadful change in your life can be--as a woman in Elegy for Iris notes so terribly--like "being chained to a corpse." You may feel you exist in a perpetual state of mourning, and release seems impossibly distant since the process of degeneration can last for a decade, fifteen years, or more.

Four years ago before this book was published, Alzheimer's began to chip away at acclaimed novelist Iris Murdoch and she started to lose memories, associations and connection with herself. Her husband of forty years, English critic John Bayley, has written a memoir about this escalating series of losses that is imbued with admiration, love, and gentle humor. Bayley compellingly interweaves descriptions of his wife's sad deterioration with stories of their courtship and long, contented marriage. What is remarkable about this narrative (which needed better editing, however), is that despite the very real tragedy of Alzheimer's, he is not bitter or self-pitying, and what links him and his wife now is anything but a chain.

Murdoch and Bayley seem to have given each other the freedom to live complete lives, however they needed to, and that freedom was a profound tie. "We were together because we were comforted and reassured by the solitariness each saw and was aware of in the other," he observes. And tracing their growing love for one another, he makes one envy the balance they found between separateness and companionship (which counterpoints their domestic squalor). From the earliest days onward, marriage and solitude were not contradictions for them. They could "be closely and physically entwined, and yet feel solitude's friendly presence, as warm and undesolating as contiguity itself."

All that reverberates strangely with the ways in which Murdoch now is shut off from him far more than she ever was as a creative artist, but seems to need the constant reassurance of his presence. She is like a child hungry for attention, but unable to communicate clearly, and sometimes needs to be gently shooed away so that he can have time to himself. Yet she returns, anxious, needful. Sometimes her confusions drive him into a rage, but she often responds to these outbursts with the same ameliorative calm she always had.

Given their long, happy marriage, Bayley and Murdoch's first meetings were comically inauspicious. In his late twenties and a graduate student teaching at Oxford after World War II, Bailey spied Murdoch bicycling past one day looking grumpy, grim, and not entirely attractive. Yet for Bailey, she was almost an apparition, a woman existing only in the moment--and for him alone. But his instantaneous fantasies were soon crushed when he met her at a party and realized she was merely another teacher. How ordinary! Worse still, she was clearly a popular and magnetic woman with many friends (and not a few lovers, he would learn). Though he tried, he never managed to make conversation with her that night, and when his next opportunity came at a dinner, he was daunted by the seriousness with which this philosophy teacher considered his most casual remarks.

On their first date he was oddly shocked by her brilliant red brocade dress which struck him as inappropriate for her, and she managed to fall down stairs as they entered a ball. But not much later they were laughing and sharing childhood confidences, and it's thanks to their childlike joy that the bonds between them were first knit, lasting even into her Alzheimer's. Rather miraculously, humor survives between them, even now that her memory has faded, leaving her incapable of finishing sentences and often lost in a state of "vacant despair." Bayley can still make Murdoch smile with silly jokes and rhymes. There's so much love (and quiet suffering) in Bayley's observation that a smile "transforms her face, bringing it back to what it was, and with an added glow that seems supernatural."

Murdoch's kindness, her affability, her lack of egotism about her career make for odd continuity with the generally sweet-natured woman she is under the spell of Alzheimer's, and Bayley's deep appreciation of these excellent qualities seems to undergird his current devotion. Time and again, the author makes the best of a bitter situation, and even finds aspects of it enjoyable. He manages, for instance, to find something delightful in regularly watching the British children's show "Teletubbies" with her. But all his fond memories and his loving attention to her in the present cannot veil the especial cruelty of watching a sharp-minded and fertile novelist "sail into the darkness," as Murdoch puts it herself in a moment of lucidity.

Among various literary subjects, Bayley has written about Henry James, and Elegy for Iris richly and warmly demonstrates a truth affirmed by a character in James's The Ambassadors: "The only safe thing is to give--it's what plays you least false."

Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery.

(...) I have been interested in Iris Murdoch for a long time, not really having a clue as to what her novels might be like, what I should expect from her; should I steel myself and keep guard, or quite to the contrary - open the door to her literary world and let myself immerse in it completely. As is consistent with my long-standing ritual, I approach the writer from unusual angles - this has certainly been the case with Iris Murdoch. Instead of listening to friendly spirits telling me this and that, I acted spontaneously, and started my exploration from a postmortem memoir written by her husband, John Bayley. Exploration it shall be, for having read this volume, I am absolutely certain to release the internal guard, and open the door to the unknown world of Iris.

"CLOSER AND CLOSER APART"

The memoir is an elegy for Iris, and it is not a typical biography, for it is written by her husband, with whom she spent over forty years together. Just like their marriage was, the introduction of Bayley to Iris was awkward, and I couldn't help but smile at Bayley's admission to his shortcomings as an admirer of Iris back in the fifties. Romantic at heart, helpless in practice, Bayley manages to attract Iris, and the story is indeed enchanting, even if told with such a burden of perspective of what happened later, or rather, just as he was writing the memoir. As is often the case with academics, they live in an unreal world of unmet expectations, sharpened visions and blurred emotions. Such was Iris; such has been Bayley. Every now and then the romantic and yet very earthly story of their early years and then marriage is interrupted with the present day reality of Iris terminal case of Alzheimer's disease. Interrupted, yes, but never disturbing. Bayley bravely relates the intrinsic features of living with Iris, as she slowly descended into memory oblivion, to her personal character traits as they became progressively apparent to him as they got used to each other. Getting used to it took a lot, as it happens with extraordinary minds that met each other in life. In great detail Bayley describes how apart they were during their marriage, and how much they both needed that apartness for their marriage to work properly. If you are looking for a detailed study of Iris Murdoch as a writer, with equally detailed account of her life, you might consider reading Peter Conradi's newest biography of the author. What that biography, or for that matter, any biography written by a stranger, will never give you, is a personal commentary on the internal life of the couple. Not surprisingly, there goes a saying that what other people do not know about your marriage is exactly what makes it yours. John Bayley raises the curtain a bit for us to see something we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see. And what we see is astonishingly consistent, albeit compact set of observations, recited in reserved tone. Let me only say that Bayley took a lot, accepted much, disregarded even more as a man, as a husband. Perhaps it takes a bird of a feather to flock together in a marriage like this? That I do not know, as much as I would like to, being an academic myself. Maybe just one discovers it for himself. In any case, being apart brought them close together, and that's what counts. A line from John Bayley is due here: "you can live with someone for years, and not feel in the least married".

"WHERE DO WE GO NOW?" "WHERE DO WE GO NOW?"

I have read many accounts of Alzheimer's disease, but I have never seen an account as personal and truthful as this one. Usually, out of respect for privacy, or lack of words in grief, those close to the victim give way to their grief and misery in writing, showing compassion and understanding, while avoiding the true nature of life with the victims. That of course is understandable and perhaps expected, therefore I was increasingly astonished of the direction Bayley took in his "Elegy for Iris". As much as words can describe our pain, our love, our compassion and all other feelings, there is nothing like the reality, if shown just as it is. That is what Bayley had done in this book. That is what makes it stand out. Speechless, I followed the events from their married life, as told by Bayley in an offhand tone. The book is divided into two parts, "Then" and "Now". While in the former the storyline of their life is seamlessly interlaced with the present morbid circumstances, the latter part is a diary, and where page-by-page we are struck with naturalistic account of the everyday struggle. It was as much Bayley's struggle as it was Iris's, if not more. Whereas the beginning of the terminal illness is a shock to all parties, it does bring a blessing in the long run in the form of oblivion. The more developed the case, the less the victim suffers as it is. I was touched by the author's graphic admission to anger, irritation and even rage. Graphic; not only because of the detailed description of the irritatingly recurring events, but also because of the portrayal of the corresponding emotions - I probably won't forget as the helpless husband saw his purple face in the mirror. His helplessness, anger and love - all of those thoroughly mixed, cemented together in those last months of Iris Murdoch's life. Their life in those times underwent a profound change, where their life's maxim was completely reversed in meaning. "Now I feel us fused together. It appalls me sometimes, but it also seems comforting, reassuring and normal." These are about the most sincere words that I have heard spoken. (...)

This book is heartbreakingly beautiful. Bayley loved his wife, Iris Murdoch, so deeply, and on so many levels and that love comes across beautifully in this book. Bayley brings us into the intimate private world that he and Murdoch shared. As a longtime fan of Iris Murdoch, I am thankful for the insight into her life and her work. This book is very personal, so much so that I don't think it can be read in one sitting, but rather should be savoured slowly and deliberately. I remember the sadness I felt hearing that she had Altzheimer's and then hearing that she died. This book brings back that sadness, but it comes back stronger because it also brings John Bayley's sadness. That is not to say that this book is a "downer" on any level. Quite the contrary. John Bayley has constructed a beautiful book focused mainly on his love for his wife, and how the love between them grew, from his first sighting of her riding a bicycle to the time when he wrote this book, as she was suffering from the ravages of the disease.

When one considers that John Bayley can write ANYTHING about his wife, Iris Murdoch, because she will never be able to read his words, what he chose to write is fascinating. First of all his modesty: he remains an admiring swain to the end of the book, taking very seriously the job of adding to the world's knowledge of his famous wife. Yet I ended the book thinking that I would like very much to meet this man. He makes me think of the male companion in the Miss Marple series, supportive and not resentful about his place in the background.He quietly brings up instances where he believes that his insights helped Iris with her fiction, but he needn't have even done so. By the end of the book, it is obvious why she must have valued the relationship. Besides the scenes of daily life in the working lives of the couple,this book offers comfort to anyone who has loved a person and has experienced that person's decline from dementia. The manner in which Bayley talks about married solitude and then contrasts this with the bondage of 24-hour care for the declining Murdoch left me feeling for the first time that I could begin to understand how love can transform the people involved. It was a wonderful book. I'm only sorry I didn't know about Bayley before, and I hope that he lives to write more about his own life after the death of Iris. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is that sometimes I became a little sleepy reading the details. It was as if I was sitting across the table from Bayley, listening to the monologue of a grieving and grateful man filling the hours with his thoughts, those hours that would have been spent talking with Iris Murdoch or working, uninterrupted, on his scholarship. Yet, I wouldn't have edited out anything.

This is a warm, gentle, sweet-hearted devotional to the great writer by her husband, who clearly was (is) genuinely in love with this wife of 40 years. Bayley's writing is literate and engaging, and it well conveys the spirit of both Murdoch's writing and her imagination. It is interesting to get a sense of Iris the person (apparently as original and oddly ungraspable as the characters and narratives of her novels), and it would have been nice to get more information about her along these lines. The marriage depicted has a flavor that is tweedy, intellectual, quaintly innocent, and gently eccentric in a veddy British way. The only weaknesses for me were the author's occasional extended digressions about his own views on literature, and the resulting sense of wanting a more intensive and penetrating focus on Iris Murdoch herself. Overall, the book is a cozy, enjoyable, undemanding little read that really engages your heart and your imagination.

Jim Broadbent ("Topsy-Turvy," "Moulin Rouge") brought home Oscar gold for his role of John Bayley in the movie "Iris."

With the film (also starring Dame Judi Dench in the title role, and "Titanic" star Kate Winslet playing a younger version) now available for rental, it's a good time to also check out the book upon which the movie is based.

"Elegy for Iris" is Bayley's heart-rending memoir of his wife, celebrated novelist Iris Murdoch ("A Severed Head" and "The Bell" among them). It is the story of Bayley and Murdoch's romance, from their first meeting and the bookish Bayley's instant attraction to the girl on a bicycle.

Love seemed to bloom almost immediately, despite Bayley's lack of experience and Murdoch's plethora of suitors. In fact, Bayley tells us that years later he happened upon Murdoch's note for their first date: "St. Antony's Dance. Fell down the steps, and seem to have fallen in love with J. We didn't dance much."

At the same time, "Elegy" is also a tale of the modern John and Iris, as the celebrated novelist suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and her husband watches as her once brilliant mind falters.

But while the book will bring tears, it isn't really a tearjerker.

Bayley shares some of the personal, silly little jokes he tells Iris that at one time would not really have amused either of them, but which draw a favorable reaction from her now. And the way that one of his exasperated temper tantrums settles her nerves now more than coddling will.

While Bayley is at times frustrated, understandably so, he seems more enamored of his wife then ever. He marvels at the things she does, reflects on their shared past, they way her mind worked then contrasted with the way it worked as he wrote "Elegy" (Murdoch died in February).

At no time does Bayley seem to resent being saddled with his wife. In fact, he expresses distaste for the wife of another Alzheimer's patient when she comments that it is "like being chained to a corpse, isn't it?"

No, declares Bayley, and he goes to bat for his wife.

"I was repelled by the suggestion that Iris' affliction could have anything in common with that of this jolly woman's husband. She was a heroine, no doubt, but let her be a heroine in her own style. How could our cases be compared? Iris was Iris."

So says a testament to quiet strength, bravery and love.

`Iris: a Memoir of Iris Murdoch'

`Iris' is a fond, touching, introspective memoir of Dame Iris Murdoch written by John Bayley, her husband of forty-odd years. Professor Bayley recalls the first moment he saw Ms Murdoch and how after meeting her, their relationship progressed awkwardly to marriage. Thereafter he describes their life together as a comfortable solitude à deux.

After Dame Murdoch developed Alzheimer's disease, Bayley refused to accept the idea once presented to him that to live with someone suffering with Alzheimer's was rather "like being chained to a corpse, albeit a much loved corpse". He conveys his conviction that the unique individuality of his spouse was not lost to the common symptoms of Alzheimer's; though she was no longer aware of her considerable achievements Bayley still regarded her as the highly accomplished person he had always respected and revered. (Dame Iris Murdoch [1919-1999] wrote twenty-seven novels, won the Whitbread Prize and was short-listed for the Booker Prize six times before finally winning it for `The Sea, The Sea'. In 1976 she was awarded the CBE [Commander of the British Empire], then in 1987 she was knighted and became a Dame of the British Empire [DBE]. Furthermore she wrote books on philosophy and received honorary doctorates from both Oxford [1987] and Cambridge [1993]).

Throughout the memoir, Bayley describes caring for his ailing wife with such extreme patience and tenderness that he seems almost too good to be true until he admits to "losing it" and punching her in a moment of rage and frustration. Nevertheless, Bayley seemed to regard his own life as enriched by his marriage to Iris Murdoch. Indeed, that he adored and esteemed her comes shining through. This memoir is both a tribute and a love letter-well worth reading.

I initially purchased this book after seeing it at a local bookstore. It's anecdotes about Oxford sparked my interest as a former student. Once I began reading the book, I was simply captivated by it's quiet charm. This book is not a page turner, so the reader must be willing to stick with it. There are certain passages in the book when Bayley is poetic in his descriptions of times he and Iris shared. One need not have read any of Ms. Murdoch's books to enjoy this story. A very good read.

John Bayley and Iris Murdoch had a rare relationship, the kind most of us dream of having. Two writers, working side by side, living their lives to the fullest, John Bayley and Iris Murdoch weren't so much a marriage as a team. Their support for each other's craft is laudable, and Bayley's reaction to losing his wife while she was still alive is heartbreaking and at times oddly humourous. You feel what Bayley must have felt, looking at the shell of the woman he'd spent most of his life with and hoping there was still some of her inside somewhere, and you laugh and cry right along with him. This book is a loving tribute to one of the greatest modern novelists and philosophers who ever lived, and I felt greatly enriched after reading this book. It has stayed with me ever since.

I've spent the last 3-4 years writing a memoir (Baby Catcher). Therefore, I'm immersing myself in creative NF and memoir, and this is one of the best. Only a consummate writer such as John Bailey could have pulled this off. I've heard others complain about his rambling style, meandering between distant past, near past, and present (and I haven't seen the movie yet), but I found the transitions seamless and the flow of time as effortless as thought itself. Bailey shows all phases of the caretaking of someone with late-stage Alzheimers, regret, humor, irritation, rage, impatience, love, silliness... Would that each of us be accompanied on our trip to life's end - however it may present itself - by someone similarly compassionate. And articulate. May John Bailey himself be equally eulogized.