Customer Reviews

Under the Net

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I audibly laughed through half the scenes of this amazing first novel. It is a great thing to make someone laugh out loud while reading and this book did it continually. Whether it be the point where Jake Donaghue sits outside Sadie's flat listening to the "plot" against him with the neighbours poking him to see what he'll do or the superhero stunts of Jake and Hugo at the Roman set saving Lefty. I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the clever wit of the situation. But, what is amazing is that behind all of this there are deep philosophical thoughts at work, but the spaciousness of these thoughts never intrude upon the enjoyability of the story. It is similar in that way to Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, but the comedy in this is up a few notches more. The story is deeply routed in London (with a side-trip to Paris) and this location no doubt gives all the more joy to readers familiar to the area with its deep descriptions of particular sections and jabs at the reputations of others. Yet, this too did not detract from the book's enjoyability because of the eloquence of her descriptions. "When caught unawares," Jake reflects, "I usually tell the truth, and what's duller that that." The book is one long reflection and so, according to this line, we are thenceforth suspicious of all we are told. Many points of his memory are probably deeply exaggerated and this would explain some of the all too convenient coincidences. But, who cares? It's a good, entertaining story. Ultimately, Murdoch is presenting a rather ideal view of the independent will of the free spirit. Jake's hope is neatly set forth at the end. But the ideals of living in regards to work and love, wealth and fame seem to be given a manageable frame in which to work in. What Murdoch seems to be saying is that we must be swept along by the course of our own story and not be caught "under the net." The old argument which Bellow echoes also of Being and Becoming. Living, not without reflection, but containing the dialogue between oneself and existence within because once it is set out on paper it becomes a story, not life. "The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self destruction." Jake is learning to live more fully by instinct and self-forgetfulness. He is learning to allow other people's point of views into his own life. He finds that by constantly looking only within himself he isn't able to see anyone there. The being has left.

Had been meaning to get round to Murdoch for some years but was expecting a fairly heavy read. In fact, after the first 70 pages or so in which I was unsure about the direction I was being taken, I found that I was laughing aloud for much of the book (rare in my case), which is not something I had expected. The set pieces of the book are conceived with great originality & a deeply quirky, Irish type of humour. The characters themselves remain - intentionally - rather hard to fathom for most of the book, adding to a mildly dark sense of mystery which leads us (and them) on from one episode to the next. This also adds to our questioning about what direction the author is trying to take us. Inevitably, the answer is largely subjective - but what added to my appreciation of the novel after I finished reading was that rather than attempting to draw a broad prescriptive lesson about life, it is rather a celebration of the individual and offers humour and a kind of resolution - or at least positive progress - even in the midst of the most confused and unheroic of lives. This is a picaresque novel peopled principally by (lovable) roguish empiricists - not one for those craving a strong plot. I loved it. And I have an implicit confidence that this is an author of such skill & originality that I shall enjoy any of her remaining 25 novels (this being her first). Even when I have hugely enjoyed reading a book, I have rarely, if ever, looked forward to reading other novels by the same author with such confidence and relish.

Jake, a marginal literary figure who gets by translating French novels, veers erratically from one obsession to another. He goes from determined pursuit to avoidance in the blink of an eye. Whenever he gets what he has indicated that he wants, he spurns it. He is maddeningly arbitrary, but also fascinating because the author deftly expresses the flux of thought and impulse that motivate human action (and inaction). The other characters serve primarily as foils for his shifting attitudes. Only by conspicuous exertion is Jake able to even conceive of Hugo, his hulking sometime companion, becoming a watchmaker or of Finn, his longtime "shadow", returning to Ireland. They exist only as they play a role in Jake's life. The most significant development, in a story where things largely end up where they started, is Finn's replacement by a dog (not necessarily a flattering commentary on Finn).

The one non-ancillary character is "Mrs. Tinck", the news store proprietor, who, benevolent soul that she is, comes across as an interesting person in her own right. The book effectively begins and ends in her shop. She is also the one who, gently, helps Jake to take himself less seriously. She accomplished this, in a scene at the end of the story, in a fashion that left me smiling as I closed the book.

While some of the plotting seems unnecessarily complicated, some of the dialogue far too (intentionally?) stilted, and there are too many coincidences, the overall effect of this book is dazzling. The best scenes: Jake and Finn stealing Mars; Jake following Anna into the Tuileries Gardens; and all the scenes with Mrs. Tinck more than offset the comparative clunkers with Lefty Todd and Hugo. The author's expatiation on the tension between silence and expression (truth and falsehood) came across as heavy-handed spoof, especially with the passage from "The Silencer" and the mime theater interlude.

All in all, however, in its sly and subversive way, this book is "one of the wonders of the world."

Fast-paced, funny, unpredictable, this book may be Murdoch's best. I originally came to it because I read that she had based her first novel on the ideas (and character) of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I did, in fact, find some elements of W's ideas in it; but that's not really the reason I found this book so beguiling. As a novel it succeeds brilliantly: it manages to present complex ideas in a completely literary form. You are so caught up in the plot, the characters, the comedy, you may never notice the author is doing philosophy.The writing is excellent: Murdoch describes a night of drunken revelry so well that you can feel the chill air on your skin. She also puts together an unforgettable cast of characters: Sadie the movie star; her mysterious sister Anne; Hugo, the tortured soul; Dave the impatient academic; Lefty the socialist bon-viveur; Magdalen the ambitious secretary; Sacred Sammy the cool operator... and more. Read it as as a philosophical 'bildungsroman' or read it as a picaresque romp - entertainment guaranteed.

Very few books have I ever picked up to immediately find myself thinking, "Oh!"

Such was the case with "Under the Net". This was my first Iris Murdoch novel, but by no means will it be my last.

She deftly creates empathy for our anti-hero, Jake, while making him less than sympathetic, drawing the reader into the story while at the same time keeping us far enough away that we can comfortably laugh at the proceedings. Murdoch also reveals her story slowly, layer by layer, turning what we believe will be little more than mild humor into a mystery of character assassination.

And it reads very much like a mystery, the kind that you just don't find anymore. But here it is not a dead body that is the victim, but rather a living, breathing one. But is he as much a victim as he likes to think he is? Our hero finds that nothing is as he believes it to be.

Is it ever?

Under the Net's main character is Jake Donaghue. He is an intellectual who translates the works of a mediocre French novelist. He is looking for a place to live and decides to look up some old friends of his. The people he visits are wonderful characters - philosophers, actresses, movie stars, radical political leaders. These people lead him back to Hugo Belfounder, an old friend of Jake's who has always made money, and who impressed Jake with his philosophy. It's not certain if Hugo even knows he has a philosophy, but Jake believes he does. Jake believes that Hugo's philosophy states that truth can be attained only in silence; that all expression (speech, writing, theories) is untrue because people always expand, elaborate and lie about what they're saying in order to impress others. Jake's silence, however, often leads him to misunderstandings and trouble. Aside from the philosophy of the characters, which I may have misunderstood anyway, the novel is filled with wonderful moments, both comic and romantic. Check out the scene when Jake is eavesdropping outside of Sadie's door, or Jake and Finn's escapade with Mars, the movie star dog. Another great moment is when, during a fireworks show, Jake sees Anna across the river in Paris, and his pursuit of her afterwards. Under the Net is a wonderful book filled with humor, romance and great characters. Definitely check it out.

This isn't merely Murdoch's first novel, it is also (one of) her best. The story of the would-be writer Jake D. who struggles to find a proper literary philosophy to ignite his career, nicely reflects Murdoch's own intellectual struggles in writing "Under the Net". Although this might sound rather high-blown and tedious, it is not, for by mixing the philosophical musings with the picaresque form, Murdoch ensures that the story is highly dynamic and entertaining. We follow Jake through a series of bizarrely comic and breathtaking incidents, and observe how he develops his initial egoistical Sartrean world-view to a truer and more profound understanding of his fellow-beings. It is fascinating to watch how this development unveils Jake's pretentiousness and shapes him into a mature artist. In sum, this novel simply has and is everything, drama, farce, mask, satire etc. and Murdoch has mixed these elements with such dexterity that one can doubt whether she ever wrote a better book. In saying so it must also be emphasised that "Under the Net" foreshadows much of Murdoch's later work.

This is my favourite novel as strange as it is. Well, the fact is strange, not the novel. I read Murdoch's Unicorn and shrugged my shoulders. Read Black Prince and had a feeling that I had wasted my time. But Under the Net! - mmmm... A perfect book for young existentialist beer-lovers, who love dusty bookshops, who keep late hours and hate regular jobs. And, please, don't blaspheme this book by analysing it too much (like some sophisticated reviewers here tend to do). Enjoy the ride and have some beers with good friends instead. If you like deconstructing things to symbolic bits and pieces, read Camus instead.

In his early period (specifically, in "Tractatus"), the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the "net" of language both separates us from and connects us to the world: it simultaneously impedes and determines our understanding of life. He furthermore concluded that anyone who finally comprehended the meaning behind the language of "Tractatus" would realize that its arguments were senseless; to quote the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, the reader can "throw away the ladder after climbing up on it" and experience the world directly through contemplation rather than through philosophical discussion. "Under the net" of language, then, lie the truths of the world.

Yet it's not essential to have an understanding of Wittgenstein to enjoy the zany farce of Murdoch's novel, whose characters are hunters of truth in its pure manifestations (love and freedom), as well as its illusory aspects (money and success). The chief seeker is Jake Donaghue, short of cash and without much prospect for any meaningful source of income. Jake has been freeloading in a friend's apartment; when she becomes engaged to be married, he's homeless as well as poor. Along with his sidekick, Finn (who serves as a less dependable Jeeves to Jake's ungentlemanly Wooster), he sets out in search of a new home and instead embarks on a series of adventures: a peek at a bizarre theatrical performance by mimes, a night of pub-crawling, a day at the races, a dog-napping, and a visit to a film studio whose riotous outcome prefigures, as much as anything, the finale of "Blazing Saddles."

During his journey, Jake runs across three old acquaintances: a former girlfriend; her sister, a famous actress; and most important, Hugo Belfounder, who had been a fellow patient at a clinic testing inevitably unsuccessful cures for the common cold. During alternating bouts of deliberately induced illness, the pair held philosophical conversations, to which Hugo contributed nearly all of the original thoughts. Jake in turn converted these pronouncements into a book, "The Silencer," published without telling his new friend. Only after he'd finished the book, however, did Jake realize that the profundity of Hugo's opinions had been frustrated by his own attempt to render them into words. Jake's embarrassment over both his deceit and his failure had caused him to break ties unceremoniously with Hugo, who has since become a filmmaker. (Although this suggestion of truths masked by language is one of the more overt allusions to "Tractatus," biographer Peter Conradi points out that the character of Hugo is based not on Wittgenstein but on a Cambridge friend of Murdoch's who was the philosopher's star pupil.)

There are a number of wildly unpredictable and often absurd subplots involving the four old friends, all based on the miscommunication that results because each of them is in love with another, but none of them is in love with each other. It's a circle of love right out of an Elizabethan drama.

In spite of its philosophical borrowings, Murdoch's first novel is her most fast-paced--and it's certainly her wackiest. At times, it's even downright silly, and looking for meaning in the fun is like tracking down the literary references in a Buster Keaton film (they exist--but does it really matter?). Once you get past the surface trappings of its metaphysics, you can simply enjoy the screwball comedy of "Under the Net."

The protagonist of this story, Jake, is an Oxford-educated male writer, while the author is the same, with the exception of gender.

How she manages to look into the mind of the male is amazing. The dialogue reminds me of Waugh or Forster. The main character - who neither seeks job, reputation nor achievement - fights off his talents for a life of impoverished mediocrity. This reminds me of Murry Burns -- the "A Thousand Clowns" main character played by Jason Robards.

The carefree reckless disdain for the next day allows this book to float from scene to scene. Eventually, the scenes tie together -- the later scenes make the prior scenes become more appropriate. Within a matter of days, the humor of this book has Jake kidnap a movie star dog, experience the falling of Rome (on a movie set at least), visit a mime theater, engage with a bookie in fixed races, engage in a drunken leftist movement, and sleep in a bearskin suit when evicted from his home.

The madcap adventure of a little more than a week encapsulates much. The humor, a bit stale after five decades and a country apart, still resonates in today's world and would make a wonderfully sarcastic film.

The writing, which is like her peers and some of the great British writers who preceded her, is more descript and more detailed than modern-American prose, and exemplifies the writer and her achievement.