Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

66 used & new from $4.75

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Tell the Publisher! I�d like to read this book on Kindle Don�t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Under the Net (Paperback)

by Iris Murdoch (Author) "WHEN I saw Finn waiting for me at the corner of the street I knew at once that something had gone wrong..." (more)
Key Phrases: Jean Pierre, Earls Court Road, Goldhawk Road (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

List Price:	$15.00
Price:	$10.20 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$4.80 (32%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

32 new from $8.53 34 used from $4.75

Also Available in:	List Price:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Hardcover (Import)			3 used & new from $35.72
Paperback (Import)			13 used & new from $2.35
Mass Market Paperback			3 used & new from $8.19
Hardcover (Large Print)			Order it used!
Audio Cassette (Audiobook,Unabridged)			Order it used!

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $31.28

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
The Sea, The Sea (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Iris Murdoch
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

A Severed Head

by Iris Murdoch

4.1 out of 5 stars (25) $10.20

The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)

by Iris Murdoch

4.1 out of 5 stars (19) $10.88

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (Penguin Books)

by Iris Murdoch

4.3 out of 5 stars (3) $15.60

The Bell (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

by Iris Murdoch

4.3 out of 5 stars (16) $11.25

Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel

by Jean Rhys

3.6 out of 5 stars (127) $10.94

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From AudioFile
In Iris Murdoch's 1954 debut novel, Jake Donaghue is an engaging young writer. In his overintellectualized angst, Jake details a convoluted romantic impossibility--he loves Anna, who loves Hugo, who loves Sadie, who loves Jake. His betrayal of his best friend's trust, his emotional indifference in most of his relationships, and his failed first book eventually leave Jake in existential hell. Samuel West's performance is nicely understated. His intelligent reading turns Jake and Hugo's somber discussions of philosophy and metaphysics into exercises in wit. Jake offers that everything "is made up of moments, which pass and become nothing." West delivers Jake's discoveries, not as grim, but as the ramblings of a young artist in search of himself. Murdoch fans will be pleased. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 27, 1977)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140014454
ISBN-13: 978-0140014457
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,842 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What's this?)
#1 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Murdoch, Iris

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
WHEN I saw Finn waiting for me at the corner of the street I knew at once that something had gone wrong. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Jean Pierre, Earls Court Road, Goldhawk Road, Mister Mars, Bounty Belfounder, Welbeck Street, Night Sister, Miss Quentin, Nous Les Vainqueurs, The Silencer, Queen's Rook, Little Grange, Mime Theatre, The Pid, Transept Kitchen, King's Road, Peter of Alex, Sacred Sammy, Saint Cross, The Wooden Nightingale, Amazing Stories, Club des Fous, Dave Gellman, Evening Standard, Farringdon Street

New!
Concordance | Text Stats

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 23 books:

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Penguin Philosophy) by Iris Murdoch in Front Matter (1), Front Matter (2), and Back Matter
The Italian Girl by Iris Murdoch in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
The Sea, The Sea (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Iris Murdoch in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
The Black Prince by David Green in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)

See all 23 books this book cites

94 books cite this book:

Understanding Iris Murdoch (Understanding Contemporary British Literature) by Cheryl Browning Bove on 11 pages
On Modern British Fiction by Zachary Leader on 6 pages
On Modern British Fiction by Zachary Leader on 6 pages
Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature by Iris Murdoch on 5 pages
From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations With Iris Murdoch by Iris Murdoch on 4 pages

See all 94 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	82% buy the item featured on this page: Under the Net 4.3 out of 5 stars (25) $10.20
	6% buy The Bell (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) 4.3 out of 5 stars (16) $11.25
	5% buy The Sea, The Sea (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) 4.2 out of 5 stars (46) $10.88
	4% buy The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) 4.1 out of 5 stars (19) $10.88

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

iris murdoch(1)

Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search

No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

25 Reviews

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whats Becoming of Being?, January 15, 2001

By	Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex,well-written tale, January 3, 2000

By A Customer

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."

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caught in a Magnificent Net, September 6, 1999

By	Paul M. Gunther (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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?

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 25 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Her best
Iris Murdoch started her career with one brilliantly funny novel, Under the Net. From then on, it was downhill all the way.

Published 17 months ago by Roger Mees

5.0 out of 5 stars Under the net of language lies the truth
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... Read more

Published 21 months ago by D. Cloyce Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and profound
Jake Donaghue is the free-spirited center of this luminous novel about a man who drifts confidently through his life mooching off friends, chasing dreams, and never once realizing... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Ellen Pruitt Thomas

5.0 out of 5 stars Murr on
Faced with impossible relativism, falsehood, the impossibly of truth, what can our reaction be? To laugh: the ludic as an alternative to the despair of nihilism. Read more

Published on December 14, 2006 by Murr

5.0 out of 5 stars Madcap Comedy Reminds Me of Others [95][T]
The protagonist of this story, Jake, is an Oxford-educated male writer, while the author is the same, with the exception of gender. Read more

Published on December 3, 2006 by Miami Bob

5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpectedly funny
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... Read more

Published on February 17, 2006 by Cuthbert

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 stars out of 5
Published in 1954, Under the Net is an entertaining novel about one season in Jake Donaghue's life. Jake is a 30-ish writer in London whose specialty is translating French novels... Read more

Published on March 8, 2003 by anibani

5.0 out of 5 stars Zany and Smart
I cannot but think of "Under the Net" and smile and it is for this reason that I'm so endeared to Murdoch's gem of book. Read more

Published on January 26, 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Under the Net
Having recently seen the movie IRIS, which detailed the writers battle with Alzheimer's, I was motivated to read one of her works. Read more

Published on December 9, 2002 by cmerrell

1.0 out of 5 stars What on earth did reviewers find humorous?
This book is so pretentious, so show-offy, so geared to highly educated Oxbridge people, it clearly excludes the well-educated non academic reader. Read more

Published on September 5, 2002 by Barbara Barnum

› See all 25 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; }

Customer Discussions

Beta (What's this?)

New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.

This product's forum (0 discussions)

	Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
	No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

[Cancel]

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
literary fiction Favorite first line opening in a book....	53	13 hours ago
literary fiction Have You Written Literary Fiction - Come Tell Us About It.	597	1 day ago
literature Name three of your all time favorite books.	53	1 day ago
literary fiction Three or more living authors you view as great	162	2 days ago
literature books please	43	4 days ago
literature Promote Your Work!!!	58	4 days ago
literature Modern Epic Poems	4	9 days ago