The Sea, The Sea
(Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)
Iris Murdoch author John Burnside editor Daisy Johnson editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:4th Jul '19
Should be back in stock very soon
Iris Murdoch's Booker Prize-winning novel - now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series.
Six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary.
''I saw a monster rising from the waves.'
**A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK**
**Winner of the Man Booker Prize 1978**
Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs. But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAISY JOHNSON
VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH: Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.
It isn't all brainy fantasising in Murdochland; there's wild swimming, appalling sandwiches, death, madness and sex. * Guardian *
How bloody good her novels are – how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They’re fun – I’d forgotten that * Guardian *
Dazzlingly entertaining and inventive * The Times *
One of the most ambitious tours de force in many years... There are pages one races through to see what happens. She is a virtuoso at description * Daily Mail *
There is no doubt in my mind that Iris Murdoch is one of the most important novelists now writing in English...The power of her imaginative vision, her intelligence and her awareness and revelation of human truth are quite remarkable * The Times *
A fantastic feat of imagination as well as a marvellous sustained piece of writing * Vogue *
It was the first book I read by this brilliant author, and encouraged me to go on and read almost all her others. It is at times incredibly funny, moving and mysterious. Murdoch creates drama in the real world with flawed humans and yet there is also a spiritual layer that creeps up on you
Just like the sea, this novel ebbs and flows, at times fast-paced and full of action, at others reflective… a mesmerising and addictive read * Woman's Weekly *
The Sea, The Sea is both a novel entirely about the era in which it was written and one that reflects – at an angle – the place and time we are living in… it is a joy to read: a rollicking story that seems endlessly to be building towards some awful, hilarious, frightening conclusion * Harper's Bazaar *
- Winner of Man Booker Prize for Fiction 1978 (UK)
ISBN: 9781784875190
Dimensions: 178mm x 128mm x 39mm
Weight: 434g
608 pages