Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

This week's book guest is Under the Net by Iris Murdoch.In this episode Sara and Cariad discuss London landmarks, swimming in the Thames, philosophy students, the Irish and more! Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you! Under the Net by Iris Murdoch is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to pre-order here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Under the Net by Iris Murdoch. What's it about? It follows struggling writer Jake Donoghue as he stumbles around London, getting into various japes and adventures, including avant-garde theatre, house-sitting for film stars and kidnapping stunt dogs.

What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, it encourages financial irresponsibility. responsibility and swimming in the Thames. In this episode, we discuss London landmarks, philosophy students, women writing men, Paris, nursing, and the Irish. This is a book by Iris Murdoch. I'm sure most people have heard of Iris Murdoch. It is her first book that she has published. It's published in 1954. Well, according to the introduction in my version, yes. Not everyone has heard of Iris Murdoch. Oh, yes. Now, let's get into this. So I think this is so funny. This is hilarious. So Iris Murdoch to us is a very famous 20th century author. But I would say in the

past 25 years she's definitely fallen out of favour and she's not as fashionable she was. There was a big film about her. That was the end of the 90s. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. God, doesn't it fly? I feel like that was two years ago. Was that the end of the 90s? Yeah, I'm going to double check but Iris, the film where Judy Dench and Kate Winsett play her is an old film. I've described it as an old film. old film? An old film which makes us old people. I think I've only seen two films since then. You probably, I mean that, yeah, I'm sure you have.

Old film, it can't be the end of the 90s. 2001? Yeah, that's the end of the 90s. Yeah, I've described it as like near the end. The 90s is definitely over by 2001. It's over. So the thing is, when we went at Sussex, Iris Murdoch was, she was big. People were talking about her.

She was considered quite the figure. And we read a lot of Iris Murdoch when we were. at university. But now she's very out of favour. And I did a radio four program called A Good Read. You may be familiar with it. Listeners a radio. Don't switch this off to listen to that though. No, no, no, no. It's a great program, but we're not on it. Well, I'm on one episode. Anyway, and I chose the Sea of the Sea, which is her Booker Prize winning, which is what most people probably know her writing. And the host of that, Harriet, who's a very, obviously, read a lot of books, was like, oh, Iris Merger has fallen out of favour and I've wondered why. And then I reread the Sea,

and now I know why. Yeah, they're harsh. Well, I chose Anne Rand the Fountainhead on a good room. So you can imagine the great time I had. I didn't know she was known for sort of like fascism. I just liked it. I know. I just had no idea culturally of what Anne Rand represented.

So I thought that this waltz into Radio 4 with my, this book made me think a lot. I thought you knew for the time you went to good read with it. No. No one had ever told me, but I don't know. I don't know. I thought by then you were aware that there was other stuff. I knew. Do you know what I knew?

That's actually liked her. And yeah, that doesn't speak highly of something. But because I've never, I didn't, I'm not middle class. I didn't, I don't know stuff automatically. It's just, it's just, but you'd like her since uni. I didn't know when you started liking her to be, but then I, as we left. I found her thought provoking. She definitely is.

So my dad, who's a very selfish person, is an individualist. And so then I read Anne Rand and it's like, oh, I see where my dad got his ideas from. And it made me think about a lot of things. and I thought it would be a really good discussion book before you knew it. I was about to get absolutely rinsed by middle-aged women. Did they rinse you? Absolutely.

They must have gone hard on you, yeah. They were like, not only is it evil, it's badly written. That's how it started. And I was like, do you know what my feedback was afterwards from the producer. Well, at least you didn't back down. I didn't back down with the sea of the sea, but I wasn't defending fascism. Well, they all hated it. Well, actually one guy liked it, but yeah, Harriet, who I love.

I think she's a brilliant, brilliant host. I really love that program. she was like, I see why she's not, I see why Iris Murdoch isn't fashionable because she's really dated and it doesn't, it hasn't aged well. And how do you feel about Iris? Because we used to love her and we've been rereading her. Yeah, it's very different reading her now.

It's so different. And some of it doesn't, and again, this is her first novel. Some of it doesn't age well. Yeah. But some of it really does age well. I think she's really special. I think she's fair. I still have a soft spot for her.

Even when I had to reread the C, the C, which is massive. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first time. And the same with under the net, like the first time I read this, I had what we've had with other books. If you'd ask me what this was about, I would have said, it's about a man having fun in West London. That's all I could remember. I hated the beginning of this and then loved the end.

I loved the second half of it. Yeah, yeah. Once I got into it. When we started it, I thought, I was like, why has Carriad chosen this book? And I found it really clunky and trying too hard. I tried to do one of those. So you know that they have their word cloud things.

Oh, yeah. I've got to do a word cloud of this book. It would be like London. Yeah. Money underlined. And that's what this book is about. It's published in 1954. It's her first novel. And it's about a man called Jake. There were loads of jakes back then. So many jakes. Who is sort of almost like a troubadour kind of man about town individual. Bigger. Do you know who I kept thinking of? Tom Tuck. Oh, interesting. Yes. I get that vibe. I once had a man called Tom Tucker in my house for free, and that's the only time it's ever happened to me.

So it's about Jake, and he's living in London, and he gets kicked out at the start of it, and he sort of just wanders around London going from place to place, and he's a translator. But he has purpose. He's a purpose-filled. Yes. Not adventures, journeys, but they become adventures.

It's definitely adventures, and it definitely has that feel of 1950s London, where you just have to be mates with the woman who runs a news agent in Soho you can leave your manuscript and whiskey with her. Very romantic about Soho in that if you just walk into a pub, if you speak to enough people,

one of them will have the answer that you're looking for. It's such a romantic view of London in general, actually. But I guess I wondered, again, maybe London was like that in the 50s. It was much smaller and much more pro-cure and much more, like, they all, like, you know, they seem to know each other, like the whole gang. And he falls in,

it's kind of a dreamlike novel in a way, because things happen that are weird in that, you know, like there is someone who owns a film studio and they're having political talks there and they just wander in. On the set of Rome. And then he just goes to Paris for a bit. Like there's lots of stuff.

It just gets a dog who's a film star. Yeah, there is that. The dog turns up. But when I read it the first time, it seemed quite real. And this time I was like, oh, she's just having fun. I thought it was really Alice in Wonderland. Yes, yes. Because just like Alice in Wonderland,

which is, you know, technically a children's book, Alice turns up somewhere and people say sort of, non-sequiturs that are sort of philosophical. Yeah. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Yeah. And that's the kind of thing people say to Jake. Like, well, can you ever truly mean what you're saying if you're doing it with language?

Yeah. So it's really out to wonderland. And they say this in pubs in West London. She was a philosopher as well as a novelist. Yes. And she was also, her philosophy was kind of eclipsed by her writing, her fiction writing. Yes. But she wrote biographies of people like, what's his features?

Jean, the existentialist. Sartre. Sartre. I forgot to tell you the funny thing about the introduction, just to come back. So my introduction says that Iris Murdoch

isn't as famous as she should be. And then it uses the, it says, just like Phoebe Wallerbridge and Sally Wainwright, which really made me laugh because they are lorded as geniuses. So I do agree

that sometimes being a woman, sometimes this might hold one back. Yeah. But I don't think it's holding Sally Wainwright and Phoebe Waller Bridge back. Is that fair? I mean Otherwise they would own the moon

Could we talk any more about how brilliant those people are? No Is there a single person? If Phoebe Wallowbridge was a man Do you think she would be even more powerful? She might be one of the white men moaning that you can't get an edge in nowadays Yeah, that's true But I wonder, we've only seeing her at the height of her power as a woman

What would happen if she was a man? I don't know We'd be fearing our lives Make her like a body switch story Oh, like, Freaky Friday. Yeah, don't know a Freaky Friday. She's what's with Daniel Craig. Yes.

In the Bond Writers' Room, there's an accident. Someone spills some tea. I would watch that film. You should need to write it, actually. And then it uses the example of authors, and it says that Iris Murdoch would be more successful if she were male. And how we don't talk about Hillary Mantell or Margaret Atwood, like we do about Martin Amis. And I was like, we have different friends. Yeah, we have different.

I guess maybe there is still, there is still. I think Mantel has crossed over. I think she's crossed over into... What's being a man? Yeah, I do. I think she has... Because she tackled history, which is also very male-dominated.

But I once got in a taxi with... With Hilary Mandel? No, with a driver, taxi driver, who told me he wouldn't read Hillary Mantel because he said, women can't research. So I do know that there is still sexism in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't want to overheat...

Yeah, yeah. I think the reason Iris Murdoch isn't as popular is because the kind of thing she was right, writing about, not necessarily because she was a woman. Yeah, I also think she's very 20th century. And when we read it, we still had our foot in that world. I still do. You still do.

I'm still watching the Irish movies. Send me your tape, mixed lists. Mixed lists. Playlists. What are they called? Mix tape, thanks. I think we, as 20th century millennials who have a foot in that world, I think if you pick this up now as a young person,

it's almost like reading an early Victorian text. Like the language is actually, even I had to put my brain into like, oh God, how are they speaking? But I think it depends. I've got no idea what it's like at university now, obviously. But I imagine university doesn't change that much in that you are discovering a form of intellectualism, trying it on. Especially we did English. The kind of discussions that I find clunky in this book, we were definitely having and thinking we were geniuses. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thinking we were the first people to say, but is there such a think of truth because language is a symbol system. It's got that vibe of late night students talking. Yes. Like there's a lot of, like, so he, Jake is obsessed with this man who he thinks he's a philosophical genius, Hugo. And he writes a book down of their conversations, whereas Hugo is like, I don't know what you're obsessed with me. I just tell you, ask about language occasionally. But there are excerpts in the book, and they definitely read like two students stoned. And there's a philosophy teacher as well.

Yes. Dave, I think, or David, who also, so there are points in the book where it feels like this isn't a scene of action. It is Iris Murdoch using character. us to explore some ideas. I absolutely don't mind, by the way, as in I enjoy that. Yeah, I enjoyed it, but it felt more obvious this time. I think the first time I was like, oh, how interesting Iris. Well, I remember first discovering Iris Murdoch,

and what I would have told you at 21 was, I can't believe how much she understands men. Yes. And I don't know why I thought at 21 that I understood men. Yeah, we both thought she wrote men brilliantly. Yeah. See to see, same thing, lead character, a man and this, we see it all from Jake's point of view.

and I thought, I thought when I read it, oh, she just gets men. I read it the second time, I thought, Jake's a woman. Jake is absolutely a woman. This is not a man. You said that. It's a bisexual woman.

Yeah. Well, the way, for me, Jake describes this woman he's in love with. The way he describes her is the way a woman would say that someone is beautiful, I think, without getting too intergender. But the way he's describing the things

that he notices about her. I was like, I've never heard a man be like, like, hair is good, it's good hair. Like, the way it falls. How is she doing that? How is she getting that curls? It's like specific, I was like, this is a woman observing another woman. Irish Murdoch, in this book, again, we must flag there's some very casual racism towards East Asian people.

Yes. But the other thing is, I don't know if it's a writer making a conscious choice of a character. But twice, she's really brutal about Irish people saying they have nothing in their heads. Well, she is Irish. That doesn't mean she's allowed. No, but just to flag that as well, she's British Irish. Okay. Born in Dublin.

Okay. So perhaps she felt more at home insulting her own people. Yeah, so the character of Finn, who I really love, she says doesn't have any thoughts. So his life is easier. Because he has no inner life is the phrase she uses. Does she say that because he's Irish? No, no, no. She doesn't say because it doesn't say due to him being Irish.

He was just an Irish person. And then later with Irish nurses, she says they don't have a thought between them unless you count the want for matrimony. Some internal racism there. Well, I just thought it's so odd for a novelist who wants to go so deep inside psychology to then say about some characters, and they're empty. They're empty. or then? I feel like with Finn it, she doesn't know sort of way that it's part of who he is. And also I think Finn

is a bit of a symbolic character as well in that he doesn't have thoughts he follows Jake around he lives to drink. Jake thinks he doesn't have thoughts. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's also, like, as soon as he gets the money, he goes back, he goes back to Ireland. Because he had a plan, but just Jake just didn't

know it. He actually had a super objective. Yeah. Jake had no idea what it was, so he assumed there was nothing going on in his mind. Yeah. And I didn't know if that was really, really good writing or an oversight. Yeah, I think that is, I like that about that book because I feel like, I feel like you really, she really writes Jake. She's not doing that author thing of like, oh, here's Jake, but also I'm telling you by the

side, obviously we're not really doing, like she's, you're completely seeing everything from his point of view. And so often that does lead you to making stupid mistakes with him. So you trust the wrong people or you think the right thing. And then 40 pages in, you're like, oh my God, Jake's an idiot. Like, why am I trusting Jake? but he's very charming and very... We see other characters being charmed by him.

Were you charmed as a reader? Yeah, I was because he's so mad. He's so like, because he has this sense of adventure about him. I'm just like, right, being kicked out of my house. This is it, Finn, we must go. There's a bit of Widnail and I about him. Of like, right, off we go. This is it.

Head to London, find people, start conversations. Before you know it, he's like at a rally and then he's moved in with someone. And you sort of feel yourself being carried along with him. And I found that charming. The part of him I liked and that I understood was sort of being on the precipice of creativity that's actually making things being too terrifying. So he's a translator. Yes, yeah, yeah.

And how so many of us are fearful and not achieving a potential and then are jealous of other people. But I hate people who sponge off other people. Oh, yeah, the sponging was bad. The financial thing. So being kicked out of a house, I mean, essentially it was a female character making a better decision for herself and so he couldn't have free lodging anymore. But didn't you think his weird honourableness, like he wouldn't take the money for the bet?

Yes. But that was silly honourableness, I thought, rather than, I didn't think it was honourable, I thought he was being really silly, quibbling about that. That's very weird, Nell and I, isn't it? It's very that character. My mum has a saying, inspired on my dad, whereas it's always people who tell you they don't respect money

who are asking for a loan. Tell you that money is meaningless are the first people to borrow money off you, and that's Jake. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you. Funny enough, what reminded me of my dad, of that kind of like, this is it, we're all going, and you just have to go with this adventure.

The dynamic, yeah, the kind of dynamic, like a leader without a fucking plan. Yeah. And that's definitely reminded me and my family of like, oh, we're all going, we have no idea why, but it seems like he really knows what he's doing. Yeah. And then you look close to go, he doesn't know what he's doing,

does he? Why the hell are we all following him? But it seemed fun. Well, it definitely seems fun. You know you're going to have an adventure. Yeah. Might not be safe. Yeah.

But you do know you're going to have an adventure. like jumping in the Thames, drunk swimming at night in the Thames, which is mental in any era. Not sensible. Not sensible. We're not advocating that. It made me want to jump right in the Thames and get really drunk. Okay.

Oh, I found it very aspirational. Did you? Which is why I think it's dangerous. Did it not make you want to jump in the Thames at Moonlight with some Irish guys? No. Come on then. It made me think that sounds cold and uncomfortable. They were so drunk.

It was so beautiful. They were so drunk and they couldn't feel the cold. What did you think of the representations of London? Yes, I want to talk about that. I loved it, but part of me on rereading it did think this isn't what it was like. Having read a lot of other post-war London books fairly recently, Shirley Hazard, shout-up to the amazing Shirley Haddardtis who has replaced Iris slightly for me in my head as favourite 20th century women.

She writes about Post-Wall London in a really harsh, blunt, vulnerable way. And I wonder if it's easier for that as a reader. now to accept that. Like, we kind of want the truth and the authentic voice. As Iris is like painting you this like, yeah, London. Basically, Post-Wil London, pretty fun. Pretty fun. Lots of stuff happening.

Jazz and politics and rallies. And I was like, was it actually like this? This feels bonkers that London was like this. It does come down to money. Because while the character of Jake doesn't have his own set of large income, the life he lives is of a wealthy person. Yes, yes. There's a line from I'm a fan, which is about character,

basically the glow of the safety of money. And Jake has that and his experiences are of a moneyed person. What's interesting about Shaleigh Haswald's description, she writes about rich people who now have no money because of what's happened. So there's a, I can't know which one it is, maybe it's transit of Venus. He goes to visit an old aunt in London who is living in her furs, but is shooting pigeons to, like, the postman shoots pigeons and gives them to people on the street because they've got nothing.

And like walking and like seeing every house collapsed, apart from the one that your family lives in and like how cold. He's, this characters come from East Asia if it's been fighting over there and he can't believe like what's happened to everywhere and it's really bleak. And so even the rich are terribly affected in that way, just like, it doesn't matter if you have money because you can't get food. So what does it matter? That's what's odd about the discussions of socialism, of which there are many.

Oh, there are many. In under the net is because it's moneyed people talking about the importance for socialism. No one at any point says, we need a social state. people can't feed themselves. It's not interesting that Finn is, I get the impression Finn is not from money. Finn is having to sponge off Jake. Yeah.

And then, yeah, that voice is not heard. Finn literally doesn't say anything, does it? I think what I'm suggesting is that she was a moneyed person who really agreed with the philosophy of socialism. Yeah. But wasn't living in an existence of actual experiencing poverty. It's definitely a philosophical take on it, isn't it? Because it's like, I'll discuss it, but I'm not looking at the truth of it.

This is better for man. This is better for us as a society. or like the distance of like oh it's interesting isn't it this is interesting what's happening rather than yeah but what is happening to these people yeah yeah i mean i loved london i love the way she describes it and like you said running from pub to pub like in the shadow of st paul's and then heading to the thames and diving in cross oxford street watching people there are things that are still happening it's the same i guess that the same geography then that's what i loved because i i just think you can pick up on how much iris murdoch loves it oh yeah you can tell definitely and the

bits of London and Paris. This is incredibly in-depth description of Paris. Well, I've underlined a Paris quote because I loved it so much because it's so perfect. There's something about the disappointment of going to Paris, having it sort of built up in your mind. Arriving in Paris always causes me pain, even when I've been away for only a short while. It is a city which I never fail to approach with expectation and leave with disappointment. There is a question which only I can ask and which only Paris can answer. But this question is something which I can.

I've never been able to yet formulate. Certain things indeed I've learnt here. For instance, that my happiness has a sad face. So sad that for years I took it for my unhappiness and drove it away. I love that. It's so beautiful. Because the first time I went to Paris, which was a boyfriend I didn't like, and he was doing such a romantic gesture.

He had such a miserable time. And so the idea of having a question for Paris and it being important, but you're not ever quite getting the answer for it. So you keep going back there in sort of subsequent relationships or subsequent events. Remember your trip to Paris, and it not being. You want Paris. I think that's why your first trip to Paris should be on a school trip

so that you don't get the romance. I thought you're going to say, like, alone. No, no. Just a Flannier, walking shoes. Take a Mandelievera, put on a bus, and then hopefully a trip to Euro Disney. And then you sort of, it's de-romanticized. Yeah, because I went as a kid, so I never thought, I never knew it was romantic until I was older.

Okay. So, like, I just thought it was like a really good, you got a lot of cake. I just can't imagine what would have happened. at our school if they said were taking the kids to France. I just can't imagine. Chaos? Revolution. Half of the parents would have been, yeah.

Well, tweet front legs. Tweet frog's legs and snails. Not poignant. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about Hugo. Yes. Because he's... Your husband.

Your husband then. He's... But he's mad. That's the character that actually for me started creaking, the loudest. I could lean into Jake and Finn because it was so charming. But Hugo, this like... silent person who is a fireworks expert

then gives her up. Yeah, that's where his money's from, yeah. Gives up making amazing fireworks to become a film producer. I mean, sure, that could happen. It was more that he was making so much money that he could do, like, follow what he wanted, but he also uses, he seems incredibly manipulative. Did you think? Anna and her sister. Yeah, that was also really interesting,

wasn't it? Yeah, we've hardly talked about the women in it. Yeah. Because they're not really painted that clearly. And also, I do think that Iris Murdoch, and again, I think it's in the character of Jake. She does say some really misogynistic things. When she's describing Anna, she talks about how women's makeup and heels are all pretended profundities. And I think it's interesting when you said, oh, it's a woman that she's saying is a male character because it's a very judgmental woman. Oh, it's very judgmental. Yeah.

Very judgmental. He says of Anna that her love of love was calculated avoidance of self-surrender. She has these huge judgments on them. Yes, there was quite this answer. So the characters, Anna and Sadie, who are sisters. Jake is in love with one of them. And there's love triangles that are actually squares and circles. And you don't, I read as well, like you actually only see one, like we meet Anna once and that's it.

And then she's discussed for the rest of the book. So we never actually, and in that scene. And when he meets her again, he's like, oh, she's put on weight, she looks old, she's got grey hair. Oh, and he does pin her down to a carpet and say, I think she likes it. Yeah. Yeah, there was that. Yeah. There was that.

Yes, there was that. That's the kind of thing that doesn't age well. You're not used to a narrator saying those things and then doing. those things and they're being, but how are you still the hero of the piece? I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you that I ordered my copy of eBay and that this photo was in it. What? This photo of a group of men on holiday was inside my vintage copy. My spin-off podcast is, who are these men?

We can put it on our Instagram so you can see them. Can we? If you know who any of these men are, it just fell out. I was like, what if this is the Illuminati? And you've just got them, the five of them. That's Illuminati. They look suspiciously like men on a golf trip. Yeah, that's what boys I look like now.

There's five of them. All of them look like they could be one of my uncles. There's just so much uncle in jumpers. Let's all go to Paris, the seven of us. Let's find those men, take them to Paris. What if they're a book group. Talking about the way she's aged, there was also something I found

was that the way she's talking about a world which is absolutely free of distraction. So there's an amazing bit that I really love when Jake is locked in a flat. Oh, yeah. And there is nothing to do. And he starts leaning out the window just trying to get to people's attention. And he has to bust his way out of this flat.

But it made me feel, I don't know, it made me feel a bit like panicky that he was in a situation where he would just have, there was nothing, he couldn't do anything. He would just be bored. And I felt like, God, that, if you're reading that now and you've grown up completely digitally, can you imagine, do you know what I mean? Is that stupid thing to say? No, no, it's not stupid. It's not stupid at all.

Like, because I think a lot of this book is about people who have no distraction. directions. Like why would you walk around London in the pissing rain, visiting every pub and like going to a political rally? Because you don't have a phone and you don't have the internet. You're right. Very late in the book, there's an issue where he wants to contact someone who's a patient in a hospital he works at. And he can't text them. He can't text them. It's like, I'm not allowed into their room. Yeah. So that means I can't see them. And he just has to wait and then break into the room at night. Yes, exactly. And I was like, it really, what's weird, I think, about this book is that it isn't Alice

Wonderland feel but it's also she sometimes grounds it in the reality of London but is this London that you're like that it's so dead that London is so so dead whereas when we were reading this at uni it was like oh I remember of things still I remember not having a phone yeah and I feel like there's something about that Jake with nail troubadour character but like that world of being so bored and I remember that from being child like that related to me the boredom and the randomness because you're bored, you walk around because it's nothing to do and then random things do have you do end up somewhere because it's bumped into that. Our kids, listening to LBC today, are kids still having random meetings?

That's what I feel like I'm saying. I've written down that the difference in age, so reading it at 22, and I thought that this book was so wise and insightful to human nature and then reading it now at 42, I feel like it's a writer making up people and giving them personalities. It's not deep truth. No, no, I agree. And it was her least favourite. Her own least favourite

Yeah, she didn't like it She was quite embarrassed about it Compared to the rest of her Much more... And to be fair, the sea, The Sea, as complicated as you find reading it I do think it's a stronger novel

and a deeper novel. How old was she when she wrote this, do you know? Oh, you asked me to do maths. When you find out, because the other thing... She was young. There's a lot of opinions

about love that are very cynical I'd say, teenagery in that, you know, that it's not really a thing. It's how you manipulate other people. It's how you pretend. She was born in 1919. And she was published in 54.

33 when she wrote it. Okay. Well, it's around then. She may have written it like before, but. But that's grown up time. I would have thought she's going to be 20s. She has a line about Jake where he says, I followed my rule of never speaking frankly to women in moments of emotion.

And that is a woman imagining a man. Whereas I would have read that as, oh, that's men then. Yeah. I mean, that's what men must do. I just, I took it. I took it as being so wise. And I wonder because we were in our 20s and it was this male, again, this like male troubadour character just telling you this is what it's like to live in London, this is it.

And as a 20-year-old woman, you're like, yeah, he's right. Whereas now you see the sponging and the manipulation and... I would have thought that Chase of Anna was romantic. I think I did think it was romantic in my 20s. And now it's pathetic. He doesn't know her and he doesn't even like her and he's not good for her and he has nothing to offer. His obsession with her is absolutely insane. And I think what I saw this time, again, when I read it the first time, I was like, oh yeah, it's

true love and it's romance. And now I was like, she's completely a symbol to you. You don't know her. You haven't thought about her for three years. Someone mentions her name and you're like, Anna. And then he says this thing when he's on the bus, like, London had become an empty frame. Every place lacked her and expected her, which is a teenage view of romance.

Yeah. Rather than saying, okay, mate, you've got a be in your bonnet, but that's got nothing to do with the actual human with needs. Yeah, he didn't see Anna as a person at all. And that is interesting that both women, Sadie, her sister, is also being hassled by a man and is also saying repeatedly I'm being hassled and Jake doesn't take it seriously.

No one does. Although we do have the character omitting later, yes, I have been unreasonable and I have behaved abominably towards Sadie. It was like breaking and entering kind of extreme. It's all treated in like, well, you know what it's like when you love a gal? You've got to break into our house. You've got to steal a manuscript. God.

That kind of stuff. Yeah, it is a very, but then maybe, oh, I don't know, are we imposing what we think 30 would look like in the 50s of like what life she would have led. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. The scene in Paris where he's following her through is mental. She takes her shoes off and puts them in a hole in a tree. Yeah, that's absolutely Alice in Wonderland. That's what you said. It's Gossamer. It's not real world. I can't believe that I read it the first time and didn't think, like that chase when he thinks it's her and it isn't spoiler alert, isn't her. And I didn't like, I laughed this time. I was like, what the fuck are

you doing, you idiot? Like, of course he's not fucking her. You remember you. It's like Bastille Day in Paris. It's like, no, you can't find someone. But I felt the tension that she writes in that very believable. Of wanting things to be true. That's it. What I felt believable was that you see them because you want to see them. Yeah, and I sort of still rooted for Jake. I sort of wanted him to be okay somehow, even though...

I wanted him to be okay because he was in charge of that dog now. Oh, I really felt like that Alsatian used 10 who can't do movies anymore. I think maybe I... That's who I empathise with this read. this out to pasture adventure dog Mars I really loved that character that there is this dog

that everyone thinks it's a really important you know like worth a lot of money dog and then it turns out the dog is old and can't do the tricks anymore and actually everyone's desperate to get rid of him I felt like something that was a good symbolic character as well

like what we believe and what we put our faith in the comedic set pieces getting that dog out of his cage into a cab that was funny and that's what I found the beginning clunky and then really started enjoying it. It's the set pieces. The drunk swimming in the Thames,

that whole pub scene, into the water, into whatever market they go to in the morning. You know, those cafes and... Yeah, it's that coffee culture, London of like, yeah, coffee shops and talking and politics. And not prettermangers. It did make me nostalgic for London that...

But that's what also may wonder, I don't know if this London never existed. Iris was making it up even then. But it did make me nostalgic for a London of like... But if we were to write London, because that's also not asking about tour guide, It's so possible to do a really romantic version even now. Well, people do, don't they?

All the time make London look like it's snowing and it's wonderful when you bump into people. But sometimes it does happen. It does happen. Yeah. We were both talk guides on open top London buses. That's what Sarah was referring to. Yeah. And there were so many romantic moments.

Which you mentioned in your book, weirdo. Actually, a large part of your book is set on the buses. I had this thing with an interview the other day where the guy said, so there's lots of stuff from your own life. And I was like, no, no, this is a fiction. I've stopped it. I don't want to talk about my own life anymore. That's my stand-up comedy.

fiction he went but you worked at a tour guide i was like okay yeah all right sherlock i've been reading to my daughter like i've been trying to you know read all sorts i say read we need the poo oh even alice mondland and the language in alice wundland like she is now so far away from that language that you can't even simplify it like you forget like because we are the age we are it's still like there's like an echo of it in our heads that we can understand you start you start you start start realizing like this is the equivalent that someone handing you at six-year-old, something from like, you know, 1790 and being like, oh, cool, sir. Yeah, come on you.

It's very funny, very, very boredy. Exactly. And it's things that in our childhood, Alice Wanda was still like, oh, yeah, that's a book kids read. And now you're like, it's so old. And the language is so thick and hard to get through. Is it? Yeah.

We're even Winnie the Pooh. I won't go into the beginning of Winnie the Pooh. It's like meta, meta. It's so weird the beginning of Winnie of the Pooh. Anyway, don't get me started. Okay. Well, next week, listening. Winnie the Pooh is going to come on.

Weirdest book club. To be fair, after all of this, I still enjoyed it, I still enjoy reading it, I still think Iris Murdoch is worth getting through, but I just don't think anyone's going to bother these days, Sarah. I'm upset for her. I don't think people are going to do it.

She's one of the people I would have fucking love to be friends with. Oh, God. Yeah. Okay, this is maybe what I should say is, I have such awe of her talent and her brain. And all of the different ways that she used language, used thoughts, the fact that she's writing essentially a comedy novel,

about a guy who's a bit of a chancer, doesn't know what he wants to do, but she manages to have these really intellectual debates about what is truth, what is language, do human beings ever communicate? Is love ephemeral? Is it an illusion? That's what she's showing with Jake.

Jake's feelings are real. We know it's an illusion. And then to have a huge thing about politics. I mean, it's incredible to get all that into your first novel. Yeah. I love her ambition. Yes. I love that she wants to do that.

I love that she's trying to do that. I love that she does that better later on. And I was really looking forward to talking about her because there were so many things that she did or that happened that I wanted. So there's so much worth in it. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You wouldn't necessarily go to your mother-in-law. Read this on the beach. I would say strongly anti-beach read. I think you need to be reading this on the top of the number 73 bus in the pouring rain. Yes, that's it. If you were on your work break in London at a London job Or a city job.

I think I read this like on a back home in London. Yeah. On a break from uni, that's when I think I came to it. And I think if you have experienced London, have any feelings about London as like more than a city, if it sort of lives in your bones and you feel quite passionate about it, then this book you will love, definitely.

Or if you're a philosophy student. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit like, what's that one, the Sophie's book that we used to like where they have Hyde all the philosophy in it? Oh, Sophie's World. I nearly said Sophie's Choice. Sophie's Choice is a different one.

That's choosing which philosophy course to study. Sophie's World. Yeah, there are elements of that on her, like she's hiding philosophy. And it's dedicated to Raymond Quinn. Yeah, who's that? He's a philosopher. In the introduction, it says that people who like Iris Murdoch are fans of gauzy fabrics, perno and existentialism.

I hate Perna. So if that's you? No, I hate Perna. I don't think anyone likes Pernaud. Well, people who like Erasmir Do. I think that's the insulting view. Is it the only people who would like her? I find that weird as well, because it's not really domestic.

her. That's a bit that kind of like reductive chicklet as if she's writing about material in philosophy in like a light way. But her books are so heavyweight for me. I feel like you reckon need to bring your brain to these books. You can't like half ask them. Yeah. And also this is our second reading decades apart and I still I still can't quite work out how clever she's being and what she's in control of and what's accidental. Yeah. Oh yeah. Give her a go guys. Give her a go. I would say. I mean I love her. I love the way she writes. Yeah, and I've read so much of her stuff. I've forgotten a large amount of it,

but I have, throughout this since reading Undernet, and Undernet, I think, was the first one I read. And then, yeah, I would recommend the C-D-C and all... You know what, guys, all of them. I wrote a quote down about what she said about love. Oh, yeah. This is why I thought it was teenagery. Dave, who's the philosophy teacher, Dave, Dave, Dave.

Dave once said to me that to find a person inexhaustible is simply the definition of love. And so there's so much cynicism in that. and that's Jake's view of love. I don't necessarily think it's Iris Murdox, but it is the view of love that this book gives you. Yes, but also what I love about her is that nothing is set. She's putting things out on the table and she's saying,

what do you think? Like, very philosophically. And then nothing is what you think it is. Yeah. So she's not an author that's like, this is absolutely who it is. It's like, you think Jake is this and then you're like, maybe he's not.

Maybe everyone isn't. Maybe I can't trust. She's constantly moving things around for you. And I think there's a lot of interest. Like, if you can allow your brain to speak her language, it's very satisfying what she's serving you. The food is rich, but you don't feel sick. I've got a last line.

I've got a last line, and it's from almost the end of the book. This is partly because of the Londonness, because he's on a bus, watching crowds in Oxford Street. Events stream past us like these crowds, and the face of each is only seen for a minute. What is urgent is not urgent forever, but only ephemarily. All work and all love, the search for wealth and fame, the search for truth, life itself,

are made up of moments which pass and become nothing. Yet through this shaft of nothings, we drive onward with that miraculous vitality that creates our precarious habitations in the past and the future. So we live. A spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face until the final chop-chop

that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came. Some chirpy Iris, you're okay, hon. You're right. Too many perno. So many furnos. I've got to get this gauzy fabric off me. Can't breathe.

Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. Next week's book guest is In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Broughtigan, and we will be joined by the brilliant award-winning comedian John Cairns. Sarah's novel Weirdo is available in the shops right now, and so is my book. You are not alone. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.