- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: McArthur & Company / Not Applicable; Unabridged edition (Jan 8 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1931056927
- ISBN-13: 978-1931056922
- Product Dimensions: 15.3 x 12.2 x 10.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 644 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Murdoch ( The Book and the Brotherhood ) begins her 24th novel with a crisis. Three friends--Jack Shearwater, Alfred Ludens, Gildas Hearne--gather to grapple with the problem of Patrick Fenman, who is dying of an unknown disease. and Marcus Vallar, the one-time mathematical prodigy whose curse purportedly brought on the illness is tracked down and brought to Patrick's bedside, where he performs a laying-on of hands to amazing effect and becomes the center of a quiet religious movement. In this beautifully patterned work, Vallar is situated as well at the crux of a kaleidoscopic network of relationships; at the chic resort/asylum to which Vallar retreats, Ludens, Gildas, Jack, Jack's wife, Franca, his mistress, Alison, and Vallar's elusive daughter Irina are all drawn together in a whirl of emotions. They come to joy as well as grief when forced to confront the extremes of love and spiritual experience in the mystery Vallar's presence poses. Murdoch fans will be well pleased: as do her previous epistemological novels, the newest shows the transforming power of love while capturing life's small yet significant details, wherein a convenient parking space may come to mean nearly as much as an ostensible miracle. 35,000 first printing.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Mage or madman? Marcus Vallar was a brilliant mathematician who abandoned science, a gifted painter who walked away from art. Now confined to a mental home, he's sought out by bands of "Seekers" and "Stone People" who believe--on good evidence--that he's raised a man from the dead. But Marcus struggles in vain to frame a coherent message. It's as if, he says, "the gods were offering us, at the very last moment, a glimpse of . . . of . . . ." A disciple's explanation may come closer: "It's all together." Prolific British novelist Murdoch offers her most challenging work yet, an often droll metaphysical thriller for thoughtful readers. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/89.
- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Philosophy and Love,
By frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Message to the Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I like this book at least as well as The Bell and the Sandcastle, and very possibly more. One of the characters in this book asks where ordinary morality is, when what is called for in the world is the courage of a saint. Once again, Murdoch visits the question of the Good and how it applies to human life. This time the question centers around Marcus, who anchors the novel as a character from myth-- sometimes a saint, sometimes Prospero, sometimes a lunatic. Each of the other characters in the book have to find their way (through eccentric marriages, chaste romances, resurrections, and mysticism) in a world where all the familiar rules no longer apply. All the solutions (where there are solutions) are complicated and costly. As usual, the writing is crisp and incisive, the characters well-formed and very complete. One of the great Murdoch novels.
3.0 out of 5 stars
I'm just starting on Murdoch,
By
This review is from: The Message to the Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
I am just starting on Murdoch. Having read the Green Knight previously I found this book a dissapointment. Yet I couldn't, or wouldn't let myself put it down. In The Green Knight, Murdoch created a wonderful mixture of spiritual depths and the basic gossipy human interaction that makes a novel fantastic. Also, an incredible authorial and personal sense of the community that friends and (sometimes) family develop. This one seemed to be striving for the same and yet failed as I could see. I was continually judging the characters, weighing them mentally. This in itself is not a problem, but when they consisently come up lacking or increasingly confusing, and without what I sensed as an overriding authorial vision of who they truly are, it becomes difficult to maintain faith in a novel and the potential larger message. I found the narrator's fascination with the main character unjustified; indeed, his interpretations of all the characters were difficult. And again, such limited authorial intrustion to provide me with a reliable roadmap. Nevertheless, I am addicted to this writer and am now on the one Iris Murdoch a month track.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant, incisive novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Message to the Planet (Mass Market Paperback)
Although this is ostensibly a novel about a bizarre character's interaction with the world around him, what I took from it is a probing, insightful look by Murdoch at the question of what would it be like if Jesus appeared in present times....Her prose is dense and the book can be difficult at times, but the payoff is well worth the effort.
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