- Hardcover: 319 pages
- Publisher: Viking Press; First Edition edition (January 1987)
- ISBN-10: 0670740772
- ISBN-13: 978-0670740772
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 14.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"Miss Murdoch has taken the stock elements of the Gothic novel and wrung hell out of them... a strange combination of fairy tale and blood-and-thunder." --Books and Bookmen
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
Marian Taylor accepts a position as companion to Mrs. Hannah Crean-Smith, and gradually comes to the opinion that she is a prisoner of her husband.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flows Gracefully,
By
This review is from: Unicorn (Paperback)
"The Unicorn" has great pacing that makes you want to turn the page and see what happens next. It's slowed only by the characters' self-analysis. We might say there's a swamp of feeling that grows to a flood of feeling which paralells the weather within the story. Unicorn is set in a remote area of the British Isles by the sea. The story alternates characters through whom we see the story in its different parts: Marian, a teacher who comes to Gaze Castle and Effingham who's in love with 3 different women at different times, and who, through profuse self-analysis, is able to talk himself out of each of them. Both characters embody the yin and yang of uncertainty. It's their travel through waves of emotional uncertainty that gives the tale it's life-like feel. The supporting characters are delightfully distinct. Violet Evercreech is a judgmental oracle that made me picture Lily Tomlin running around the castle. Gerald Scottow is compex mix of opportunist and homosexual domineer. Denis is somber and taciturn, attracted briefly to Marian. The best chapter is Denis' rescue of Effingham. Jamsie, Scottow's boy toy, is delightfully weak. At the center of the storm is Hannah around whom Murdoch swirls the tale. Although the dead bodies tend to multiply quickly, we leave Unicorn with a bittersweet regret. This is one to savor! Enjoy!
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch,
By A Customer
This review is from: Unicorn (Paperback)
This novel can be summarized simply and briefly. If you like Jerry Springer, you'll love "The Unicorn". It is not even close to reality.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A deepening fascination for morals and motivation,
This review is from: Unicorn (Paperback)
I've read a few of Iris Murdoch's early novels - Under the Net, Sandcastle, the Italian Girl, A Severed Head. The Unicorn was written after these, but still about the middle of Murdoch's oeuvre. As always, the characters are deliciously self-concious and enigmatic. The secrets of their pasts that underly their motivation are initially obscured and gradually revealed over the course of the novel. What makes the Unicorn different is the psychological depth at which the characters revealed. The Unicorn's characters are like the proverbial onion, and Murdoch, like a masochistic cook, peels the layers slowly.The novel opens with the youthful and urbane Marian taking a post as a governace, with a altogether strange family in an entirely isolated coastal English community. She soon discovers that there aren't any children to look after, but that she is intended as a 'lady-companion' for Hannah, the mistress and virtual prisoner of the house. Marian slowly unravels the complicated web of relationships that bind the inhabitants of her strange new home together, in the process hatching a brave, if foolhardy, plot to rescue Hannah from self-imposed captivity. To sum up, if you've never read any of her work, this may be a good place to dive into the novels of Iris Murdoch. It is a work that appeals both to fans of suspense, horror, and just good literature. Cheers
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