|
|
4.0étoiles sur 5
Splendid Re-issue of a Classic; Regrettable Introduction, Jui 25 2003
Par Un client
Congratulations to Penguin on including the late Dame Iris Murdoch's novel The Black Prince to their Paperback Classics series. Now in print 30 years, this novel, to my mind one of the finest of the 20th century in English, certainly deserves the honor. It is a multi-layered page-turner, both exciting and dramatically profound.What it doesn't deserve, however, is Martha C. Nussbaum's quite misleading introduction-and this is the reason I cannot teach the book in my college classes, as an introduction by a scholar is tacitly seen as somehow "correct" in its claims and observations, almost an appendage to the text it introduces, especially to students. Nor is there a forum for readers to write letters of rebuttal to an introduction, outside of what I am doing now. But while Nussbaum's background is in philosophy, as was Murdoch's, this is a novel, a work of imaginative literature. Nussbaum treats the text as an expression of Murdoch's own philosophical beliefs. This is problematic in theory, and can be almost ridiculous in practice, as it becomes here-I wonder why Nussbaum (not a literary critic or novelist herself) was chosen to write the introduction in the first place? Iris Murdoch's novels are "philosophical", but not in the way Ms. Nussbaum would have it-in short, she makes the cardinal error of attributing to Murdoch's characters the author's own philosophical convictions. The protagonist, Bradley Pearson, is in many ways a quite disturbed man, whose critisism of the work of Arnold Baffin is parodic of the negative reviews Murdoch herself received during the 60s (for her work as a prolific, popular novelist). But Pearson's litanies on platonic love in Part Two are not "philosophy"--they are the histrionic ramblings of a failed writer having a psychological breakdown. I could go on, but my point is that Ms. Nussbaum's observations are akin to someone writing about Shakespeare's Philosophy of Art, Love and Humanity using quotes from Iago or Richard III as if they were the playwright's "own" carefully measured words. While disquieting that such an esteemed publisher would have allowed this, and that someone as astute in philosophy as Ms. Nussbaum would write it, the book itself remains what it is: a true 5-star classic.
Aidez d'autres clients à trouver les commentaires les plus utiles
Ce commentaire vous a-t-il été utile ?
 
|
|
|
|
de Iris Murdoch
