Customer Reviews

Under the Net

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The only reason I read this book was because it was no. 95 on the Modern Library panel's list of the 100 greatest novels in English in the 20th century. I had read Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea years ago (well, I finished it Dec 4, 1983, if you really want to know that) and had been underimpressed by it. I should have read the reviews on Under the Net on this site before I read it. That would have given me some clue to what I was supposed to expect and derive from the book. I am no student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, but if I had known that Hugo was supposed to be based on him, it might have made me more alert to what he did,e.g. But I read the book as I do any other, and I found it very unimpressive--and I know that is my fault, I suppose. So I guess what I am saying is that if existentialism, Wittgenstein, Sarte, Bellow, etc., don't get you very interested you might not enjoy this book. I found I was glad when I was nearing the end--tho I admit that the last ten pages I rather enjoyed!

When fate seems like it's closing in, what will you choose to do? Will you be content to stay "under the net", or will you take control of your own destiny?
This novel deals precisely with that question. It is a story of the search for personal meaning and truth in life, and an attempt at shining light upon the misguiding nature of many key concepts society holds for us as our only beacons. Throughout the course of the narrative, all the major paths to fulfillment, from love, to money, politics, work, and even rational thought in general, are seen for what they are and taken to their logical conclusions. After every kind of endeavour in each, the narrator (Jake) seems disillusioned and confused about what path to take, knowing only that all the paths he's so far tried are not for him. It is in this way of skipping about from prospective opportunity to opportunity that Jake has been living for quite some time, constantly building his hopes up, only to have them crushed within by his own realizations of the futility of each new pursuit. This seems doomed to go on indefinitely, and he is almost ready to give up on his self for good, until finally he comes to the decision to begin seeking for meaning down a path of his own definition, a path of fulfillment through self discovery. The book, in addition to pleasantly creating, with its vivid descriptions of London and Paris, the illusion of actually being there, more importantly brings to one's awareness the simple reminder that, while what the future holds for each of us is uncertain, what the self holds is always in our own hands.

i don't understand what is so great about this book. i didn't learn anything new from it, and it was only mildly entertaining. i suppose it's good casual reading, if you're on a plane or something. it's more or less well written, but not spectacular by any means. of course, i don't find wittgenstein that great, either. the book is funny at times, though.

honestly, after reading all the great reviews, i expected much more of this book. i was very dissapointed. i felt like i was watching some quirky hour-long t.v. show about the wacky adventures of aspiring authors - something fantastic, something that would never happen in real life; but if you don't take it seriously, then it's fine. this is the only book by iris murdoch that i've read, and i really hope it isn't her best.

so buy it if you want to read something mildly amusing, but if you feel like reading something that is truly worth the effort, look elsewhere.

This is one of my all time favorite books. I've read it three times. I am ready to read it again. I was reading the reviews and I was reminded of all the marvelous characters. I don't think anyone mentioned the Alsatian dog. What a fantastic character he was too. I love this book because it is so optimistic. Life is big, expansive and interesting. Change is possible.

Fast-paced, funny, unpredictable, this book may be Murdoch's best. I originally came to it because I read that she had based her first novel on the ideas (and character) of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I did, in fact, find some elements of W's ideas in it; but that's not really the reason I found this book so beguiling. As a novel it succeeds brilliantly: it manages to present complex ideas in a completely literary form. You are so caught up in the plot, the characters, the comedy, you may never notice the author is doing philosophy.The writing is excellent: Murdoch describes a night of drunken revelry so well that you can feel the chill air on your skin. She also puts together an unforgettable cast of characters: Sadie the movie star; her mysterious sister Anne; Hugo, the tortured soul; Dave the impatient academic; Lefty the socialist bon-viveur; Magdalen the ambitious secretary; Sacred Sammy the cool operator... and more. Read it as as a philosophical 'bildungsroman' or read it as a picaresque romp - entertainment guaranteed.

I audibly laughed through half the scenes of this amazing first novel. It is a great thing to make someone laugh out loud while reading and this book did it continually. Whether it be the point where Jake Donaghue sits outside Sadie's flat listening to the "plot" against him with the neighbours poking him to see what he'll do or the superhero stunts of Jake and Hugo at the Roman set saving Lefty. I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the clever wit of the situation. But, what is amazing is that behind all of this there are deep philosophical thoughts at work, but the spaciousness of these thoughts never intrude upon the enjoyability of the story. It is similar in that way to Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, but the comedy in this is up a few notches more. The story is deeply routed in London (with a side-trip to Paris) and this location no doubt gives all the more joy to readers familiar to the area with its deep descriptions of particular sections and jabs at the reputations of others. Yet, this too did not detract from the book's enjoyability because of the eloquence of her descriptions. "When caught unawares," Jake reflects, "I usually tell the truth, and what's duller that that." The book is one long reflection and so, according to this line, we are thenceforth suspicious of all we are told. Many points of his memory are probably deeply exaggerated and this would explain some of the all too convenient coincidences. But, who cares? It's a good, entertaining story. Ultimately, Murdoch is presenting a rather ideal view of the independent will of the free spirit. Jake's hope is neatly set forth at the end. But the ideals of living in regards to work and love, wealth and fame seem to be given a manageable frame in which to work in. What Murdoch seems to be saying is that we must be swept along by the course of our own story and not be caught "under the net." The old argument which Bellow echoes also of Being and Becoming. Living, not without reflection, but containing the dialogue between oneself and existence within because once it is set out on paper it becomes a story, not life. "The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self destruction." Jake is learning to live more fully by instinct and self-forgetfulness. He is learning to allow other people's point of views into his own life. He finds that by constantly looking only within himself he isn't able to see anyone there. The being has left.

This isn't merely Murdoch's first novel, it is also (one of) her best. The story of the would-be writer Jake D. who struggles to find a proper literary philosophy to ignite his career, nicely reflects Murdoch's own intellectual struggles in writing "Under the Net". Although this might sound rather high-blown and tedious, it is not, for by mixing the philosophical musings with the picaresque form, Murdoch ensures that the story is highly dynamic and entertaining. We follow Jake through a series of bizarrely comic and breathtaking incidents, and observe how he develops his initial egoistical Sartrean world-view to a truer and more profound understanding of his fellow-beings. It is fascinating to watch how this development unveils Jake's pretentiousness and shapes him into a mature artist. In sum, this novel simply has and is everything, drama, farce, mask, satire etc. and Murdoch has mixed these elements with such dexterity that one can doubt whether she ever wrote a better book. In saying so it must also be emphasised that "Under the Net" foreshadows much of Murdoch's later work.

Iris Murdoch's first novel, Under the Net, follows the story of a young English writer, to lazy and afraid to write anything original, who subsists on translating trash French fiction and survives on the charity of friends. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that it consists of a first person narrative of a male character, written by a woman. The protagonist finds thrown out of the house in which he has been living when his benefactor (and sometimes lover) decides to marry a somewhat unsavory character. What follows is a series of revelations about the motivations and character of his aquaintances which leads him on an interesting romp through the London of the fifties. A must read for any Murdoch fan. Cheers

In her novel Under the Net, Iris Murdoch examines the nature of reality through the thoughts and relationships of the novel's main character, Jake Donaghue. A recurring theme in the novel is the idea of reflection, in both senses of the word: Jake is continually thinking about ideas, and he is also forever trying to see himself as he really is. Many of the instances of reflection in the novel occur near rivers or are connected in some way to currents. Under the Net examines the nature of reality through the many reflections in the novel. Iris Murdoch uses these reflections to mirror the true relationships between contingency and non-contingency, between appearance and reality:

Events stream past us like these crowds and the face of each is seen only for a moment. What is urgent is not urgent for ever but only ephemerally. All work and all love, the search for wealth and fame, the search for truth, like 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 broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came. (p244)

Contingency and non-contingency, like reality and appearance, are mirror images of each other that are interconnected; one cannot exist without the other. Despite the contingency and uncertainty surrounding our everyday reality, we press on as part of the dialogue of life, and Under the Net stands as a fascinating exploration of this uniting of concepts.

Jake, a marginal literary figure who gets by translating French novels, veers erratically from one obsession to another. He goes from determined pursuit to avoidance in the blink of an eye. Whenever he gets what he has indicated that he wants, he spurns it. He is maddeningly arbitrary, but also fascinating because the author deftly expresses the flux of thought and impulse that motivate human action (and inaction). The other characters serve primarily as foils for his shifting attitudes. Only by conspicuous exertion is Jake able to even conceive of Hugo, his hulking sometime companion, becoming a watchmaker or of Finn, his longtime "shadow", returning to Ireland. They exist only as they play a role in Jake's life. The most significant development, in a story where things largely end up where they started, is Finn's replacement by a dog (not necessarily a flattering commentary on Finn).

The one non-ancillary character is "Mrs. Tinck", the news store proprietor, who, benevolent soul that she is, comes across as an interesting person in her own right. The book effectively begins and ends in her shop. She is also the one who, gently, helps Jake to take himself less seriously. She accomplished this, in a scene at the end of the story, in a fashion that left me smiling as I closed the book.

While some of the plotting seems unnecessarily complicated, some of the dialogue far too (intentionally?) stilted, and there are too many coincidences, the overall effect of this book is dazzling. The best scenes: Jake and Finn stealing Mars; Jake following Anna into the Tuileries Gardens; and all the scenes with Mrs. Tinck more than offset the comparative clunkers with Lefty Todd and Hugo. The author's expatiation on the tension between silence and expression (truth and falsehood) came across as heavy-handed spoof, especially with the passage from "The Silencer" and the mime theater interlude.

All in all, however, in its sly and subversive way, this book is "one of the wonders of the world."