Introduction chapter I. The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Early Novels of Iris Murdoch

2.2 Mythological and cultural allusions in the novels of Iris Murdoch
In this monologue, Bradley Murdoch refers to her favorite thesis of linguistic philosophy about the limitations of the human word, about its inability to reproduce the richness, complexity and inconsistency of being, and, especially, the inner world of a person (an echo of this philosophy is also heard in Bradley's above statement regarding "theories" and "generalizations" that are generated by clouding emotions). Thus, through the mouth of Bradley, another point of view on his book, and therefore on Murdoch's novel as a whole, is affirmed: what is offered to the reader's judgment should be considered only as an imperfect version of the artistic creation that arose in the author's imagination, only as a shadow of the truth. , which even an artist who owns the word cannot convey to the end.
The Severed Head novel leaves a feeling of bewilderment after reading. Toward the end of the novel, the round dance of events picked up quite an incredible speed, acquiring a distinct, not round dance, but still dance pattern of changing partners, and the principles of our expectation of the next plot twists also changed. When the second round of the love dance was coming to an end (the partners began to return to each other for the second time), we could not help but understand that the story could only end with a stop, establishing at least some kind of balance. And the tense expectation of final answers to the questions “Who?”, “When”, “With whom?” suppressed the search for psychological motives from the repertoire of tools that we used to build a forecast "How will it all end?". We were waiting for the denouement, and only after we got it, were we able to restore the ability to search for motives in the behavior of the characters. But it was already too late, the novel ended, but bewilderment remained.¹⁵
And if you do not cope with your bewilderment, then you can come to a very aggressive formulation of the question: “Why write such novels?” The aggressive component of bewilderment will certainly come to naught if, while trying to explain to ourselves how “such” novels are, we keep in mind another, no less legitimate question: “Why do we read novels?” At the same time, when answering this question, it would be nice to track the role of stereotyped axioms acquired in school. The novels of Iris Murdoch cannot serve as an "encyclopedia" of English life, but it is probably unreasonable to seriously reproach the writer for this, because almost no novels at all can serve as encyclopedias. And even the textbook example and the main source of this widespread school illusion - "Eugene Onegin" - allows you to turn yourself into an encyclopedia only through the efforts of Vladimir Nabokov and Yuri Lotman, whose comments on the novel are several times larger than it in volume. It is clear that with some diligence, and most importantly, with a very serious knowledge of British life and culture, gleaned from various sources, we will be able to catch some country-specific material from the works of Iris Murdoch. But it's scary to even think how distorted our ideas about modern Britain will turn out to be if the novels of this writer turn out to be their only source. It suffices to point out, using Soviet rhetoric, the "terribly narrow social circle" of the characters. In the novels of the writer, in their 26, you will find only indications of their profession, and then not always, because, as a rule, the heroes of Iris Murdoch, if they work, then outside the plot.¹⁶
As, for example, in our novel, Martin only appeared a couple of times in his office, Palmer, a psychoanalyst, conducted sessions only with Antonia, and did not subsequently turn out to be only a cover for their dates. There is, however, another indication that he was with the patient. Honoria and Georgia are professors whose students appear to be on Christmas break, although this is not stated in any way. Sculptor Alexander is in creative idle time, and Antonia and Rosemary provide life. And if we do not abandon the criteria of "typical" and "characteristic" when approaching A. Murdoch's novels, then we will not be able to avoid absurd reproaches addressed to her. It is not difficult to abandon such labored criteria, especially since in the process of reading the vast majority of free readers alone do not work, the tribe of non-free readers (forced to write or proofread a school essay on the topic “The Image of a Woman” or “The Theme of Love”) is so small that they can be neglected.