Iris Murdoch’s novel The Sea, The Sea has, despite my initial wariness about reading the journal of a lonely bitter man, worked its way into being the last book I loved.
This story of the arrogant and sexist Charles Arrowby starts out slowly, with long digressions about family and physical surroundings. But the charm of Murdoch’s prose lies exactly in those details: the specific stone Charles steps across as he walks toward the ocean; the way the lamp flickers as if a ghost were haunting the old house he lives in; the smell of the boiling onions that fills his lonely kitchen.
The point, it seems, is to test the reader. Innumerable details bloat the narrative, but somehow, these asides become pleasurable as the reader learns the various levels of insanity that arise from loneliness and love. Arrowby’s convoluted and downright bizarre attempts to break up the marriage of his childhood sweetheart become a mechanism for the reader to relate to and understand his character. And despite his stalker tendencies, Arrowby’s obvious delusions become somehow endearing, even as he holds the love of his life hostage.
Tiers of symbolism and mysticism also hold up the novel, so it’s impossible to just describe it as a mere love story gone perverse. In the end, although Arrowby seems to disdain all of mankind, Murdoch’s clever juggling of the reader’s emotions creates a true fondness for the inexplicable strangeness of Arrowby and the story woven around him.
