The Sea, The Sea review

[alobear]

Another birthday book, and an excellent one.  The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch is incredibly well written, but rather odd.  Not much actually happens, and the protagonist is fairly reprehensible, but the narrative is extremely compelling and beautifully structured.  It tells the story of a man who retires to the seaside to discover his childhood sweetheart living nearby, and then follows his attempts to win her back.  That all sounds fairly innocuous, but it is gradually revealed that he has taken great pleasure in destroying the lives of most of his acquaintances throughout his life, and his tactics in trying to separate this latest poor woman from her husband become quite extreme as the plot unfolds.  I couldn't understand why all his friends were so willing to be manipulated and so desperate for his attention, since he always seemed rather mean and pathetic to me, but the spiral of obsession and destruction that runs through the book is very involving.