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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 MURDOCH | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 921 MURDOCH | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A moving memoir by the husband of the great contemporary writer Dame Iris Murdoch captures the ineffable mystery and fascination that she has exerted on both him and her readers and chronicles her recent sad struggle with Alzheimer's disease. 25,000 first printing. First serial, The New Yorker.
Author Notes
John Oliver Bayley was born on March 27, 1925 in Lahore, India. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford University and served in the Grenadier Guards during World War II. He became a fellow of New College at Oxford in 1955, teaching English, and later joined the faculty of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1973.
He was a literary critic and author. His works included The Power of Delight, Tolstoy and the Novel, Shakespeare and Tragedy, and The Red Hat. He wrote three memoirs involving his life from when his wife, novelist Iris Murdoch, was struck by Alzheimer's disease until after her death. The memoirs were entitled Elegy for Iris, Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire, and Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement, or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home. Elegy for Iris was adapted into a film entitled Iris. He was a frequent contributor to several publications including The Times Book Review and The New York Review of Books. He died from heart insufficiency on January 12, 2015 at the age of 89.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
It is seldom that someone at once so brilliant and so visible as novelist Iris Murdoch develops Alzheimer's disease in full public view; seldom, also, that a sufferer from this dreadful malady has so skilled and loving an interpreter by her side. Bayley, a noted literary critic (and, recently, novelist) in his own right, has been married to Murdoch for 40 years, and part of the charm of this enormously affecting memoir lies in the ways in which he shows the affections of old age as in no way slower than the passions of youth. Murdoch was already a dashing and rather mysterious figure when she and Bayley met in the Oxford of the 1950s; she was a philosophy don at a women's college who had just written a much-admired first novel; he was a bright, rather naive graduate student. Something mutually childlike clicked between them, however, and a naked swim in the River Isis (which later became a fond habit lasting even into Iris's illness) cemented their loving friendship. Writing with great tenderness and grace, Bayley evokes their long, warm, mutually trusting marriage, and introduces in the gentlest way the moments, four years ago, when he realized that his wife's sense of reality and of herself were slipping away. She is now anxious, repetitious and often nonsensical in her speech, but still suffused with the same quizzical sweetness and absolute trust he loved in her from the start. Few people afflicted with an Alzheimer's partner can be as self-effacing and endlessly patient as Bayley, but in a way almost as mysterious as the creation of a Murdoch novel, he evokes depths of understanding and warmth that seem scarcely ruffled by the breezes of the conscious mind. This beautiful book could hardly help being deeply consoling to anyone thus afflicted; it is also a compelling study of the overthrow of a remarkable spirit. First serial to the New Yorker. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Bayley was smitten by Iris Murdoch the first time he spied her riding her bicycle past his window in Oxford. They met, fell readily in love, married, and embarked on four decades of splendid compatibility, a union currently undergoing an eerie transformation as Alzheimer's fogs Murdoch's formerly luminous mind. Bayley calls his golden remembrance of Iris lost an elegy, but it is suffused more with love than sorrow and is more enthralling than mournful. Bayley's prose is so ambrosial the impulse is to savor each word and nuance of wonder, gratitude, candor, and humor. Still in awe of his loved one's brilliance and creativity, Bayley portrays Murdoch as an effortlessly captivating woman whose generosity of spirit inspired her to write novels that had "something for everybody." He remains intrigued with every aspect of her being, from her penchant for swimming to her complete lack of interest in personal appearance and domestic skills, fascination with paintings, vital imagination, scintillating intellect, Buddhist leanings, and, now, the altered and circumscribed personality engendered by her disorder. Bayley not only sings the praises of his beloved but also celebrates the true nature of intimacy and love. --Donna Seaman
Kirkus Review
A sweet if somewhat old-fashioned memoir about a literary marriage. Bayley, author of the novel The Red Hat and a noted critic, met novelist and philosopher Dame Iris Murdoch (Jackson's Dilemma, 1996, etc.) while he was teaching at Oxford's St. Anthony's College and instantly came under her sway. Though Murdoch was less quick to return his affection, she too fell in love after a delightfully disastrous date in which a well-advertised restaurant served them "nasty" food and Murdoch herself fell down some stairs on her way to the dance floor; these mishaps unearthed the couple's deepest connection: a fine sense of humor, indeed, their joy in private jokes and laughs. In her time, Murdoch was a woman of unconventional intelligence and independence'she had a long string of lovers, did not want children, had an almost slovenly disregard for her appearance, and was in no hurry to get married, though she never seems to have doubted that Bayley should be the groom. Using flashbacks, Bayley lightens his accounts of Murdoch's present disappearance into Alzheimer's disease with happier memories of their long, comfortable life together, a life filled with trips, summer swims, and pleasure in books. Bayley clearly adores and admires his celebrated wife, and his care of her illness is a model of devotion. This unalloyed affection is refreshingly sweet, but too often his descriptions of Murdoch edge over into the saccharine--for him she is "Christ-like"--and the result is an unusual lack of insight into her abilities. Would the woman who never took any interest in children really have "looked after [her own child] better and more conscientiously than most mothers, and no doubt would have brought it up better, too"? Nonetheless, this seems an appropriate error for a loving husband to make, and the book's intimate tone will surely please both his fans and hers. (6 b&w photos, not seen) (First serial to the New Yorker) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
English author and philosopher Iris Murdoch is best known for her novels, which are filled with characters embroiled in philosophical conflicts. In this memoir, her husband, a renowned literary critic, presents his insights into her creativity, her personality, and their relationship. Even after 42 years of marriage, Murdoch remains an enigma to him. Though he always felt safe and comfortable with her"protected from the world"he had "no idea of what she was doing or how." She seemed to spread "an involuntary aura of beneficence and goodwill," yet it was in her ceaseless invention that she seemed to live most fully. Reminiscences of the past are juxtaposed with the reality of the present, in which Bayley tries to cope with the daily frustrations of caring for Murdoch now that she has Alzheimer's disease. His bouts of worry, anger, and pity are always tempered by his deep concern for her welfare. This book will appeal to Murdoch fans and is appropriate for public and academic libraries.Ilse Heidmann, San Marcos, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Then | p. 1 |
| Now | p. 223 |
