For some reason, rather like the packet of Thai Sweet Chilli crisps, ham and egg sandwich (on "polar bread" - whatever that is) and can of Pepsi I had for lunch yesterday, Iris Murdoch's The Red and the Green took me an age to get through - and still left me feeling unsated.
Lunch was a bit grotty because I'd spent a weekend over-indulging and I should have just had a salad instead. I'm not so sure about the book. I can't quite work out whether I've brought it on myself by dining literarily on a rich but restricted and unimaginitive diet of Iris Murdoch, John Le Carre and Graham Greene over the past year or two. Or perhaps I'm just not particularly interested in the story of Irish independence (though given the headlines this week, that would be rather shameful). Or maybe it just wasn't one of IM's better novels.
Either way, the moment when we discover that Millie has revealed to Andrew (her nephew) that his father (her brother) had been her lover seemed just a bit obvious and dull - or not obvious and far-fetched. Or just not interesting. I'm not sure. Whichever, it was a shame, because I thought IM captured some of the earlier moments of flirtation between Andrew and Millie brilliantly (notably when Andrew fishes around in the pool to get his hands on the earring Millie has dropped).
It's always difficult to get excited about a novel when you don't care about the people in it. I still couldn't remember who was related to whom (and how), even after re-reading the convoluted family history chapter again (I couldn't face it a third time and just gave up). Even the bombshell at the end had more bang than whimper. So the fairly non-descript girl betrothed to the boring straight-laced chap turned out to love the passionate and unpredictable rebel after all. Really?
There's a lesson there somewhere. It might be that even great writers have off days. But I think it's probably more likely to be that repeatedly consuming a thing you love eventually makes you tire of the taste. I've started Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder now, which should at least make a change. I'm already looking for holes to pick because the author appears to be a brilliant academic with an expertise in law, Shakespeare and Freud (never mind now publishing a critically-acclaimed novel) and I'm always suspicious of over-achievers.
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