Martin ama a su esposa, Antonia, y a su amante, Georgie. Un día, Antonia le cuenta que es amante de Anderson, y que se quiere casar con él, aunque no quiere salirse del todo de su actual matrimonio. Se forma entonces un trío entre Martin, Antonia y Anderson. Luego Antonia se entera de la infidelidad de Martin, y se forma un amago de cuarteto con el trío anterior más Georgie. Martin se enamora a continuación de Hope, la hermana de Anderson, y la encuentra en la cama con Anderson, quien decide dejar a Antonia para seguir en su incesto. Georgie conoce al hermano de Martin, Alexander, y se compromete con él. Pero Alexander está enamorado de su cuñada, Antonia, de quien ha sido amante en secreto durante años.

A novel of two halves. The first half is the generally boring life of an upper middle class wineseller, his wife, and his mistress. The second half is a tragicomedy of partner swapping and emotional terrorism. The (samurai) sword of damocles hangs over our man Martin throughout, but it remains a metaphor. The second half is dramatic and you never really know what is going to happen next. It offers hit after hit, surprise after surprise. Certainly a nice change from a first half where I was considering the whole time whether to bother carrying on. But really the second half makes no sense. I am going to be generous and say that this is because the narrator and viewpoint of the novel Martin lacks the emotional intelligence to know what he wants, let alone to be able to attribute motives and consistency of character to others. But this makes is difficult to care. The characters aren't real human beings (maybe that's the point), their sex lives don't shock (though they do surprise). But its not clear why any of them do what they do. Every character is one-dimensional, sliding toward the next betrayal with motivation unclear, possibly even to themselves. Perhaps in 1962 A Severed Head offered a critique of the foolish lives of the emotionally dishonest and vaccuous upper-middle classes, but in 2022 there's nothing here except historical documentation. ( )

I’m a big fan of Murdoch but this one just didn’t come up to her usual standards. To be fair to her, what I should say is that it doesn’t reach the standards that her later novels show (The Black Prince and The Sea, The Sea in particular).

This isn’t unusual for great novelists though; just look at the difference between Woolf’s The Voyage Out and The Waves. In the same way, Murdoch starts out with Under the Net, moves on to The Bell and then A Severed Head. It’s definitely a step in the right direction. The characters are more sinister, more complex and more in need of a good hard slap in the face.

For a start, any protagonist with a double-barrelled surname in a Murdoch novel probably lacks a bit of perspective on anyone except himself. And so it proves. Martin Lynch-Gibbon is jilted in love and spends the rest of the novel attempting to come to terms with this, blind to the fact that his hypocrisy is laid bare by the fact that he was already having an affair at the time his wife confessed her own to him.

Events overtake him though (another theme that dominates later Murdoch novels) and he finds his wife, her lover and his own lover in alliance against him. At the same time, her lover’s enigmatic sister Honor Klein appears more and more frequently to lend a gothic air to everything.

It’s not hard to see what will happen in the end, but there are some twists along the way, notably in Cambridge (which, ironically, I have some personal experience of). The book moves at a fair pace, but it’s not the frenetic dash of The Sea, The Sea. Thus, we have an important Murdoch that shows traces of her later greatness. ( )

Another enjoyable day or so of reading another Murdoch novel They're so absorbing. This book has the usual formula of outwardly self-sufficient individuals precipitated into moral crises that is typical of her. The characters pass through a maelstrom of revelations, secrets and self discovery; they emerged chastened, more self-aware and sometimes happier.
This formula is never boring; it's part of Murdoch's genius to write into her novels believable characters who are in some way, often slight, damaged or lacking in a vital element that would round them into someone wholly human. So, we are all represented in her novels as the less than perfect persons we often wish we weren't.

Martin Lynch-Gibbon is perfectly satisfied with his wife, Antonia, and his young mistress, Georgie...until his wife suddenly announces that she is leaving him for Palmer Anderson, her psychoanalyst. Reeling from the wtf moment, the pain of betrayal, and infuriation by Antonia and Palmer's insistence at his inclusion in their relationship, and constant treatment of him as an overgrown child, he finds himself repelled but drawn to the most unlikely source of desire - Anderson's sallow-cheeked, greasy-haired laconic sister Honor Klein, whose existence seems to mock and expose his painfully male mistakes. As Martin stumbles through the fog of anxiety, anger and tears, he soon realizes the true depths of his self-deception, and who he really loves.

Thought the Main Character Trying To Lead His Own Life Without Interference trope was all she had? Wrong!! Iris makes another long running Murdochian trope the centre of attention: The Complicated Love Triangle (where friends suddenly become lovers, lovers turn into strangers and acquaintances suddenly become lovers). Iris's depiction of love is intense and consuming, but diffused and confused. Everything is shrouded in possibility, waiting for the chance of a mere encounter. Seemingly logical decisions and rational behaviour, once stripped away, are often exposed for elements of emotional involvement - and each character has different instruments to cheat themselves. Martin tries to rationally justify his decision for a mistress. Antonia beseeches Martin to be reasonable and kind, after she elopes with Palmer. The only character that seems to withstand the self-bullshit is Honor, who lurks in the novel as some cloaked sceptre of truth - apparently nobody can lie to her because they're compelled into honesty by forces beyond.
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The dryer Iris is, the more dramatic she turns, and this was so much fun to read!! I'm just glad that she left behind such a prolific amount of work. ( )