The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (pub. 1978)

Did he really eat boiled onions for breakfast? One of the endearing if dysphagic elements of this book is the careful recipes nay concoctions the like children might assemble when their parents were away. The bizarre thing is that this was standard grub in the Bayley/Murdoch household. If you wish to follow through on that the Paris Review has an article:
cooking with Iris

Who he? Charles Arrowby renowned theatre director, now retired to Shruff End a house on a promontory right at the edge of the sea, the sea. Alone with his memories mainly of the women that he has subjugated by alternately wooing and leaving until their emotional life is imprinted with his personality. In the Platonic world of philosopher Murdoch the incarnation is preceded by the idea. They do turn up, all of them and for a section of the novel all at the same time. That’s the classic Murdoch stew. Don’t let it go off the boil and keep adding: stir, stir, stir.

Now I won’t even attempt to offer a summary of the novel but instead focus on a central moral theme that of the correlative sins of jealousy and envy which oppress Arrowby. He has to own and absolutely own the past and present of his women. He breaks them by clever direction and the creation of crisis, resolution and abandonment. One woman has escaped him, his first girl friend Hartley, a secret love that left him when they were both eighteen. They were chaste and therefore perfect lovers, the yolk and shell of the one egg. But why, why, why did she go off untraceably? In a karmic reversal he is owned by her: a lump remains like a Jungian serpent in the cave of his past.

I mentioned karma and that brings in the Tibetan theme. His cousin and only relative James Arrowby, retired general, scholar of Tibetan occult lore, spy, adept, and siddha has come back into his life. Charles has envied him all his life and measured his achievements by comparison with the soldier’s. In the completion of a cycle of incarnations all manner of coincidences abound. A siddha induces acceleration of prarabdha (unresolved) karma. Things happen around him. The director finds that the play is getting out of hand though he tries to force his interpretation on it. The past remains owned by Hartley and that is unacceptable.

The novel is a coup of narrative surge. There is no let up. (would cardomom pods go with this ?– crushed or whole?) But how is it finishable? Wonderfully. Read this, save it for the summer, get lots of sand in it. Great writing, good ideas, vile recipes.