Are you confused yet? Time to introduce the Dramatis Personae:
Rupert and Hilda Foster, he a senior civil servant, economics department, she a housewife with a multitude of committees to attend to.
Peter their only child, dropping out of Cambridge and gone to live with Tallis Browne a community worker and evening class lecturer.
Tallis Browne is the husband of Morgan, Hilda’s sister, back from America where she has been for the last two years. While there she was the mistress of Julius King. They have parted now.
Simon Foster is the brother of Rupert and the partner of Axel. The latter is a colleague of Rupert’s and an old friend from college days.
Well then, are we sitting comfortably? As the novel opens it is the 20th. Wedding anniversary of Rupert and Hilda. The time seems to be in the early 60’s, Rupert had a good war. I have never been able to quite get the insinuation of that expression. They are drinking champagne in the afternoon and getting a trifle squiffy. The Evening Standard has reported that Julius King is in England after a stint in Dibbins College heading up a military funded lab working on biological warfare. Nerve gas and anthrax resistant to antibiotics. He has given that up because he got bored with it. We are told that he is Jewish and independently wealthy. Julius is the arch manipulator, Mephistophelian meddler and the kingpin of this novel. He makes things happen with an malicious ingenuity which is quite credible given that all the characters other than Tallis Browne are self absorbed and not capable of noticing the damage done or if they have, doing anything about it. In contrast to the ghostly ‘Sovereignty of the Good’ we might subtitle this book ‘The Ebullience of Evil’.
Morgan Browne is an emotional wreck sustaining herself with lots of whiskey and gin. Morgan le Fay is a suggestion from her name, sexually predatory and the disciple of Merlin/Julius. She is a disturber and a creator of variance. Tallis Browne who will not divorce her lives in Notting Hill in utter filth which Murdoch has great fun describing. Have you ever been in a house where you step backwards onto a plastic bag which yields like dead puppies? Morgan visiting Tallis remembers that their previous house in Putney had a similar smell.
Axel and Simon live near to Rupert and Hilda in the posh Barons Court area. The minutiae of this relationship seems a parody of heterosexual marriage with fluttery airheaded Simon and stern sensible strict Axel. The closet is firmly closed to Axel’s colleagues in Whitehall. Even Simon when he first met met Axel did not know that he was ‘queer’. They met in the kouros annex of the National Museum in Athens quite by chance. That was some 3 years previously and the photo of the kouros resides on the left of the mantelpiece. Simon’s fear of the loss of the love of Axel is the lever that Julius uses to make him collude unknowingly with his plan to disturb the cosy relationships in his vicinity. How that is worked is a masterpiece of creative ingenuity of Murdoch’s.
It’s an excellent novel very well sustained with a good serving of evil that is in its way a demonstration of its privative quality. Confidence, faith, trust and love is taken away in a spirit of wilful caprice and when ruin ensues rationalisation follows. Probably one of her best books.
In case you are wondering why stealing is wrong:
Rupert, who had not had a philosophical training for nothing, was never startled by any question, however bizarre, and was ready at once to give it his undivided attention. He reflected now for a while, staring at Tallis. Then he said ‘Of course the concept of stealing is linked to the concept of property. Where there are no property rights there is no wrongful appropriation of the goods of another. In completely primitive situations where there is no society—if any such situations exist or existed—it could be argued that there are no property rights and so no stealing. Also in certain kinds of community, such as a monastery or conceivably a family, there could be mutual voluntary renunciations of property rights, so that within the community stealing would not exist by definition. Though even in these two cases what a man customarily uses such as his clothes or his tools might be thought of as natural property and ergo as deserving of respect. Indeed one might argue that it could never be right under any circumstances, to remove a man’s toothbrush against his will. However, in state and society as we know it, there is no prospect of any universal voluntary surrender of the concept of property, and extremely complicated property rights, extending far beyond the area of clothes and tools, appear to exist and are upheld by law. Doubtless many of these complex arrangements can be argued to be economically and politically necessary to the well-being and continuance of the state, and in a healthy open society the details of these arrangements are properly a matter for continual discussion and adjustment in the light of both expediency and morality. Acceptance of any society, and even a bad society gives its members many benefits, does seem to suggest a certain duty to respect property. In a bad undemocratic society there might of course exist specialized duties to disregard particular alleged property rights, or even to break the law as a matter of protest, though it should be kept in mind that there are always prima facie utilitarian arguments against stealing, in so far as people may be distressed by the removal of their goods. But in a democratic society stealing is surely wrong not only for utilitarian reasons but because property is an important part of a structure generally agreed to be good and whose alteration in detail can be freely sought.’
When Rupert had finished speaking Tallis waited as if there might be something more to come. He looked puzzled. Then he said, ‘Thank you very much, Rupert.’ And to Hilda, ‘Please forgive me, I must go. Don’t bother to see me to the door. Oh how kind of you. Thank you, good-bye, good-bye.’ He went away smiling and waving.
Hilda and Rupert walked back into the drawing room. They picked up their drinks. They stared at each other in complete bafflement.
If they knew that their son Peter was shoplifting with abandon they would be less puzzled.
Julius is asked the same question:
Why is stealing wrong?’
‘It’s just a matter of definition,’ said Julius.
‘How do you mean?’
‘It’s a tautology. “Steal” is a concept with a built-in pejorative significance. So to say that stealing is wrong is simply to say that what is wrong is wrong. It isn’t a meaningful statement. It’s empty.’
‘Oh. But does that mean that stealing isn’t wrong?’
‘You haven’t understood me,’ said Julius. ‘Remarks of that sort aren’t statements at all and can’t be true or false. They are more like cries or pleading. You can say “Please don’t steal” if you want to, so long as you realize that there’s nothing behind it. It’s all just conventions and feelings.’
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