Friday 21 May 2021

'A Severed Head' by Iris Murdoch

There are hours that you won’t get back.  ‘A Severed Head’ owes me several but her credit is good.  How interesting can utterly morally labile characters be is a question.  If there is no personal center there is no interest in their predicaments, their confusion, their attachments or passions.  Philosophically we are presented attributes without a substance.  It’s a farce with houses instead of doors and initially it seemed to promise mockery of psychoanalysis when a wife and her analyst lover engage in the emotional healing of the cuckold.  Then it fades away into musical beds in which all the dramatis personae permute polyamourously.

Don’t bother. 

No comments: