Under the Net (1954)

I got a kick our of Iris Murdoch’s first novel, a picaresque farce about a struggling (“hack”) writer in London scraping along on his wits. There are many sideline characters and their dalliances, which resolve neatly if not always satisfyingly. The connective tissue involves a lot of unlikely coincidences and eavesdropping. All in a day’s work for a farce, though I rolled my eyes at some of the prolongations. At the center of it are Hugo Belfounder, the narrator’s strange friendship with him, and what comes of it. They meet as subjects in a study of the common cold, systematically infected with viruses and their reactions recorded. Under the Net is full of great details like that. Hugo and Jake Donaghue, the narrator, begin a conversation that lasts for weeks and months, philosophical stuff about language and reality. Jake keeps notes and finds himself idly working them up into a book format, which he circulates and ultimately finds a publisher for. All this seemed increasingly unlikely to me, but Murdoch also had a foot in the world of academic philosophy, so maybe. And at a certain point “unlikely” came to be not very important here. I just gave in to the sequence of events, which can be equally funny and imaginative. Her writing style as Jake is roguish and raw. Both Jake and Hugo are larger than life and hugely entertaining. It is a farce but a very clever one. Murdoch continued to publish books of philosophy as well as some two dozen novels, plus a handful of plays and two collections of poetry. Prolific! I thought it was interesting that the Modern Library list of the 100 Best 20th-Century Novels included this debut—rather low, at #95—over any other title by her, some of which are at least vaguely familiar to me (e.g., The Sea, The Sea, a 1978 Booker Prize winner). Lots of good stuff here. Hugo is an interesting “genius” character, inventor of “set piece fireworks,” an amateur philosopher, and eventually a film magnate. A dog named Mars gets mixed up in the action, a one-time star of the screen like Rin Tin Tin. It’s always good when there’s room for a dog. “Under the net” is a term of impromptu philosophy whose explanation you’ll have to read for yourself to understand. True confession: I’m still not quite getting it.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.