The Guiding Light of Fiction

You may have noticed that I finally finished a couple of books this week—Iris and Her Friends and The Bell. The latter is a fictional study of cause-and-effect, and of the myriad ways people love one another. Oh, there were the other typical themes Murdoch so often employs in her fiction (religion, goodness, history, morality), but these two were the lightest-and-breeziest of the lot and the only ones I had any inclination to pay attention to. I liked this description of the consequences of our actions/behavior:

“Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.”

This reminds me that even our most thoughtful actions may have unintended results, may lead to consequences that are out of our control. It reminds me that actions are never short-term, that every action has echoes that endure through time and space. Act with care.

This morning I tackled the difficult task of choosing a new book to start. As I scanned the spines on a couple of bookshelves, I delighted in spotting about 10 more books I could add to the sale. Then I found a big-type, short novel by Jeanette Winterson that seems perfect for my current mental state. In the first few pages of Lighthousekeeping, I read this timely advice:

“And if you can’t survive in this world, you had better make a world of your own.”

That is just what I intend to do, too. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I feel better already knowing I have a goal. And a new story to read.

Who needs self-help books when fiction offers both pleasure and guidance?

[Pigeon Point Lighthouse photo by Tyler Westcott.]

A Convergence of Literature, Memory, and Caregiving

I’m not sure I’d know who literary critic John Bayley was were he not the widower of Iris Murdoch. But since I’m currently reading The Bell, which Murdoch wrote around the time she married Bayley, I thought it would be informative to also read his take on their relationship.

I’d long ago started reading Bayley’s first memoir about his life with Murdoch, Elegy for Iris. I don’t think I finished it. In fact, I probably didn’t get far into it at all because, as I recall, I was disappointed that it was more about him than her.

Well, what was I thinking? It was HIS memoir, after all. And it would have been foolhardy to market the book without pushing the Murdoch connection.

Last month I thought I’d give him another try—especially in light of the fact that I felt I now had a tenuous connection to Bayley: caregiving. How did it affect him? Change him?

I was about 100 or so pages into Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire (note: the “friends” are not what you might expect)—each page turn requiring some cheerleading on my part to accomplish—when I decided to finish the book simply as an exercise in learning about someone/something I’m not really interested in. And then I reached this sentence on page 129:

“Most memoirs and autobiography have a ‘clever little me’ feel about them somewhere.”

I laughed because Bayley had admitted to one of the very reasons I was finding his memoirs tiresome. Yet by saying as much, he managed to break down the barrier between his story and his reader (me). He finally strikes me as genuine and straightforward, and I’ll likely enjoy the rest of his tale. I’m tempted to dust off Elegy for Iris next and give it another go.

I laughed also because I caught a slight reflection in that sentence of my own narrowmindedness and expectations of the book. The window into someone else’s history always casts new light onto our own lives and our understanding of the world. We just have to embrace what comes our way.

Mind wide open…

[Art: Tom Phillips’ portrait of Iris Murdoch for the National Portrait Gallery; cover for John Bayley’s recommended reading compilation, Hand Luggage: A Personal Anthology.]