Magellan's Log: Iris Murdoch: Colloidality

Perspective: I do not grovel unquestioningly at IM's feet. They are after all, like all feet, of clay. In fact her warts (switching metaphors), because we are so close to her in time, are much more visible (and irritating) than those of oh say Shakespeare (he-he). She knows, for example, almost nothing about music. "Tone-deaf" doesn't begin to describe her insensitivity. And she misses male sexuality almost completely; her men sexually tend to act sort of like priests who occasionally suddenly become aware that they have this organ between their legs that gets bigger. Her politics, even when she's trying hard to be politically hip, are at best dubious. And so on. I'm often exasperated with her for these "flaws". But she is a master weaver, with her own textures, palette, and pace, consistently achieving effects which even the best of the rest of 20th century novelists only rarely approached. I suspect a possibly long generation of global troubles, climatic, political, and cultural, will have to rise and fall before (assuming we survive the troubles) she comes into her own.