The Bell by Iris Murdoch

I like a good read. I think some of the best books challenge, or provoke - tease you into considering viewpoints from a different slant. I have just finished 'The Bell' by Iris Murdoch. I found it on the bookshelves of a thrift store and liked the look of it. It's quite magnificent. It isn't long, perhaps 250 pages. What's great is the maze of personalities which unfold in due (not hurried) course. Michael Meade is one of the more interesting (not that any are vastly less so), with his background of denied admission to the priesthood - a trait I share - his intellectual, highly-strung and surprisingly passionate personality and his 'vices', which form a central thread of this delicate tale.

The bell which lends its name to the book's title plays an almost absent role in the novel apart from this: it is an old, medieval bell about which a myth has arisen of curses and witches and carvings and disappearence! In a way, the troubled life of the bell is a metaphor for the novel. Murdoch is less interested in creating a gripping yarn with twists and turns than she is in digging, like a voracious prospector, into the mind and hearts of her created characters. And what you may find as you travel in your minds eye alongside these people, is that your own heart and mind are being gently pricked by the searching light of Murdoch's thorough glance.

I really enjoyed this read. It ends really adequately well. Someone dear to me recently suggested a good ending separates the best books from their less worthy counterparts. To some extent I agree, and I think Murdoch does ok. Perhaps not exceptionally well, but then her tale really isn't about tying off loose ends and completing an unfinished saga. It's about the people, their unique curiosities, their flaws and imperfections, as well as their wonderful individuality. So unless the book carried on for the lifespan of a human, she had to end it somehow.

What's on your bedside table? Reading anything good?