The Sandcastle (Vintage Classics Murdoch Series)

Description

Iris Murdoch's tragic, comic tale of love and lust - now republished as part of the Vintage Classics Murdoch Series - six gorgeous editions of her best, funniest and most subversive novels published to mark her centenary. 'It's all dry sand running through the fingers.' When Bill Mor falls in love with Rain Carter he discovers a new way of being and a new joy in the world and his surroundings. To be with Rain he must abandon his prosaic life as a schoolmaster, his domineering wife Nan and his troubled teenaged children. He must draw on the powers of selfishness, hatred and anger in order to make the final break. But what love could survive all that violence? WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BIDISHA VINTAGE CLASSICS MURDOCH- Funny, subversive, fearless and fiercely intelligent, Iris Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To celebrate her centenary Vintage Classics presents special editions of her greatest and most timeless novels.

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.

How bloody good her novels are - how intelligent, how lucent, how divinely crazy. They're fun - I'd forgotten that. -- Sarah Waters * Guardian * One of her most haunting works... She is spectacularly enigmatic -- Philippa Gregory Her characters are described with loving exactitude and in such depth that their struggles to define what it means to live a good life take on dramatic force. * New York Times * Iris Murdoch is incapable of writing without fascinating and beautiful colour * The Times * She believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits. Her world is ignited by belief -- Martin Amis