Under the Net

You recently watched the film Iris on TV and found it fascinating. The movie portrays the later life of Iris Murdoch—the Irish‑born novelist and philosopher—focusing especially on her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. It is based on the memoir written by her husband, John Bayley.

Under the Net is Murdoch’s first novel. Its protagonist, Jake, is a writer who has produced very little original work and makes his living translating French novels. When his girlfriend decides to get married, Jake and his companion Finn—who is almost like Jake’s shadow—are thrown out of her house. Penniless and effectively homeless, Jake begins wandering through London in search of a place to stay. He visits old friends, but nothing goes well.

Years earlier, Jake had published The Silencer, a philosophical dialogue based on conversations with Hugo, without telling him. Feeling guilty, he broke off their friendship. Now Hugo has become a wealthy and celebrated filmmaker. Jake sets out to find him, traveling even to Paris in search of his former lover Anna. Eventually, Jake ends up working as an orderly in a hospital, where he unexpectedly encounters the injured Hugo. They talk, reconcile, and escape from the hospital together.

Hugo then abandons his fame and fortune and disappears again, this time to become a watchmaker. Finn also vanishes, returning to Ireland. Jake is left alone with Mars, the movie‑star dog he has effectively kidnapped from Sadie and Sammy. Only then does he realize how little he understood the people around him—Hugo, Sadie, Anna, even Finn. He also realizes he never truly understood the French novelist he had been translating. Jake decides to continue working as an orderly and to begin his life as a writer anew.

The novel contains many memorable scenes: Jake searching for Hugo around St Paul’s Cathedral with Finn and Dave, the philosopher; Jake meeting Lefty, a left‑wing leader, in a pub and then swimming with him in the Thames at night; Jake kidnapping Mars from Sammy’s flat; Jake overhearing Sadie and Sammy’s conspiracy from a fire‑escape landing; Jake wandering through Paris during a fireworks display along the Seine while looking for Anna. These moments are comic, sometimes pathetic, and always vivid.

Jake’s search for a home becomes a metaphor for his search for meaning. The novel blends comedy with Murdoch’s philosophical background. I am not sure what her exact philosophical position is, though I suspect some of it is reflected in Hugo. Still, the book can be thoroughly enjoyed even without understanding her philosophical ideas.

The final line of the novel is:

“I don’t know why it is,” I said. “It’s just one of the wonders of the world.”

  

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