Under the Net

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Poetry is another secret weapon. Frank O’Hara’s poem “Having a Coke with You”is an intimate homage to seeing one’s beloved in public; the earlier, filthier collections of Carol Ann Duffy, particularly Standing Female Nudeand Selling Manhattan, are awash with hot skin and private sounds. Memorise them; lines such as “far from the loud laughter of men / our secret life stirred” can accompany you anywhere, like tiny superpowers. Un po’ caotica, un po’ a zig zag, e strampalata, oltre che la sua vita, è la sua cerchia d’amici, a cominciare dalla grassa giornalaia che è piena di gatti (la prima edizione italiana fu intitolata I gatti ci guardano, sigh). The London story is interrupted by an interlude in Paris, during which Jake happens to seeAnna in the 14th of July crowd. He follows her for a long way and almost catches up with her in a wood in the Tuileries Gardens, but somehow loses her among the trees and people and never finds her again. He is left with overwhelming sadness.

One of these early works featured a “bogus scholar” and may have been instigated by Iris Murdoch’s own doubts about her intellectual stature. In 1947, when she took up the offer of a postgraduate scholarship to study Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge, she told Raymond Queneau that she had “started writing the novel about the Bogus scholar and the Archaic Goddess which has been in my head so long”. However, she later abandoned the novel, and confided to him her suspicion that what she had produced was “worthless”.

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Even better, poetry inspires. Mary Oliver, one of the American greats, is less known than she should be, beyond the bleak universe of motivational social media posts. Yet, perhaps partly because of her gayness, so many of her poems can bring strength and hope to those trapped in a bad relationship, the wrong relationship, the wrong life: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” has sustained me, as I hope it might you. The novel can be seen as a process of revelation to Jake, that our subjective descriptions are apparent, and unreliable. They conform to our “Net”, and are not the world itself, which may slip away, Under the Net. However, Wittgenstein later referred to this work as meaningless nonsense, and in 1953 he totally rejected the concepts which he had originally published in “Tractatus”. Iris Murdoch was never a student of Wittgenstein, but she did once meet him, and befriended Wittgenstein’s star pupil, Yorich Smythies. It is likely that she based Hugo’s character on Yorich Smythies. Logical atomism, sir." Jeeves was ready with his answer. "As explained in the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractus Logico-Philosophicus. Newtonian mechanics, the philosopher says, capture the world through the equivalent of a net, or many nets. The mesh may be fine or coarse, and its holes of different shapes, but it will always be regular, will always bring description ‘to a unified form’. But the world will always defy our descriptions and slip 'under the net' - that is where the novel's title comes from, sir." With an immensity of pains, Jake succeeds in reaching Hugo's room shortly after one in the morning. The conversation is not at all what he expected: Hugo is not at all angry with Jake, and it turns out that while Anna is indeed besotted with Hugo, Hugo himself is in love with Sadie, and Sadie with Jake—not a love triangle, but a one-way love diamond. Hugo demands that Jake help him escape. Jake does so, but they are seen by the hostile porter, Stitch, and Jake knows that he has lost his job.

The first thing is that Nandakishore Mridula has already written the perfect review of Under the Net. Iris Murdoch külliyatını okumak istediğim yazarlardan biriydi hep. Talihsiz bir başlangıçla İtalyan Kızı'nı okuyup ara vermiştim. Sonra evdeki hacimli Kara Prens ya da Deniz Deniz'e elim gitmeyince basitçe ince gördüğüm için bunu aldım. Elime aldığım akşam kaç kez kahkaha attım hatırlamıyorum bile :) I put aside the book I was reading and rang for Jeeves. As he shimmied into existence beside me, I gave him a scathing look: I wanted him to know I was miffed. Under the Net, Iris Murdoch’s first novel, might seem, at least in summary, fair game.It contains suspiciously European-sounding academics, Socratic argument, farcical semi-crimes, French translators, large affordable flats in Central London.Could anything be less attuned to this miserably populist, anti-intellectual, austerity-ridden xenophobic age?And, although its characters don’t have the establishment jobs, the beautiful gardens and romantic good fortune for which her later work is criticised, they are nonetheless fans of gauzy fabrics, Pernod and existentialism; they include a firework manufacturer, a celebrity German Shepherd, a fairly honest bookie and a taciturn taxi-driver.Everyone writes letters; the City of London is a Blitzed wasteland of rubble and fragile churches, full of willowherb and potential.What possible relevance could such a book have now?Our first clue to its depth is the title, Under the Net, which is a metaphor used by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his famous work, “Tractatus”, of 1921. Wittgenstein believed that the deepest truths can never be fully verbalised. Although people might conceive of them, such truths are diminished by the limitations of language. He stated that any attempt to talk about, explain, or write a truth is similar to placing a net over the truth. Its effect is to blur the image, and make the truth less than perfect. Newtonian mechanics, Wittgenstein said, captures the world through the equivalent of a net, or many nets. The squares of the net determine how things are seen, which is different from that of a net with a triangular, or hexagonal weave:

Oh, no, sir," the man was all apologies immediately. "Such behaviour is furthest from my mind, I assure you." For some time now I have been writing a novel, a continuation of one I started two years ago. If it turns out to be any use (about this I still don’t know), I shall dedicate it to you.”Jeeves's tone was reproachful. "Reduced to the bare essentials, sir, any work of art will look puerile. It is not what is written, but how it is written that matters in all forms of high literature. Interpolating a philosophical argument into a picaresque novel, and carrying it off without the pace flagging or the thread being lost, requires quite a deft hand. Miss Murdoch has accomplished it seamlessly, sir." There are some parts in London which are necessary and others which are contingent. Everywhere west of Earls Court is contingent, except for a few places along the river. I hate contingency. I want everything in my life to have a sufficient reason.” Iris Murdoch has a wonderful way with words, and can write ridiculously humorous episodes in a most entertaining way. Yet the more I think about his novel, the increasing plethora of cunning allusions I see, and the more brilliant Iris Murdoch’s achievement proves to be. The plot is best not described in detail: Jake is always looking for someone and rarely finding them, He has a fairly tangential relationship to the law and as this is Murdoch contingency raises its head: If like myself you are a connoisseur of solitude, I recommend to you the experience of being alone in Paris on the fourteenth of July.