The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch.
Penguin Books, 1975 (1973).
… blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well comeddled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core.
— ‘Hamlet’ Act 3 Scene 2, 72-78).
When you’re faced with a narrative nested within forewords and postscripts from multiple authors you may start wondering who best to believe, or whether they’re all unreliable; but when the editor and then the memoirist batter you from the start with their verbosity you may then question whether you’ll have the stamina to stay the course.
But then you will remember that this is Iris Murdoch, who knows exactly what she’s doing, and that it takes great skill and discipline to write consistently dubious prose while keeping a tight rein on characterisation, pace and mood.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if, as a classicist and philosopher, she didn’t bring her disciplines to bear on A Black Prince: with its overt citations of and covert allusions to Hamlet I’m expecting an underlay of the four medieval ‘humours’ that categorised human personalities: blood, phlegm, choler or yellow bile, and so-called black bile, the source of the Prince of Denmark’s melancholia.
I’m not going to outline the convoluted and frankly farcical plot – the novel deserves close attention to appreciate how Murdoch introduces theatrical elements, with for instance telephones and doorbells interrupting confused but critical junctures. Instead I shall focus on characters, their nature, their roles and their relationships, all of which may go some way towards accounting for the ups and downs of the action.
Centrally placed is the principal narrator Bradley Pearson: author of just three titles spread over three decades, aged 58 he’s struggling to start his fourth, yet continues forever prevaricating and procrastinating, a characteristic which is the mainspring of the novel. One would correctly say that, like Hamlet, his resolve is always “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” so that his enterprises “lose the name of action.”
He is surrounded by a close-knit, almost incestuous group who, as the narrative proceeds, make it crystal clear to us observers that they all want something from Bradley that he is either unwilling or unable to give. We meet his younger sister Priscilla in the throes of separating from Roger, who has immediately taken up with his secretary Marigold; in her self-pitying suicidal state she requires Bradley’s total sympathy and support. We also meet Bradley’s ex-brother-in-law Francis Marloe, struck off as a doctor and constantly begging Bradley for money and drink.
Bradley’s hated ex-wife, who bears the Bunyanesque name of Christian, appears unexpectedly after her husband dies in America; and while her reasons for seeing her ex are opaque it’s clear she’s at least curious about how Bradley is generally coping. Then there’s Bradley’s former protégé Arnold Baffin, who as an author has turned out to be more successful in churning out titles; though Bradley sees him as a friend it’s clear that while resenting his colleague’s success he regards his work as lacking literary worth. It’s also obvious that Arnold sees Bradley as a lesser rival.
Finally we come Arnold’s wife Rachel and their grown-up daughter. Rachel will have sexual designs on our middle-aged protagonists, while Julian, named after the medieval mystic and female anchorite Julian of Norwich, pesters longtime family friend Bradley to tutor her on literature, and especially on Hamlet.
I initially struggled with this novel; having previously read two of Murdoch’s works – A Fairly Honourable Defeat, and A Severed Head – this felt like just another tale of befuddled middle-class, middle-aged inadequates blundering towards perdition; and the fact that it was apparently written by a failing author, one of whose verbal tics –constantly putting questionable or slangy words in quotation marks, – soon becomes quite wearing, does demand a lot from the reader.
But this is all part and parcel of Murdoch’s plan to play with our sympathies, defying us to side with one or other of the participants, unreliable narrators though they may be. In amongst all the shenanigans and comic dialogue we can see her poking fun at cod Freudian psychology (the Post Office Tower as a phallic symbol), authors trying to write the definitive novel (much like actors aiming to play the definitive Hamlet) and individuals trying to mould a partner to become the perfect soulmate.
There is so much one can and should say about this clever yet tricksy narrative, and it really deserves extended discussion, particularly about the blurring of boundaries and how the principal characters seem to so fluidly swap roles. But essentially Bradley Pearson sees himself as a tragic figure much like that melancholy black prince who was Shakespeare’s Hamlet, though we must assume he would rather not be “passion’s slave” but have his ‘humours’ commingled.
By the end, when all is revealed (or not) we realise this tragicomedy has been a dark farce. I’m put in mind of the last – possibly apocryphal – words spoken by Rabelais, according to Peter Anthony Motteux’s Life of Rabelais (1694); these were Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée: “Draw the curtain, the farce is over.” A stunned silence at the end of this drama must surely be followed by applause, cautious perhaps but – one hopes – admiring.
The novel being ‘threatre-adjacent’ I read it for Lory’s Reading the Theatre held every April, as well as for Cathy’s A Year with Iris Murdoch. However, like many amotjer rich and clever narrative there’s much, much more to reflect on than a straightforward review can cover, so I will definitely be following up with another post exploring features that have fascinated me about The Black Prince.
Calmgrove Books 
Fascinating review, Chris. Murdoch gets so much love, and I know how highly Liz thinks of her work, yet I’ve struggled with her when I tried. Perhaps she’s not an author for me, although this *does* sound tempting!!
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I wouldn’t say I *love* Murdoch, Karen, more that – of the three titles I’ve so far read – I do admire what she creates: but her writing is undoubtedly dense and tricksy and she doesn’t make it easy to understand motives or to feel empathy for what are certainly very flawed characters. But then aren’t we all flawed characters? Perhaps we should be glad that a Murdochian author doesn’t choose to fictionalise our own lives!
However, I wouldn’t suggest you re-start your explorations with this one unless you’re feeling very strong. 😀
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Like you I struggled with the first half of this a bit, but I thought it really kicked in to gear after that and I ended up really enjoying it. I also loved the framing device. Great review!
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Thanks, Cathy. 🙂 Yes, the framing device was clever, especially knowing that Murdoch herself was an additional writer in the framework challenging us to interpret what her motivation was in this narrative. And that tedium we experience at the start in retrospect underscores her depiction of BP as a not very great writer – a dangerous approach if the innocent reader believes this truly is the quality of Murdoch’s own writing!
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Fascinating review. I admire Murdoch but I’m afraid this book is beyond me – I have started reading it twice and gave up in complete confusion both times.
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Yes, it’s almost a labour of love – or perhaps an act of folly – to get past the absolute drudgery of the first quarter or third of the novel. I can see why so many readers struggle with it, I was sorely tempted to give up! Maybe my second post might persuade you to at least think of it? 😀
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I’m glad it wasn’t just me who had difficulties with the beginning of this novel – it seems it’s a problem several of us have had. I found the second half much more compelling and was fascinated by the way the postscripts changed how I felt about everything I’d previously read!
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It’s weird, Helen, the postscripts, far from clarifying what actually happened or throwing a light on BP’s character, actually muddy the water and suggest that nobody‘s testimony is reliable, least of all Murdoch’s! I hope to say a bit around this in my later discussion, but I’m still mulling things over.
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I decided to read some Murdoch after watching a very moving biopic, and “Black Prince” was my choice, but I’m at the stage when it’s loaded into my Kindle and waiting its turn. I’m pretty sure I will appreciate it
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Is that the BBC Films 2001 Iris starring Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent? I remember seeing that when it was first broadcast, and wouldn’t mind watching it again now. Good luck with this one, Piotrek, especially getting past the obstacle that is the opening which everyone seems to find dismaying!
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That’s the one, wife wanted more Judi Dench and I found this.
The time for Murdoch is coming, I’m very close to finishing Malazan, I’ll need something different after that 🙂
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Well done on the Malazan sequence, that sounds quite an achievement! And the Murdoch will probably be a complete change of direction. 🙂
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I’ll be reading this soon, so I skimmed – I’ll come back and read it properly once I’ve written my own review. But a “convoluted and frankly farcical plot”, a “dark farce” that inspires at best “cautious” applause sounds awful – I think I’m going to hate it! 😂
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It’s fascinating, like watching a car crash in slow motion – in fact an intentional parallel to Hamlet, WS’s longest play, where it’s hard to lose sight of the Prince’s indecision being the principal factor in the unfolding tragedy!
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When I read them all with a group of friends in 2018 ish, this was the only one Heaven-Ali didn’t finish, and in fact threw across her sitting room in a temper!
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I can well imagine it being a bête noire for many attempting this, and this being an understandable reaction!
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‘Befuddled middle class’ just about covers this book for me. The self -obsession, the sudden realisations…. All more of the same.
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Does the quoted phrase not cover much of Murdoch’s fiction, where it must be easy to lose patience with so much bourgeois angst?! The narrator here is retired with a comfortable pension, living in central London, able to consider a longish break in Turkey to get stuck into his novelising … and yet can only mope and feel sorry for himself. The heart bleeds for him, does it not?
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I find the middle classness of her characters and their world-view deeply annoying, as you may have guessed.
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I’m shocked to hear that, Gert, you don’t know how shocked I am… 😁
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An interesting review and I’m wondering how I’ll find it when I get to it in my re-reading (I have so much to read this month I’m letting myself off my next Murdoch until I can see the wood for the trees). I also wonder what I’d make of these if I read them for the first time now. I’m so soaked in them now that I can’t separate myself off from them, like those old friends with whom you have less in common now and annoy you a bit but you can’t say goodbye! I do love the nested epilogues and am looking forward to that bit. And being almost the same age as Bradley so presumably his ex-wife (a lot of her other older characters are in their 40s so I caught up with them last time).
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Thanks, Liz. 🙂
… “old friends with whom you have less in common now and annoy you a bit” sounds like Francis Marloe, though BP did try to say goodbye to him (to no avail)! But I can’t imagine how you’d regard them if you’d only just started them now, but I’m probably right in thinking I wouldn’t have contemplated this when it was first published: I’m a little older than you but since I was just about to begin a PGCE in teaching my mind would definitely have been elsewhere!
The Postscripts: can’t say that any of the authors is any more credible than the others but, assuming they’re each honest about how they saw things, it just shows how it’s next to impossible to be objective about anything we witness.
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