Wednesday 16 February 2011

"Something Special"

By Iris Murdoch. 


(its not a "review"...I don't know big words...now read if you want to)


Normally when I go to BCL I see a lot of people busy reading, taking notes. Have never done that myself, because I am always distracted ( the reason why I read 2 pages in X minutes in my university and 10 pages in x minutes at home) ... So i generally browse , take what I like (but was definitely**DEFINITELY**  not looking for)..and head home....


 Today I was dilly-dallying with a few books when I came across a row of books by Iris Murdoch ... ( yes again I shame-facedly admit, I have never read her works before)... Whenever i see a row of books I get confused...all names merge into one big haze and I pick up randomly....so hesitated and picked up the thinnest one and started reading, 2 pages...then I had to head for a seat....


Yvonne, a  girl being coaxed to marry a person,who, as she declares is nothing "special", a girl who thought better things might happen...... this was definitely not what she was meant for...her journey through places where she's not supposed to go...and the disillusionment..... (almost reminded me of Araby...) ....and the final , silent, compromise. .. Sam takes Yvonne to a bar where they have a nasty experience and he wants to make it up...and brings her to a felled tree, which to him was "beautiful" and "sad", Sam wants to climb the tree and be like a "pair of birds"...Yvonne sees only the mud, the beetles and is tired of her walk....(I perhaps would have echoed her feelings)... That night she goes home and decides to marry Sam. 


Just saw that someone on the internet ...feels that she did not find "something special" in Sam's tree but found it in Sam. Many have found it to be a story of Virtue winning over vanity. 


 Is it so simple? A girl was dreaming and she wakes up to life... I am sorry ...but ... wasn't it a compromise? Were the silent tears, that of her happiness after finding love?, or was it after making a terrible compromise, almost as if she, in vengeance, contributed to the mess that life had offered her? I feel the latter might be true.. (might). Opinions differ. I have not read her other works , so my views are strictly based on my reading of the story.


 ... .sometimes there is no reason why things don't harmonize...two tunes might be very good but they may not make music together... set in a city which was putrid...stagnant ...pretty much like the lives of it's inhabitants.. the idea of "beauty"  ..."happiness".....is so different for so many...


I realize I have perhaps given the most mundane synopsis ever....but then how is it that some authors say something in a paragraph, what others take pages to write about.... Yvonne reminded me of another lady whom I cannot forget..Eustacia... and yet the story of Yvonne could be the story of any girl today..in fact it perhaps is....It strikes a chord... ..a strong one.


Is it the best book that I have read? No


Why did I choose to write about it knowing that I might never convey what I felt?


Well, I will never write about books which are so good that I am too scared to even minutely disturb the emotions I have felt while reading them. This one was good, it also intimidated me...but only a little. I choose to write about it now because I know by tomorrow it will be in my "sacred hall of fame" and I will be terrified to go near it and regret every word that I have written so far. 


Excuse me folks. Tonight.


And yes I have picked up another novel by Murdoch.

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