Under the net

by Iris Murdoch

Paperback, 1969

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1969.

Description

Iris Murdoch's debut--a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fame Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Bellfounder, silent philosopher. Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with the formidable Hugo, whose 'philosophy' he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog and a political riot on a film set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo's secret. Perhaps Hugo's secret is Hugo himself? Admonished, enlightened, Jake hopes at last to become a real writer.… (more)

Media reviews

Degrees of Freedom

One feels uneasily that any analytic explanation of the book weighs it down, adds a portentousness to what is in fact, light, amusing and rapid. I would plead in extenuation that this, of all the books [ASB covers only the first seven novels of IM], is the most philosophic, the one where analysis

of ideas, such as Miss Murdoch herself applies to Sartre's novels is the most apposite technique of understanding the action, and not illegitimate, Since every sentence, as is not always true in the later books, has a sense of being carefully written, 'placed'.... Relationships between characters, although they *exist*, are worked round ideas, and are in very large part relationships of ideas.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member lisapeet

I enjoyed this so much more the second time around. And I use the word enjoyed, rather than liked, on purpose—it was a thoroughly fun read and I did like it, but I'm also fascinated by Murdoch's talents for: plotting (especially set pieces), description, evoking characters (I won't say character

development because most of them don't develop anywhere, but she certainly can set them up), and one of the best dog/human relationships I've read in a while. You could say that's actually the central love story, since Murdoch's human affairs aren't particularly touching—think Shakespeare's characters all running around in the woods hooking up with the wrong people (thanks, Iris Murdoch Fan Girls Book Club, for that image). And the nominal sex is awful. But everything else is pretty wonderful, and it's interesting to see how Murdoch pieces all together. The ending is more uplifting than I remembered, too, and sweeter in general.

Though speaking of pacing, one thing that I get a kick out of is the way she interjects these little philosophical treatises into the narrative. It reminds me, if Ms. Murdoch will beg my pardon, of the way middling erotica is set up: you have the story line, and then the doorbell rings and it's the plumber, which sets the scene so everyone can have sex, and then they're done and the rest of the story goes ahead until there's another bit set up for the express purpose of more sex—or in Murdoch's case, more philosophical discussion—etc. It's quite charming.

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LibraryThing member Meredy

Six-word review: Picaresque adventures of a would-be writer.

Extended review:

One of the rules of improvisational theatre is to say yes--to go along with everything another suggests. Sometimes this rule is expressed as "Yes, and." Denying and blocking bring a scene to a halt; "yes" allows it to

build.

Numerous times in reading Under the Net I had the feeling that the novel was working on the principles of improv comedy, and nowhere more so than in the passages pertaining to the kidnapping of the dog. The aftermath of that impulsive act colors the rest of the story and serves as an effective device for exposing character.

At other times, I was reminded of the delusions and paranoid fantasies of a Dostoevsky character, particularly Golyadkin in The Double. The inner life of the narrator and main character, Jake Donaghue, appears as quirky and self-contradictory as a creature of Lewis Carroll.

Jake is a semi-employed translator of French pulp novels who has been sponging off a friend and is suddenly evicted for reasons of disappointed romance. He thinks that he may be able to solve his homelessness and cash-flow problems with the aid of a former amour. His life is too complicated a history of mistaken choices and poor judgments to be readily untangled by his present behavior, but he flails on, vacillating between the philosophical and the comic. His remorse for past misdeeds is genuine, and yet his present conduct borders on the slapstick as much as on the poignant. Jake is a sympathetic antihero whose way of skating through life, tragicomic elements aside, raises interesting questions about the implausible possible.

One of the aspects that I took to heart is a lesson that I know I struggle with as much as anyone: the degree and depth to which one can hold to a conviction, a certainty, about which one is utterly wrong. Coming to terms with that unpalatable revelation is easier than recognizing it in the first place. Luckily for Jake, not all such epiphanies are painful in the end.

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LibraryThing member baswood

Murdoch’s first novel is an irresistible mixture of philosophy and farce and with London and Paris as essential backdrops to all the crazy happenings I could not help but be bowled along by Jake Donague (Murdoch’s central character) as he searches for something, anything that will make sense to

him.

Jake’s only connection with reality is the city of London, we first meet him on a return trip from Paris struggling down the Earls Court road with a heavy suitcase full of books. His friend Finn is waiting for him and his first words to Jake are “She’s thrown us out”. It transpires that their landlady has a new fiance and she wants rid of her two tenants. Jake is taken completely by surprise and we soon learn that most things and certainly all other people are a mystery to him. Jake is a very self absorbed individual; an intellectual who scrapes together a living by translating novels from French into English. His work makes few demands on him and this is just how he likes it, but his unexpected eviction sets him in motion, to find somewhere for him and Finn to live. His first port of call is Dave a teacher of philosophy who is far more grounded in the real world than Jake will ever be and after being asked some searching questions Jake realises he must find himself somewhere else to live. This enforced journey takes him to revisit old girlfriends and he soon gets involved in a web of intrigue involving stolen manuscripts, a canine film star, a revolutionary socialist, a firework making film director and sisters Anne and Sadie both of whom might be in love with him. He breaks into houses, gets locked into houses, breaks into and out of hospital, goes on drunken binges through London, gets caught up in Bastille day celebrations in Paris, kidnaps a dog and holds it to ransom and even gets a job.

Jake’s journey is a journey of self discovery, but of course he does not realise this and what he learns by the end of the novel is far less than what we as readers learn about him. It is written in the first person from Jake’s point of view, which in the 1950’s was a brave step for its female author to take for her first novel. Especially when her protagonist Jake has such a clouded view of all the characters around him, especially the female ones, for the most part she pulls this off with wit and understanding only occasionally giving the game away; for example when she has Madge one of the female characters say:

“You don’t understand Sammy” said Madge (to Jake), This is a standard remark made by women about men who have left them.

Jake has difficulty understanding anything about people to the extent that his old friend Hugo who Jake thought was totally out of touch with everyday life has to explain to him who is in love with whom. In the end this is why Murdoch can make her readers sympathise and empathise with Jake, for all his self absorption and all his laziness, his predicament has forced him to take stock and his actions however silly and fruitless make sense on some sort of level and one can understand why other characters in the novel can warm to him.

Murdoch’s novel at times threatens to spiral out of control, when the farcical elements take over and she goes for laughs, but it is grounded by its attention to detail and it’s depiction of life in London in the 1950’s. I was a teenager in the 1960’s and the feeling that you could live just under the net was just starting to be realised. It was a time of more freedom of thought, prosperity seemed just round the corner, jobs were easy to come by and just as easy to let go, there were milk bars and coffee shops, there was always someone who would let you a room that you could afford, there were shops like the one owned and run by Mrs Tinckham where you could leave your possessions for safe keeping and where you could go for a sympathetic ear. Smoke filled rooms, tops of buses, taxi rides, pub opening times, empty city streets in the early hours of the morning and the freedom to get drunk and blunder your way down to the River Thames in the Docklands through narrow dark alleyways to the foreshore for a dip. London and to a lesser extent Paris becomes almost as bigger character as Jake. Murdoch describes in detail routes from one section of the city to another. I know many of those trails and would have had no qualms about long hikes from Hammersmith in the West of London to Soho near the centre. I found myself walking along with Jake in a time that no longer exists but is vivid in my memory. Paris sounds just as gorgeous then as it is today.

There is hardly a dull moment in the book even when Murdoch is intent on raising philosophical questions, as for the most part they are handled with a lightness of touch that push the reader into thoughts about Jake and his world. I am sure there are characters like Jake around today, but they will have lost their innocence and this is the essential quality that shines out from this book and perhaps it is no longer there, in the meaner streets of todays world. This is a stunning first novel that I enjoyed immensely, but it is very much of it’s time and while issues raised are still relevant today I feel that those issues have moved on. Murdoch does not always get the balance right, but I would take her mixture of philosophy and storytelling over much that has been published recently and so a four star read.

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LibraryThing member lisapeet

I've heard this called Murdoch's best book, but this is only my second of hers and I liked The Sea, The Sea a bit better. I've also heard it described as her most philosophical book, and again I don't have enough to go on—nor do I have much of a grounding in philosophy—but I can at least see

where that idea comes from. The book struck me as a kind of self-consciously intellectual overlay to a comedy of manners that has an overlying conceit of being not intellectual and not quite a comedy either, but of course it's very much both. Not to mention a huge nonsexual same-sex love story (the actual love interests were much more flimsy). And while I don't think there's such a thing as free indirect first-person speech, where the narrator is at the same time floating a little above his own head, if there were this would be it. There's always the feeling that Murdoch knows a lot more than she's letting on to the reader… which of course authors are supposed to, but the sense of it isn't usually quite so pervasive. Anyway, it was entertaining and oddly-paced enough to keep my attention. And there's a great dognapping scene that was worth the price of admission (not to mention a great dog).

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LibraryThing member 125Charlecote

Well - I don't know. I found a Book Club copy in Wellington Barracks Bury (which says a great deal for XX The Lancashire Fusiliers, whose Irishmen were Liverpudlians and didn't recognise the concept of Lancashire as necessary OR contingent) where I was doing basic National Service training in 1958

or 1959. How I found the time to read it, I don't know, but nothing would have stopped me trying after the first couple of pages. I found it then - and now - immensely funny and observant, and full of Oxford philosophy in-jokes which sent up the world of Murdoch's fellow-practitioners rotten - a glorious farce, pubcrawls, fireworks and evictions helping it all along at a breathless pace. I have a sneaking feeling it's her best book, but I may have given up on some of the others a little hastily. It was the perfect remedy for National Service, and you can't say that of the majority of English literature. I still remember the pale green of the morning skies after the all-night pub-crawl with its list of hostelries - an almost impossible feat for early fifties London unless you knew your way around very well indeed.

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LibraryThing member Angela.Kingston

Evocative and well-written. Murdoch does a remarkably convincing male point of view. One for the blokes.

LibraryThing member TheBentley

It too me a long time to warm up to this book. In fact, I daresay it's a book you have to make yourself finish in order to realize you enjoyed it. For the first two-thirds I found the narrator simply obnoxious, but I have to say he grows on you. And, in spite of the fact that most of the book seems

like a very pedestrian British comedy (and not even as funny as, say, E.F. Benson before her or Terry Pratchett after), it turns out Murdoch does some very sly and cunning work here about stories and how we shape and define our own--very much like Joan Didion. Much better than I expected--and I mean much better than I expected when I started the last three chapters--because it comes into focus nicely in the end.

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LibraryThing member MiserableLibrarian

This was Murdoch’s first novel, and the one which made her “one of her generation’s outstanding English writers.” The story of Jake Donaghue is one of a twentieth-century man suffering from, in the words of Joyce Carol Oates, “an unrealistic conception of the powers of the will.”

Through a series of adventures and misadventures, Jake finds that his world is not what he imagined, and in many ways beyond his control. The “net” refers to “Wittgenstein’s idea that we each build our own ‘net’ or system for structuring our lives … language under which we may seek for what is real” (Contemporary authors). A good story, and an interesting commentary on freedom, courage, and existentialism.

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LibraryThing member jwhenderson

Iris Murdoch's first novel, Under the Net, has wonderful characters, including writers, eccentrics and a glamorous actress; but the character that imbues the novel as no other is London itself. London appears in many ways, even philosophically. She wrote "There are some parts of London which are

necessary and others which are contingent". But for Murdoch, in her novel, all of London is part of the story she weaves around her writer-hero, Jake Donaghue. It is an exciting beginning to what became a brilliant novelistic career.

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LibraryThing member m-andrews

Quite quickly you realize that Murdoch's fiction wears her love for philosophy on her sleeve, as even in this comic outing, her first novel, there is depth and insight. From start to finish, the complexities of relationships, love, life, the supernatural, art, and any number of other things pique

our interest. The novel is written as a first-person narrative, and is clearly meant to be published by the protagonist once the novel comes to a close. The central character, and narrator, is a young author himself, and espouses some of Murdoch's own thinking on the life of a young author and the intrinsic debates that must rage within the mind of the young artiste. I particularly liked the depiction of the Bohemianesque artistic milieu of mid-twentieth century London and Paris, especially the central character's escapades around Paris in search of his lost love. Some of the comical moments are hardly laugh-out-loud, but still a fantastic first novel from one of the twentieth century's greats.

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LibraryThing member yooperprof

I've just started a Twitter-related interwebs project of reading all 26 Iris Murdoch novels consecutively, one every month until the end of 2019. I'm not sure if I can keep up the pace, but I'm going to give it a try. I'm a Murdoch "completist" - have already read all of the novels - but BUT many

of them I read back in the 1980s when I was in my early/mid 20s - and I have changed a lot since then. This should be a very interesting experience!

I’ve just finished my [re]read of Under the Net, which – amazingly – was actually the first IM book I ever read! That was back in the summer of 1985, when I was 22. At that time in my life, it didn’t make much of impression upon me, and it was definitely NOT the IM novel that turned me on to her work. I liked it much more this time around. I was a jejeune 22, and there are subtleties and depths below the surface of Under the Net that were not available to me at that time. I especially was interested this time around in the obsession that narrator Jake feels for the mysterious and magus-like Hugo Belfounder – the latter a type of character who appears again and again throughout Murdoch’s novels. Parts of the book did seem to be a little “undercooked” in comparison with some of her later fiction – particularly the female characters. (I still don’t have the difference down between the sisters Anna and Sadie.) But the conclusion of Under the Net is very wise, and clearly foreshadows the ending of many subsequent novels. The central character, at the conclusion of various and sundry adventures, is stripped of illusions and deprived of a love object, but sadder and more thoughtful, he better able to see the world and himself in a truthful manner.

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LibraryThing member gypsysmom

This is the first book written by Iris Murdoch and it is also the first book of hers that I have read. However, I was familiar with her through her husband's book Elegy for Iris. I think I'll be reading more of her books because if this is the first then the others are bound to be better and I

quite enjoyed this one.

Jake Donoghue is an English writer and translator of French novels. It's not clear how old he is in this book but I will hazard a guess that he was in his late twenties. This guess is based on the fact that the book is set in the 1950s but Jake makes no mention of having been involved in the war so presumably he came to adulthood after the war. Jake never pays rent if he can help it and always claims to be broke. His girlfriend, Madge, has thrown him out because she thinks she is going to marry another man. Jake and his friend Finn go looking for another place to live rent-free. Their friend Dave takes in Finn but doesn't want Jake living there. Finn suggests Jake look up an old girlfriend, Anna. After much searching Jake finally finds Anna in a mime theatre. Anna is not displeased to see Jake but her mind is obviously on someone else. She suggests that Jake contact her actress sister Sadie who might need someone to caretake her apartment while she goes to Hollywood. Sadie says she will let Jake stay in the apartment starting right away because she is being harassed by her studio head, Hugo Belfounder, an old acquaintance of Jake's. What ensues is more in the nature of those farces that are sometimes staged in which one person is looking for another and that person has just slipped out another door to look for a third person and so on. Jake is madly in love with Anna but Anna loves Hugo. Hugo is hopelessly smitten by Sadie who has always had a fancy for Jake. Everyone pursues the object of their affection through London and Paris but no-one achieves their desire. Dare we hope that Jake et al. will grow up when they realize they can't always have what they want?

The meaning of the title eluded me until I consulted Wikipedia. It pointed to a passage from the book which quotes from a book written by Jake based on conversations he had with Hugo. "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself and this is unutterably particular. Indeed it is something to which we can never get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net." Wikipedia says the net in question is the net of abstraction, generalization, and theory. I'm trying to grasp the concept but philosophy was never my strong suit.

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LibraryThing member japaul22

I never know what to make of Iris Murdoch's books. This is the third of her novels that I've read and I'm always left a little perplexed about whether I loved it or hated it.

This heads in a more predictable direction than the other novels I've read by her, maybe because it's her first. It follows

Jake Donaghue, a young-ish man with no money who lives very comfortably by borrowing from friends as he tries (sort of) to be a writer. All sorts of unusual and unrealistic things happen to him and he never takes the conventional path out of a situation. This leads to random drinking, swimming in rivers, stealing dogs, breaking into apartments, and running across rooftops. All sort of in the pursuit of love with a woman it seems he can't make up his mind about, and a man whose intellect he's obsessed with.

So I don't know. Something about the craft of Murdoch's writing keeps bringing me back but I'm still not convinced.

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LibraryThing member wirkman

Iris Murdoch's first published novel is a hoot, a holler, a scream. OK, one's not supposed to say that about such a sophisticated confection. But I do want to stress the light side, for though this seems, on the face of it, a very existentialist novel, it is a happier one than most such. Indeed, it

is usually shelved alongside "Lucky Jim" and other Angry Young Man novels, but this is by a woman, and it is not angry.

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LibraryThing member ropie

This book is much more of a 'caper' (an unlikely adventure, not a berry) than other Iris Murdoch books I have read. At times it shows glimpses of the epic emotionality of her later plots, but at other times it is merely amusing in its light-heartedness. The main character of Jake, a struggling

writer, is somehow likeable but seems to be beset by contradiction (spoiling for fight in a political riot, but also afraid of crowds?) and is both a cad and a sensitive soul with a soft spot for animals.

Some of the political ideals and philosophies of the authors (both Jake and Murdoch, who seem to be more or less the same person outside of their genders) are pressed-home quite obviously, but they are always interesting and the use of metaphors is often amusing. I enjoyed this book, even the way it reads like 5 or 6 short stories linked by a rather limp love theme, but it seems loose and directionless compared to her later work. Despite this, and in spite of the fact that it was written in the 1950s, it presents an interesting portrait of London and doesn't actually seem to have dated much at all.

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LibraryThing member JVioland

I confess that I liked it after putting it down. But now, less than two years later, I cannot recall a single thing about this novel. Obviously, not comparable with a host of other works I've read. So, it appears to be a good book - just not memorable (despite the accolades from the critics). So

why waster your time?

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LibraryThing member amerynth

"Under the Net" was my third time reading an Iris Murdoch novel. While this was probably my least favorite of the three, it clearly demonstrates why she is such a terrific author -- all of her books have been very different in terms of style and story.

In this novel, the narrator, Jake Donaghue is a

translator who basically runs about London and Paris, all because he is completely inferring all the wrong things from every communication he has. The book is really about the little lies that crisscross in language (as no one every truly speaks their entire mind.) The philosphy never gets particularly heady here-- it's more a madcap story for the most part.

I don't think this is Murdoch's best work (thus far I liked "The Sea, The Sea" best) but overall I did enjoy this book.

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LibraryThing member annbury

An amusing and interesting novel of ldeas, but not a work that I connected with on an emotional level. The book came out in 1954, and is set in London and Paris, As several reviewers have noted, it doesn't seem dated, which is rather odd, given how difficult life was in Britain in that period. It

is narrated by Jake Donaghue, an impecunious translator of French novels into English, and follows his wanderings trhough London (and eventually to Paris) in search of various people he knows. There are long philosophical discussions, few of which lead anywhere in particuarar: I suppose this is post-was existentialism in action.

As to the story, there are very funny bits, and terrific set peices, but I kept wishing that Jake would settle down and follow one goal (or person), rather than constantly shifting targets. Also, at the end of the novel all the relationships that Jake thinks he understands turn out to be something else all toegher. That changeability makes several of the characters difficult to care about very much. I did end up being rather fond of Jake, but the dog is still the most sympathetic character in the novel. All very clever, like beutifully decorated desserts, but not necessarily satisfying. I

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LibraryThing member leslie.98

Not particularly humorous; the inclusion of this novel under the Comedy section of the Guardian's list made me anticipate something funnier. That said, I did enjoy it and perhaps if you are a writer, Jake might seem more comic.

I liked Murdoch's writing style & look forward to reading some of her

other books such as The Sea, the Sea.

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LibraryThing member Philogos

This is one of the best books I've read in years. I picked it up in a charity book stall on Runcorn Station and read it on the train to London and back.

It was her first novel and more playful and far less bleak than some of her other stuff but still with the depth and texture to engage one. The

protagonist is a sponging rogue dedicated to having a good time and a good deal of the story comes from his fundamental misundertanding of his situation.

While his adventures don't go near the sort of toe curling angst that her later books deal in, his self discovery and growth over the course of the book keep one absorbed all the way. And it's funny too.

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LibraryThing member TheLostEntwife

It's always astonishing to me when I'm exposed to a book I would never have picked up and find myself lost in it, and that's the very reason I have been working my way through the 1001 Books list.

In UNDER THE NET Jake Donaghue is a failure of a writer, a bum, a leech on his friends and, despite

being an adult, views the world almost as a child does. He never thinks an action through to the consequence, he treats his friendships lightly - taking them for granted or doing stupid, silly things to sabotage them.

This book isn't about action and adventure. It's a slow, quietly witty journey through a period in Jake's life. It explores friendships, loves, jobs and heartbreaks. It has quiet humor - in fact, in a way this book reminds me of the few Nick Hornby books I've read (minus the language).

Despite being written in the 50's, UNDER THE NET is not dated and it's very easy to relate the story to modern day times. It's a short novel - so if you are worried that a meandering journey might be something that would bore you don't worry... it'll hold your interest and give you a good dose of philosophy to boot.

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LibraryThing member thatotter

Mildly funny and entertaining, without much substance, though.

LibraryThing member DanielSTJ

I didn't really care for it.

LibraryThing member jonfaith

Containing all the requisite hilarity and pathos of a first novel, Murdoch succeeds where others fail, by aiming at one person and finding half-measures which translates into a fleeting philosophy but little transformation. This will likely spur me to read more of Murdoch’s books over the summer.

LibraryThing member jessicawest

I knew nothing about this book, beyond the information anyone can glean from the cover print. The book was written in 1954 by Iris Murdoch, who wrote more than 20 books. This one takes place in London, presumably during the time that it was written. I found Under the Net to be more entertaining

than I expected. The main character, Jake Donaghue, is a man who is afraid of hard work, who never has a job or a place to live, but manages to live well off the generosity of this friends. The only job he seems to do is as a translator for a french author. Jake wants to be a writer in his own right, but as mentioned before, he's not very good at actually working on something.
Jake's life changes when he is once again without a place to live, and gets in contact with his old girlfriend and her movie-star sister. This brings him back into contact with Hugo, the man who he broke off contact with years before. Jake has to come to terms with a variety of opinions he holds about these friends from his past before he can face his future.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is hard to explain how funny the book is - there are parts that seem like some kind of movie caper or heist. Jake's character is very well drawn - you root for him even when he's behaving like an idiot. His friends are interesting and varied, and not like anyone I know. And once Mister Mars, the movie dog, joins him (in a very funny kidnap-the-dog scene), I was loving it. Written by someone less talented, this book could have been terrible, but Murdoch does a wonderful job telling the story with both humor and drama.

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