![]() ![]() Paul is older, rich, and intellectual, while Dora is younger, cheerful, and trapped in a horrible marriage that she keeps running away from, unsuccessfully. The guests include Toby, a young man looking for a spiritual retreat before he starts at university, and a married couple, Dora and Paul. Other members include James, his second-in-command, Nick, a man who once was dangerously close to Michael, and Catherine, Nick’s twin sister and an aspiring nun. It is lead by Michael, a closeted homosexual. Introduction to the CharactersĪt Imber Court, an old country house in Gloucestershire, there lives a lay religious community. ![]() Rather than spoil the plot as I usually do, in this piece I will discuss the ways that the community crumbles from within, and comment on the question of freedom, as it applies to Murdoch’s characters. As newcomers arrive this space’s stability is put to the test. Instead, they live in this fragile, liminal space, attempting to keep their lives in order. (A little like your own blogger, in fact). These individuals are people who are disappointed with the world in one way or another, and yet are unable to withdraw from it completely, as have the nuns. I bought it because I liked the idea, about a community of religious individuals living beside an order of nuns. ![]() ![]() Iris Murdoch is often considered one of the best English novelists of the latter half of the twentieth century, and The Bell is one of her best-known works. ![]()
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