The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

by Iris Murdoch

Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two. Instead, he lets loose misery and confusion and—for the spectators at any rate—a morality play, rich in reflections upon the paradoxes of human life and the nature of the battle between sacred and profane love.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels, British Literature, Romance, Literature, 20th Century

365 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch

Irish-born British writer, university lecturer and prolific and highly professional novelist, Iris Murdoch dealt with everyday ethical or moral issues, sometimes in the light of myths. As a writer, she was a perfectionist who did not allow editors to change her text. Murdoch produced 26 novels in 40 years, the last written while she was suffering from Alzheimer disease.

"She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world--the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction." (John Bayley in Elegy for Iris, 1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Mur...

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a couple of months since I've added a book to my favorites but I'm adding this one. Of the half dozen Iris Murdoch novels I've read, The Sea, The Sea has been my favorite but this one is equally good.

I should say SPOILERS FOLLOW



This story is one of marital infidelity. The betrayer, no surprise, is the male, Blaise. But he has a naïve, gullible, loving wife who accepts his confession (delivered in a letter) and she continues to love him, even accepting the situation to the point where she says ‘you need to spend more time with your mistress and your eight-year-old son.’ He's ecstatic about how things worked out. He follows up on her suggestions and chaos ensues. (Hey guys – if you find yourself in this situation you might want to use his letter as a template. Who knows, it just might work out! LOL)

While Blaise is the main protagonist in the story, there are really a half dozen other characters that we get a detailed psychoanalysis of their attitudes, their dilemmas, their feelings, their thinking. In fact, Blaise is a psychoanalyst.

So we follow a half dozen quirky characters through the story. Among the husband’s many quirks, his most significant are his weird sexual proclivities. Murdoch spares us the details but his mistress is ok with it and that's really what binds them. He has never attempted such things with his wife and she remains clueless. Thus the sacred and profane of the book title.

His wife, Harriet “…positively and half-consciously suffered from a sheer excess of undistributed love, like having too much milk in the breasts.” I’m being unfair to Harriet in characterizing her as a wimp above, someone just naively accepting the situation. The author gives us a fascinating take on her attitude of empowerment brought about by the situation. She is exhilarated, perhaps for the first time in her life, by her power. The power to forgive, the power to take charge, the power to set things straight, to help out the mistress and her husband’s other son.

Harriet and Blaise have a 17-year-old son with all kinds of quirks. He’s surly, uncommunicative, bookish and oversensitive to the fleshy details of life. For example he's disgusted by his mother's pack of seven dogs she has accumulated due to her overflowing love for strays.

There's a neighbor, Monty, a famous author. His wife died recently after an ugly bout with cancer and he’s not just mourning but obsessed by grief. Harriet forces consolation upon him.

Emily, the mistress, is in the classic situation of the other woman. She lives in a dumpy apartment in a dumpy part of town, struggling financially, waiting for something to happen in their relationship. A hot mess? Her eight-year-old son by Blaise won’t speak to her and it's clear that the boy's bundle of problems border on mental illness. She shares her apartment with a female ‘friend’ who's not a friend.

Add to the mix Edgar, an overweight former university professor and classics scholar. He's been devoted to Monty since college days, much to Monty’s annoyance. And this bromance may go deeper than Monty thinks.

Now add two attractive young women who pretty much throw themselves at any available (or unavailable) man. To be crude, anything in pants.

There are scatterings of homoeroticism in some of these relationships. (The author was bisexual.) There’s a metaphor with the ancient Greek culture going on involving Monty and Edgar who both read Greek and discuss Greek writings and philosophy. Both men apparently feel some attraction to David. And after all, he is named David. There are also hints about a possible relationship between the two young women mentioned above.

So the machine is set in motion. I use the term ‘machine’ as the author has in her title and maybe 20 times in the book. I think the best way to describe her use of the word is in the sense that the inertia of a situation has taken over and there is no way to change it. One example is when Blaise is talking to Monty about how his son will never forgive him for his actions. “There isn’t – there isn’t – the machinery – for me to be forgiven – by David – it doesn’t exist.”

There’s humor too, a kind of black humor, even puns. Monty’s fearsome mother lives at Hawkhurst. The hapless Edgar lives at Mockingham. After a chaotic scene at the home, we learn of the neighbor that “She had always expected irregularities from a psychiatrist’s residence.”

It's amazing to me how a good author like Murdoch can give us perhaps 20 pages of what I will call psychoanalysis of all of the main characters, writing about their feelings and attitudes and how they turn things over in their minds and make those 20 pages fascinating and non-repetitive.

Murdoch has been criticized for what some critics have called her ‘bizarre' plot twists and this story contains a couple. But she's one of my favorite authors so I will defend her. We all know that there are writing ‘rules’ such as the old thing about waving a gun in the first act of a play. (Actually that comes from Chekhov: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.”) And we often expect foreshadowing so that the dramatic events of the story don't fall on us unawares. But when you think about it that's not the way life is. Sometimes someone waves a gun around and nothing comes of it. And sometimes there's an auto accident, a plane crash or someone is shot in the street. Worlds get turned upside down and there was no foreshadowing.

If you choose to read this book I’ll tell you there are two murders. But I won't say who were the victims and who were the killers even in a spoiler. It's a great book!



Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) wrote more than 25 novels as well as some academic philosophy texts when she was a professor at Oxford. Her novels focus on good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Murdoch can be considered an Irish author even though she grew up in and went to school in England. She was born in Ireland and both her parents were Irish.

The Sea, The Sea, which won the 1978 Booker Prize, is her most widely-read book, and this one I reviewed won the 1974 Whitbread Award.

I’ve enjoyed many other novels by Iris Murdoch and below are links to my reviews of them. GR ratings for all these novels are remarkably similar: all between 3.8 and 4.0. I listed them in order of how I rated them. I rated the first 3 books as 5.0; the next 4 as 4.0 and the last one as 3.0. The Sea, The Sea remains my favorite by this author.

The Sea, the Sea

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (this review)

The Good Apprentice

The Black Prince

The Time of the Angels

The Nice and the Good

The Bell

Under the Net

Top photo of an English country estate from mansionglobal.com
The author from theparisreview.org

[Jean-Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel a review of this book wouldn't do it justice if the reviewer did not somewhere in the process describe one or more recent dream. The most recent dream I can recall is of myself at a funeral, filling the casket with colored pencil stubs. You know, when the pencils become too short to sharpen and some people use epoxy resin to make them into vases or bowls or guitars. Well, it seems I'm much more adventurous than that.

Iris, I have no doubt you would have described this dream so much more beautifully. But then you would have gone on to describe my feelings about this book for about five pages, with some moral philosophy thrown in, and this is precisely why most of your books are on my 'Someday-When-I-Grow-Up' list, though there's no writer I have greater admiration for. Someday I'll write beautiful reviews of all of them.

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

“La vida es absurda y en su mayor parte, cómica”

La máquina de amor sagrado y profano se llama Blaise Gavender. La máquina debería mantener un equilibrio entre su felicidad y la de Harriet, su esposa y amor sagrado, y la de Emily, amante y amor profano, pero no funciona todo lo bien que Blaise quisiera, siempre acaba sufriendo alguien.

“Qué parcialmente formado está todo ser humano. ¿Cómo no íbamos a ser una fatalidad los unos para los otros?”

El amor de Blaise a sus dos mujeres es bastante dudoso o, de existir, es muy inferior al que siente por sí mismo. Harriet sufre de exceso de amor, “como tener demasiada leche en los pechos”. Emily… bueno, Emily es de esas mujeres que llorarían de alegría al comprar un mantel para un hogar del que Blaise no tuviera que irse a cada rato.

“El amor lo es todo en la existencia de una mujer. Tal era ciertamente su caso, y qué aterrador resultaba”

Iris Murdoch es una autora a la que admiro muchísimo, pero imagino como una tortura verse bajo su ojo crítico y poder acabar retratado, con ese detalle, con esa minuciosidad, con ese desenmascaramiento, en una de sus novelas. Y aun así, qué placer culpable, el mejor de los placeres, experimento con el diabólico sarcasmo de los retratos que construye de esas pobres gentes que, como realmente nos pasa a todos, se creen dotados de unos dones y una madurez que distan mucho de poseer.

Como suele ser habitual en Murdoch, además del amor, el gran tema de la autora, el sexo también tiene su propio engranaje en esta máquina, yo diría incluso que es una pieza fundamental en su funcionamiento. Por rescatarse de sus propias peculiaridades Blaise se había casado con Harriet, y fueron esas mismas peculiaridades las que pudo por fin desplegar libre y satisfactoriamente con Emily. Tan ofuscado estaba con su recién conquistada libertad sexual que no le fue difícil autoconvencerse de su recto proceder respecto a ambas mujeres. Para Murdoch, el sexo no hace más que confundirnos, llevarnos al autoengaño, porque este placer, cuando llega a ser verdaderamente embriagador, “no puede sino arrojar una ardiente luz de justificación sobre su propia escena, una luz que pueda dejar al resto del mundo en tinieblas”.

Y no es que el amor sea siempre motivo de felicidad. Con frecuencia el amor viene acompañado de tormentos y celos. Que se lo digan a Montague (Monty) Small. Monty es un escritor de éxito gracias a la creación del “irónico, desencantado, disminuido hombre de poder” Milo Fane, un personaje que combinaba a la perfección su demonismo y su intelectualismo y que le permitía dar rienda suelta a sus más oscuras fantasías.

“La ironía de un autor a menudo oculta su gozo. Esa máscara es posiblemente la principal función de la ironía.”

Pero desde que murió su mujer, Sophie, no sabe cómo vivir consigo mismo. Sophie estaba constantemente invadiendo su mente con las mismas discusiones que mantenían en vida de la difunta, un fantasma que se niega a ir y liberarle de aquellos celos que tanto sufrimiento le provocaron. Un dolor que Sophie, inculta y atolondrada, compensaba sobradamente en vida con “su brillante energía” y “su loco regocijo”, pero que ahora, con ella muerta en circunstancias bastante desagradables, le dejaba solo con su dolor.

“La bondad es hallar satisfacción en los actos nobles“

Sólo los problemas de sus vecinos Harriet y Blaise, o las malas noticias de los telediarios, le liberaban de sí mismo. Harriet le produce una rara fascinación con su comportamiento ante la infidelidad de su marido, con su bondad, con su entrega y sacrificio, como si esa fuera la respuesta.

“Me parece como si el mismo dolor me diera fuerzas para soportarlo… es como si me estuviera mirando a mí misma todo el tiempo, y admirándome por resistirlo… es raro, pero me siento tan llena de poder… siempre he dependido de otras personas… de pronto, ahora me parece que… todo el mundo depende de mí… descubrí lo mucho que era capaz de dar”

Pero no hay respuestas en las novelas de Murdoch, y sí muchas preguntas, además de, en esta de ahora, unos cuantos perros, dos hijos atormentados, amores no correspondidos, niñas y mujeres fatales, muchos sueños y filosofía con la siempre pausada, inteligente, malévola, sencilla en la forma y compleja en el fondo, prosa de la señora Iris Murdoch.

“La filosofía, la ansiosa conexión de una cosa con otra, la satánica proliferación de programas de dominio conceptual, la duplicación de un mundo ya duplicado, él lo consideraba desde hacía mucho como el inútil peregrinaje de los insectos“

P.S. En realidad serían 3 estrellas y media.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title comes from Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, a notoriously ambiguous painting about which clothed or naked women depict which type of love. In the novel, Murdoch also repeatedly unsettles the reader whether Harriet and Blaise Gavander’s 19-year marriage or Blaise’s nine-year clandestine affair with Emily is a sacred relationship. Moreover, before the novel opens, their neighbor, crime writer Monty Small, who has conspired with Blaise, has already been loved, hated, and widowed by his possibly adulterous actress wife, Sophie. Was his love sacred or profane?

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i have an iris murdoch headache. she made me cry like she always does, and i feel vaguely like i've just eaten a huge piece of blue cheesecake, heavy and hypnotic in its dense richness, dotted with sour bits, not too sweet. her people are very real and audacious. they are crazy and they are convincing. i think, 'yes, this is very true, people are like that, damn them.'

i would argue that there's not really a main character in this novel but rather it concerns a coterie of characters: david and his parents harriet and blaise gavender; blaise's mistress, emily mchugh, their son luca; and the gavender's neighbour, the well-known author monty small, his dead wife sophie, his mother, and his old school chum edgar demarnay. playing smaller roles are constance pinn, and kiki st loy. these will be the people we come to know in the sacred and profane love machine. they eat and drink (they drink a helluva lot), they walk or kick dogs, they talk, they think, they love, they try to understand, they fight, they fantasize. this novel exudes sex even if it is a practically sexless outing compared to some of her other novels. i became attuned to the character's desires, rooting for them to sort out these messes they've created, the messes they are.

i'm know i'm reading iris murdoch, yet she does this to me every time: she begins by lulling me with the comforts of the domestic scene, only to begin to unravel it. then she whacks me over the head with her philosophizing, here trying to get to the truth of love through its dualities, even as she has harriet rescue another dog.

that's not to say the novel is perfect: monty's constant preoccupation about maybe trying to be a school master again might have some weight that i'm unaware of, but i did want him to shut up about it, regardless. sometimes there are passages like this. and sometimes it's just hard spending time with these characters, they can be quite hateful, even if artfully executed, it's difficult being with them. hence, the headache. i've seen other reviews complain about the ending. it didn't spoil the book for me, and i won't spoil it, but i'll admit she tricked me completely. i didn't see it coming but it didn't feel like a cop out. it felt real to me, even if i didn't especially like how things turned out. and that's why i continue to return to murdoch: though her words might make me sick, in my head and in my heart, i'm going to come back for more because they all seem so true.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my 20th of Murdoch's 26 novels, so it is increasingly difficult to find much to distinguish it from the rest of her ouevre.

This one centres on a married psychotherapist Blaise Gavender and his relationships with his loyal and trusting wife Harriet, and his mistress of nine years Emily, both of which have given him sons. These are the sacred and profane loves of the title. The other main character is their neighbour Monty Small, a recently widowed writer of spy thrillers who helps Blaise concoct alibis for his frequent visits to Emily.

As always Murdoch treats her characters like a capricious and mischievous God, and the writing is very enjoyable and often funny.

[Kansas · Rating 4 out of 5]

"En estos momentos no estás sino imponiendo una falsa idea de libertad y de poder a una emoción efervescente, un romántico sentimiento por mí, un débil y confuso deseo de ser ayudada. Despierta, vuelve a la realidad. Estás muy lejos, quizá a muchos años, de un profundo cambio en tu vida."

Me gusta esta cita que Iris Murdoch pone en boca de Monty, uno de los personajes centrales de esta novela, donde de alguna forma hay un breve momento de lucidez entre tantos amor desleal, tanto autoengaño para combatir la soledad, tanta obsesión por encajar en la familia perfecta... Monty se dirige a Harriet Gavender que a pesar de haber ejercido durante años de perfecta y plácida esposa, no ha podido evitar que su marido llevara una doble vida durante años, y por mucho que haya intentado “comprenderle”, al final se haya visto abandonada por él. Monty, un escritor de novelas de éxito y vecino de los Gavender, es el único que siempre ha sabido de este engaño y por tanto, es a su vez el observador más objetivo de una vida familiar de fingimientos. Los personajes de esta novela engañan, y se autoengañan continuamente, quizás sea la forma más cómoda de justificar ciertas carencias.

"¡Qué harta estoy del maldito Blaise! Sus necesidades, sus teorías, su desafios. ¿No ha obtenido ya bastante de nosotras destrozando nuestras vidas de arriba a abajo, para que encima le enviemos a estudiar Medicina mientras nosotras nos apretamos el cinturón ¿Qué hay de mis necesidades, para variar? Yo también tengo un cerebro."

Esta es la tercera novela que leo de Iris Murdoch y aquí vuelven a repetirse muchos de los temas que me llamaron la atención en "El Mar, El Mar", pero esencialmente aquí se centra en la búsqueda del amor, un amor que siempre parece fuera de tiempo o desincronizado, o quizás un amor que sirve como excusa para otras carencias. Blaise Gavender lleva años engañando a Harriet, su mujer, con la que vive en una acogedora casa en el campo con su hijo David y rodeado de perros, y por otra parte mantiene a otra familia en un piso bastante más humilde, con su amante Emily el hijo que tuvo con ella, Luca. Aquí hay una especie de dicotomía de un hombre que vive dos vidas paralelas, aparentemente atormentado por la culpa pero realmente está encantado con la situación... En este aspecto, Iris Murdoch hace un retrato fascinante sobre una forma de vida… personajes que no saben o no pueden estar solos y sin embargo se autoengañan continuamente usando la palabra amor.

"-Me parece que si Harriet llegara a saber lo de Emily, el mundo se acabaría en una gigantesca explosión.
-Para tu desgracia, no sucederá así. Todos seguiréis existiendo, durmiendo y comiendo y yendo al retrete."

Los personajes creados aquí por Iris Murdoch son una delicia: Blaise el psicoterapeuta embaucador obsesionado porque no tiene el título de medicina, Harriet, la esposa y ama de casa perfecta, su hijo David que con dieciséis años y con aspecto de dios vikingo, parece permamentemente vivir fuera de la realidad, Emily la amante, que vive en el exilio social porque su perfil no se corresponde con lo politicamente correcto y finalmente, Luca, el niño de ocho de años, el único cuerdo en una familia de histéricos. Luca es una delicia de personaje, el punto neurálgico alrededor del cual Iris Murdoch construye su visión de lo que considera la humanidad en su estado esencial.

"Qué llena estaba de vanos arrepentimientos. -Ojalá, ojalá, ojalá -meditaba por enésima vez-, le hubiera obligado a dejar a la vaca de su mujer entonces, nueve años atrás, cuando le tenia completamente loco, cuando era mi esclavo."

Es una novela que parece a veces una obra de teatro, solo dos o tres escenarios, las dos casas, donde personajes entran, salen, se encuentran, se aman, entran en conflicto y porque no, también se odian a muerte. Aquí no hay tantos personajes como en "El Mar, El Mar" y sin embargo, todos y cada uno de ellos tiene su importancia, su clave en la historia. Iris Murdoch vuelve a contarnos muchos de los hechos a través de una cierta simbología, los sueños por ejemplo, donde algunos personajes los relatan con todo lujo de detalles o la mitología griega. En definitiva es una novela que he disfrutado muchísimo porque aunque Iris Murdoch está continuamente cuestionando los comportamientos humanos, al mismo tiempo hay escenas hermosísimas que se quedan grabadas.
La traducción es de Camilla Batlles.

"Las mujeres siempre queréis que los hombres se derrumben-dijo Monty-, para así volver a ponerlos en pie. Ya estoy lo bastante derrumbado, créeme, sin necesidad de hacer demostraciones. No me estoy comportando como un hombre. Si tuviera un trabajo corriente tendría que cumplirlo. Como estoy autoempleado, puedo pasarme el día meditando con amargura. El desconsuelo no es raro. Uno debe tratarlo como si fuera la gripe. Hasta Niobe dejó por fin de llorar y quiso comer algo."

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a decent family from the English middle class: dad is a practicing psychoanalyst, mom is a housewife with unshakable moral principles, son is finishing high school and preparing for college. The Hoodhouse hood reliably shelters them from everyday storms and storms. And the deck is shuffled so bizarrely. that where in the original language in its name only a special kind of collar is heard, equally befitting a medieval monk and a rapper - there the Russian ear distinguishes "badly".

Without being mistaken. They can read Dickens and Trollope aloud, sitting in the living room in the evening, they can discuss in a low voice that their father's laudable desire to study medicine (he, you see, is a spontaneous psychoanalyst, without a medical license, sounds wild today, but for the beginning of the English seventies, apparently, nothing strange). So, the student bench of Blaze will turn into a need for them to tighten their belts tighter. But they will cope, they are not sybarites, just like that, they will stand shoulder to shoulder and overcome this study.

As a last resort, they will sell some securities or - in a very extreme case, you can ask for a loan from Monty. Who is Monty? Oh, it's a neighbor, a nice man, a widower. writer. Recently widowed, he adored his wife, who died of cancer, and now he suffers unimaginably. So, it's not even clear whether Milo will be able to continue the series of books about the private detective that made him famous, yeah, even the TV series is on. But Blaze and Harriet are true friends and exemplary neighbors, surround him with love and care. They will overcome their studies, and then Blaze will also finish his book, become famous, and the reflection of his glory will fall on her, a gentle wife.

Everything is so cute, patriarchal, in the best traditions of the British educated middle class, that you, the reader, yawning, think: well, when will something start between Monty and Harriet. to not be so boring? And you can't guess. Everything has been tied up for a long time, only not with a devoted wife, but with a nice talkative husband. Blaze, you see, has been in a relationship with a young woman for more than nine years, to whom he rents an apartment (shitty, it's worth noting), and from whom he has a son.

Сука любовь
Слава, Слава героям!!!
Впрочем, им довольно воздали дани.
Теперь поговорим о дряни.
Живет приличная семья из английского среднего класса: папа практикующий психоаналитик, мама домохозяйка с непоколебимыми нравственными устоями, сын заканчивает учебу в старшей школе и готовится к колледжу. Дом-капюшон Худхаус надежно укрывает их от житейских бурь и штормов. И так уж причудливо тасуется колода. что где на языке оригинала в его названии слышится лишь особого рода воротник, равно приличествующий средневековому монаху и рэперу - там русское ухо различает "худо".

Не ошибаясь. Они могут читать вслух Диккенса и Троллопа, устроившись вечером в гостиной, могут обсуждать вполголоса, что похвальное стремление отца изучить медицину (он, видите ли, стихийный психоаналитик, без врачебной лицензии, сегодня звучит диковато, но для начала английских семидесятых, видимо, ничего странного). Так вот, студенческая скамья Блейза обернется для них необходимостью туже затянуть пояса. Но они справятся, они ведь не сибариты, вот так, встанут плечом к плечу и одолеют эту учебу.

В крайнем случае, продадут кое-какие ценные бумаги или - в совсем уж крайнем, можно попросить взаймы у Монти. Кто такой Монти? О, это сосед, милейший человек, вдовец. писатель. Овдовел недавно, жену, умершую от рака, обожал и теперь немыслимо страдает. Так, что непонятно даже, сумеет ли продолжить серию книг о частном детективе Мило, которая его прославила, ага, даже сериал по телевизору идет. Но Блейз и Харриет настоящие друзья и образцовые соседи, окружают его любовью и заботой. Одолеют учебу, а потом Блейз тоже допишет свою книгу, прославится, и отсвет его славы упадет на нее, нежную жену.

Все так мило, патриархально, в лучших традициях британского образованного среднего класса, что ты, читатель, позевывая, думаешь: ну когда уж между Монти и Харриет что-то завяжется. чтобы не так скучно? И не угадываешь. Все уже давно завязалось, только не у преданной жены, а у симпатичного разговорчивого мужа. Блейз, понимаете ли, больше девяти лет состо��т в связи с молодой женщиной, которой снимает квартиру (хреновую, стоит заметить), и от которой имеет сына со, скажем так, особенностями развития.

Красивый ребенок Люка склонен пренебрегать общественными условностями. Сегодня мы назвали бы его аспергером, но речь о полувековой давности событиях, когда на особенных детей привешивали ярлык "псих ненормальный", а модной темой был не аутизм, но фрейдизм, с его бесконечным вниманием к снам И да, невообразимое количество снов, которые видят, вспоминают, пересказывают, пытаются интерпретировать или стараются забыть герои - это такая часть винтажного колорита книги, сегодня воспринимаемого откровенным дурновкусием. Так вот, Люка не свет в окне, прямо скажем, для Эмили. И Блейз не питает к нему особенно отцовск��х чувств. Но ребенок цементирует отношения, не позволяет этому уважаемому человеку отряхнуть прах порочащей связи со своих ног, вернувшись в лоно семьи окончательно.

И не сказать, чтобы Харрриет чего-то такого подсознательно не чувствовала. К чему бы окружать себя приютскими псами, как не в стремлении компенсировать недостаток преданности и любви? Тема адюльтера, чуть неприличная и очень увлекательная для инициаторов, мучительно больна для того. кто узнает последним - этим я не открою Америки. Как и утверждением, что человеческое устройство не моногамно.

Нельзя прожить жизнь, ни разу не бросив заинтересованного взгляда по сторонам. Разве что вы вдвоем на необитаемом острове, вопрос, останется ли это только взглядом. Дама Айрис Мердок препарирует ситуацию своих героев лазерной заточки скальпелем, являя читателю спектр реакций, от ожидаемых до непредсказуемых. Вот прекраснодушная Харриет узнает от раскаявшегося мужа о многолетнем обмане. И вместо того, чтобы выгнать к чертям собачьим, входит в положение, окружает дополнительной заботой. НО! не владея полнотой информации, уверена, что любимый чуть ли не тот единственный раз оступился, в который был зачат мальчик. И! она думает, что теперь у него с Эмили все кончено.

Верит, что этот ребенок. на самом деле не нужный ни матери, ни отцу, что именно он, а не отменный секс на грязных простынях - причина. по которой связь продолжается. И думает, как бы устроить так. чтобы Люка подолгу гостил, а в перспективе и поселился в Худхаусе. Тем более, что к ней он сразу потянулся (собаки, там же собаки, помните?) Надо ли напоминать, что чрезмерная доброта и самопожертвование опасны для донатора и развращают реципиентов?

Я, прежде, чем писать свой отзыв, проглядела другие. Удивилась, как много есть женщин, склонных видеть в невозмутимой британской добропорядочности Харриет ханжество и лицемерие. И еще, каждая первая рецензия недовольна слитым финалом. Если честно, тот, в котором сцена с собаками была бы доведена до логического завершения, нравился мне больше. Но моральный реализм, почти как история, не терпит сослагательного наклонения. Потому: получите, распишитесь.

Леди Айрис любит свою читательницу более, чем она того заслуживает, и дает жесткий урок, остерегая от деструктивных паттернов поведения: не растворяйся в своем мужчине без остатка; имей собственные интересы и свой круг знакомств; позаботься о финансовой независимости. Можно сказать: "Да ладно, для кого там Мердок писала, для западных интеллектуалов, которые, известно, в меньшинстве".

Но конструктивные идеи внедряются в массовое сознание не напрямую, а опосредованно, через адаптацию коллективным бессознательным. И то. что прогрессивное человечество уже восприняло как норму, в более патриархальных частях мира может еще очень долго пробуксовывать: свет велик, языкового барьера никто не отменял и нет у русскоязычной литературы такой мощной непрерывной традиции феминизма.

Но мы движемся в направлении, вектор которого задали в свое время книги, подобные этой. А потому тупости становится меньше. Невзирая.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) A later Murdoch – her sixteenth novel – and not one I knew anything about beforehand. In terms of atmosphere, characters and themes, it struck me as a cross between A Severed Head and The Nice and the Good. Like the former, it feels like a play with a few recurring sets: Hood House, where the Gavenders (Blaise, Harriet and David) live; their next-door neighbor Montague Small’s house; and the apartment where Blaise keeps his mistress, Emily McHugh, and their eight-year-old son Luca. A sizeable dramatis personae radiates out from the central love triangle: lodgers, neighbors, other family members, mutual friends and quite a few dogs.

Blaise is a psychoanalyst but considers himself a charlatan because he has no medical degree; he’s considering returning to his studies to rectify that. Harriet reminded me of Kate from The Nice and the Good: a cheerful, only mildly unfulfilled matriarch who is determined to choreograph much of what happens around her. (“She wanted simply to feel the controls firmly in her hands. She wanted to be the recognizer, the authorizer, the welcomer-in, the one who made things respectable and made them real by her cognizance of them.”) Their son David, 16, looks like a Pre-Raphaelite god and is often disgusted by fleshly reality. Montague writes successful but formulaic detective novels and is mourning his wife’s recent death.

I loved how on first introduction to most characters we hear about the dreams from which they’ve just awoken, involving mermaids, cats, dogs and a monster with a severed head. “Dreams are rather marvellous, aren’t they,” David remarks to Monty. “They can be beautiful in a special way like nothing else. Even awful things in dreams have style.” Scenes often open with dreams that feel so real to the characters that they could fool readers into belief.

Blaise knows he can’t sustain his double life, especially after Luca stows away in his car on a couple of occasions to see Hood House. When he confesses to Harriet via a letter, she seems to handle things very well. In fact, she almost glows with self-righteous pride over how reasonably she’s been responding. But both she and Emily end up resentful. Why should Blaise ‘win’ by keeping his wife and his mistress? “You must feel like the Sultan of Turkey,” Emily taunts him. “You’ve got us both. You’ve got away with it.” Here starts a lot of back-and-forth, will-they-won’t-they that gets somewhat tedious. Throughout I noticed overlong sections of internal monologue and narrator commentary on relationships.

There’s a misperception, I think, that Murdoch wrote books in which not much happens, simply because her canvas can be small and domestically oriented. However, this is undoubtedly an eventful novel, including a Shocking Incident. Foreshadowing had alerted me that someone was going to die, but it wasn’t who or how I thought. When it comes to it, Murdoch is utterly matter-of-fact: “[X] had perished”.

One of the pleasures of reading a Murdoch novel is seeing how she reworks the same sorts of situations and subjects. Here I enjoyed tracing the mother–son relationships – at least three of them, two of which are quite similar: smothering and almost erotic. Harriet later tries to subsume Luca into the family, too. I also looked out for the recurring Murdochian enchanter figure: first Blaise, for whom psychiatry is all about power, and then Harriet.

I hugely enjoyed the first 100 pages or more of the book, but engaged with it less and less as it went on. Ultimately, it falls somewhere in the middle for me among the Murdochs I’ve read (for a full ranking and links to all my previous reviews, see my blog).

A favorite passage (this is Monty on the perils of working from home!): “If I had an ordinary job to do I’d have to get on with it. Being self-employed I can brood all day. It’s undignified and bad.”

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Ivana Books Are Magic · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You know what. You've killed me and sent me to hell, and you must descend to the underworld to find me and make me live again. If you don't come for me, I'll become a demon and drag you down into the dark.”

― Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine


Now, that’s the kind of love than is a joy to read about, if not to experience. About two pages into this novel, I was ready to propose to this ingenious piece of writing. Let's for the purpose of this metaphor imagine I really went searching for the big fat engagement ring, but I forgot to pop the question because I was so engrossed with my love interest i.e. in the reading process itself. Can I propose now, Iris?


Long story short, as soon as I started reading I knew I'm going to love Iris Murdoch. I could feel it in my bones. That sweet anticipation, that lovely sensation of having on your knees a book you know will bring you nothing but satisfaction. ( In all honestly, this novel was probably never anywhere close my thighs, thighs area or knees, who reads like that? Who? it's just the mental image of all those long legged Instagram girls that I can't shake of. )


The characters! Has there ever been such a delicious group of selfish, insane and dysfunctional people? The way they interact is marvellous. The way this novel is written is brilliant. They’re as real as they can be and delightfully messy in every and any sense possible (mental, emotional and social). As messy and crazy as possible. There really isn’t a protagonist, there isn’t a character that is at the centre. They’re all equally important and they will all get a moment to shine….and will they shine in style!

It is that brutal honesty that I appreciate the most in this novel. Nobody is innocent, everyone has an agenda, especially if they themselves don’t see it. Nothing is certain, people change their lives in a heartbeat. It is as Tennessee Williams said, in real life we betray each other in a heartbeat. This novel captures that. This is real life but at the same time it is also a novel. It is life but it is also great writing. I could feel for every single character despite their selfishness, possibly just because of their weakness and selfishness, their humanity.

The way they are stripped down to the very core of their being makes them very human, even when what Iris shows us is the worst aspect of humanity. There isn’t a hero character in this one, everyone is projecting the guilt onto others and they are all equally lost. Everyone is their own demon and torturer. Yet there are moments of peace and even moments of grace. For all her intellect, Iris is not ice cold. You will find emotive parts in this one, but they won’t be where you’re expecting them. No-no!

The novel opens us with a character Blaise. He seems like a likeable enough guy. His ideas seem fresh. How that is going to change! His wife Harriet is wonderfully portrayed right from the start. There is this warm feeling that accompanies journey into her soul. That is actually something that is going to linger. For me she remained the person I liked the most. Not that Harriet is idolized! No, she has her flaws, multiple ones, but she stayed close to my heart (for whatever reason).


I’m getting ahead of things. Anyway, the opening of the novel is interesting but all in all this seems like a normal family until you discover something about this guy Blaise (that happens fairly quickly, Iris doesn't beat around bush in this one). Blaise has a mistress. In fact, he has a whole another family hidden from sight. How shocking! This is only the tip of the iceberg. For whom Blaise loves is a mystery! I’ m tempted to be the cynic and say probably only himself. However, we are perhaps all more like Blaise than we would love to admit. Perhaps you will be sickened by him the time you finish this novel, but admit it, you would have also felt for him at least at some point in the narrative.


Not just for him. For his mistress, for her courage and her cowardice, for her willingness to settle for less… For this neighbour, the writer who can’t writer and who can’t emotionally connect with anyone. Oddly enough , this emotionless writer is the one I most relate to. I really liked Harriet too, despite everything, but he is the probably the one I was the most curious about. For good reason it seems, because towards the end of the story, this novel suddenly becomes very much about him.

It may not seem at first, but trust me, these kind of characters joined together in this kind of story…It is something that is hard to find. It felt bloody amazing to me! I seriously can’t think of any novel to compare it....and boy do these characters keep busy! The story itself has an astonishing amount of twist and turns. Everyone has a secret within a secret within a secret.

Yet it is not about secrets. One moment of profound soul questioning gets followed by the most banal action on the part of the same character who a moment ago seemed on a verge of enlightment. Do you know what? It actuallly seems right. People act on all kinds of impulses, animalistic ones, emotive and intellectual ones and plain dump ones. At times it makes the charters look utterly crazy. Which they kind of are. And perhaps we all are. The question is only who is the craziest one? The writer who can’t write, the mistress who won’t stop at anything, the wife who wants to become a mother to the son of the mistress, her own golden locks son who is looking everywhere for some help but gets ignored by just about anyone? Yet they all keep on, boats against current.

What is the conclusion? Life is madness but human are strong and will survive all? No. Nothing so simple. This is not a heart- warming exploration of humanity. No, this is exploration of worst and best in ourselves. Let's say it like this. This novel is not here to give you answers about life. It will give you so much answers you won't know how to find heads or tail but that is because it recongnized that life isn't simple. People are people. They act in all kind of ways resulting in all kind of events.

Now, you know what is a great thing about life? At times, there comes a great writer into your life. She or he (well in this case she) gives us the opportunity to laugh at it all. She sets us free. Thank you for that Iris. This novel is delicious. It is intelligent without being pretentious, crazy without being over the top and with just the right amount of irony that is an absolute joy to read.

[Derek Driggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just another classic Murdoch that's good for all the classic Murdoch reasons! I love how she makes everything comical in a British way and at the same time explores serious philosophical perspectives through DRAMA. So fun.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

El tema absoluto (Reseña, 2022)

(También disponible en: https://cuadernosdeunbibliofago.wordp... )

Los libros cuyo tema es el amor pueden dividirse en dos: a) los escritos por Iris Murdoch, y b) todos los demás. No se trata de una clasificación caprichosa, aunque lo parezca. Podría formularla de otra manera más diplomática: a) aquellos donde el amor es de verdad el tema, y b) aquellos donde el amor es un pretexto para hablar de otra cosa, por ejemplo, de romance. También podría reformularla en términos poéticos: a) aquellos en los que el amor es el tema absoluto, y b) aquellos en los que el amor es uno de los temas principales. En mi intimidad, sin embargo, lo tengo claro, sin pudor: Iris Murdoch / el resto.

En Murdoch el amor es de verdad el tema absoluto. Volví a comprobarlo con La máquina del amor sagrado y profano, la última de sus traducciones de su obra que Impedimenta quiso poner en las librerías. En planteamiento de la trama estamos ante la historia de un esposo, una esposa, y una amante, y podría caerse en el error de considerar, dados los ingredientes, que lo que vamos a leer es un triángulo amoroso, con sus tensiones y consecuencias; una historia donde son claves los celos y la infidelidad. Pero aquí lo importante no son los celos, ni la infidelidad. Es el amor.

En las novelas de Murdoch, y esta no es la excepción, el amor nunca sirve de excusa para plantear otro tema, no es el vehículo para derivar en otras reflexiones o abordar problemáticas de lo humano. Al contrario, parecería que en su obra todo es una excusa para hablar del amor. El amor en concreto y en abstracto, el amor diseccionado psicológica o sociológicamente, el amor sublimado de las experiencias místicas y religiosas, el amor con perspectiva de género, de raza, de clase, de edad… y todo, siempre, recordando que lo esencial está en elaborar una prosa que permita confesar ese gesto con el cual un corazón se abre para contener a otro, para contener al mundo.

El triángulo amoroso de Blaise, Harriet, y Emily (que es como se llaman el esposo, la esposa, y la amante) se nos entregará sin omitir ni una sola de las escenas que lo convierten en un melodrama, pero además estará potenciado con toda la belleza capaz de aportar una narradora que comprende que en esos domésticos e inofensivos problemones está en juego y en escena lo más valioso que la experiencia humana llega jamás a intuir: la posibilidad de un amor que nos eleve más allá de la nada y el absurdo que llenan el vacío de la existencia.

Y hay un montón de perros (uno se llama Áyax), y unos gatos, y flores en un bolsillo, y citas de autores griegos, y un colegio con una pileta, y teteras, y cuadros, y una estación de tren. Porque, claro, si vamos a hablar de amor necesitamos que haya una estación de tren.

Lean a Murdoch. Amen. Lo demás…

[Maral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es el primer libro que leo de esta autora y me ha sorprendido bastante básicamente porque no sabría decir, si me está narrando una historia en serio o se está riendo de sus propios personajes. Porque la novela va de eso de las vidas interiores y exteriores de unos personajes muy peculiares. Un hombre, Blaise, casado con Harriet viviendo en una bonita casa con un hijo de 16 años también un tanto peculiar, con una personalidad acorde al mundo familiar en el que vive, mantiene una relación con otra mujer Emily con la que también tiene un hijo de ocho años por el cual no siente ni padece. A partir de aquí aparecen otros personajes como Monty, un escritor y creador de un personaje televisivo que no sabes si va o si viene, vanidoso o cínico quizás... el que le escribe el guion a la historia de Blaise. Pinn, kiki, Edgar, son los personajes secundarios que dan forma a toda esta historia (o parodia) de esa relación de "amor" entre esas dos mujeres sobre las que el "pobre" Blaise no sabe decidirse. Cada una de ellas tira de su esquina de la cuerda y se matan cada una a su manera, una desde la paz y el amor y la otra desde la guerra dialéctica en conseguir que Blaise las elija. Y él, dentro de un sufrimiento del que disfruta a cada segundo se deja querer...
La prosa de Murdoch me ha gustado mucho me ha parecido asequible, aunque lenta sin que esto sea un contra, pero lo que mas me ha gustado es como ahonda en las mentes de esos personajes que como he dicho son terriblemente peculiares.
Caerán más libros de esta autora.

[Rose Boehm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just looked it up in our wonderful Wikipaedia and found that Iris Murdoch wrote 27 novels, the rest of her writings philosophy, plays and poetry. I haven't read them all, but by comparison The Sacred and Profane Love Machine stands out from the rest which is also excellent, of course. Well, what can I say about Iris Murdoch that hasn't been said before - and better.

What is so very enjoyable in any book by Iris Murdoch is how she uses her vast knowledge, studies, readings - in short her knowledge and intelligence - to bring about a novel that very much reminds us of authors as, to name but two, Dostoevsky or George Elliot. She writes about flawed people, enters into their most secret thoughts and shares with the reader a collection of protagonists who make you by turn despair, embarrassed, angry or full of almost furtive empathy. When you dare take a short breath you'll even be invited to giggle from time to time.

It's a novel I read before, I now read for the second time after some years had passed, and I'll read it again, every time discovering more delicious nuances that may have escaped me before. It's like a good wine that grows even better with time.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am very mad at this book right now. Even though I finished it six months ago. Still, angry. I think I should give it higher stars, because it was making me think and feel things in ways I don't usually do. I was getting kinda crazy. I wanted to hurl the book away from me, but it wasn't because it was bad. She simply knows how much people and things suck sometimes, and how they suck in a lot of unique and terribly self-deceptive ways. So, while this book is brilliant about people and deserves way more stars, people are so bloody awful that I'm sticking with two. Grrr.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

While reading The Sacred and Profane Love Machine I could not contain my mind from whispering Zelda Fitzgerald’s quote:“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” . Iris Mudoch explores through her characters a world of pain and agony in contrast with inocence, each emotion being closely supervised by each one’s conscience... Child or adult, gullible or cynicle, characters choose to lie or to accept lies in order to maintain an ordinary life; until the unconceivable happens and the war between sacred and profane love starts.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another poignant book written by Iris Murdoch.

4* Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934-1995
5* Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch
5* Iris Murdoch: Dream Girl
4* A Severed Head
4* The Sea, the Sea
4* The Black Prince
4* The Bell
3* Under the Net
3* The Italian Girl
4* The Sandcastle
4* The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
TR A Fairly Honourable Defeat
TR The Nice and the Good
TR The Philosopher's Pupil
TR The Good Apprentice
TR The Red and the Green

[Esdaile · Rating 4 out of 5]

What marks Irish Murdoch's novels is her benevolence. The main theme of the novels is love, love requited and unrequited, normal and abnormal. Terrible things may occur in her novels or be related by one of her characters but there is no indulgence in evil no presentation of it with malicious intent using realism or plot as a pretext for something unwholesome. The driving ambition of her characters is often victory in love. Defeat is frequent and harrowing but ultimately her faith in love prevails. Her weakness can be that her characters are too obviously instruments of her telling, with little genuine life of their own,an impression which can be compounded by the domination of her intelligence. In this respect her novels are arguably unrealistic because the majority of characters in real life do not appear as interesting or as committed to love as characters in her novels. But is it not the role of the novelist to highlight character and make it interesting, perhaps even to inspire the reader or beholder to be if not a better character at least a more honest one and one more determined to live for what one loves? Iris Murdoch's world is not a wide one, it is that of twentieth century British member so the upper middle class dealing with the entanglements of the human heart. In "The Sacred and Profane Love Machine" the story focuses on Montague Small a hugely successful writer of detective fiction mourning his late wife, and his neighbour, Blaise Gavender, who is the apex of an eternal triangle. Irish Murdoch's depiction of the two women in Blaise's life, his wife and his mistress is sympathetic, acute, remorseless and very intelligent. Blaise is confronted with the choice between sacred and profane life and is too weak to make a decision; his hopes that he can "muddle through" and have the best of both worlds mean that he has to leave the fight for him to the two women whose love for him is bewildering to this reviewer but no more bewildering than affections in real life. Only a deus ex machina solution to Blaise's dilemma jarred for me in this otherwise believable and compelling tale.

There is "nowt queerer than folk" and nothing more strange than the heart's affections. This is a moving, sad yet finally happy book which succeeds because of the writer's immense sympathy and psychological discernment.

[Emmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved how Murdoch probes into the thoughts and emotions of each character, her astounding clarity of writing be it in dealing with their emotions or mapping out the escalation of situations. Her analyses of relationships are sharp and incisive -- sometimes too much so, I feel, but it never feels contrived, rather as if these characters of hers had spent far too much time thinking about themselves and the state they are in than seems possible for such ordinary people. She writes sentiment and emotion so beautifully that in this tragicomedy at times I find myself on the verge of tears, sharing in Harriet's anguish, Blaise's, well, blase attitudes and his desperation, sometimes despising Emily myself for throwing a spanner in the works of Harriet's blissful marriage. Murdoch explores the states of not just the central character but gives a part to the trio's friends and children, and through this realises a fuller, more descriptive and complete picture of the chaos and its effects on everyone involved. I daresay I would never forget the gradual tender closeness of Harriet and Luca: so heartwarming and sweet and special, and yet so tragic.

Sometimes I think I can write, and then I read works like this one and I give up that thought entirely.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sacred and profane love. A man with 2 families - his "sacred", or legitimate family comprised of his wife and son David, and his "profane" comprised of his mistress and son Luca. These families slowly start to unravel and take the participants down with them. Exploration of the meaning of love and neverending quest for the heart's satisfaction.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

The Sacred and the Profane has all the elements you expect from an Iris Murdoch novel, a suburban/London setting, love affairs, tortured souls, dislikable characters, tragedy and a whole array of symbols and tropes that appear again and again in her books. It focuses on the Gavender family, Blaise, Harriet and their son David, their connection with three other characters, Emily, Pinn and Luka, as well as Monty their neighbor and his friend Edgar.

Blaise is a psychotherapist and, as with Palmer Anderson, the psychoanalyst from A Severed Head, it seems Iris Murdoch is taking the opportunity to illustrate her distaste for the profession by making Blaise a selfish, egotistical and immature individual. When Blaise is thinking of his career, she has him say to himself, ‘Of course he enjoyed power, all meddlers with the mind enjoy that! And of course he was aware that this absorption in other people’s misery had more to do with sex than with either altruism or science.’ Blaise seems unable to take any responsibility for his actions and despite being possibly the most immoral character in the novel, continually worries as to whether he has ‘goodness’ , and blames everything that happens on those around him. His lack of self-awareness, again ironic in one supposed to help others achieve their own, is nicely summed up in this paragraph;

‘He knew he was not a bad man, not a wicked man really. He had got into this muddle in such a natural, simple way. Lots and lots of men did what he had done and got away with it. He had just had dead rotten luck all the way along the line.’

Blaise not only believes that everything is fated and out of his hands but he expects those around him to forgive and accommodate him, especially Harriet his gentle wife who, while initially embracing her role as saintly forgiver and asserting her power in the relationship, swiftly realizes that she needs support from someone in her life. This support could come from either Monty their neighbor, a successful thriller writer or Edgar, a big, bumbling Oxford house master. Monty is a recent widower with his own secrets and troubles and thus little sympathy for anyone else and I found his brutal honesty very refreshing and darkly funny, yet I also appreciated the lovelorn, generous, intellectual Edgar who wants to embrace and help everyone while also appearing have his own secrets.

As these two are opposites sides of the spectrum so then we have Emily and David who are another pair of dichotomies, with David preoccupied with the role of religion and especially Christ in his life as a tortured teenage virgin while Emily is a far more devilish presence who says at one time, “You must descend to the underworld to find me and make me live again. If you don’t come for me, I’ll become a demon and drag you down into the dark.” Although Blaise speaks of how it is Harriet and Emily who are the sacred and profane, David also seems to fit into that former category, particularly for Pinn who tells him ‘I worship your innocence’, while poor little Luka, at eight years old, seems one of the more mature and genuine characters of the book despite being reduced to an ‘It’ in Blaise’s mind by the end of the book.’

The novel isn’t as clever nor as witty as The Black Prince, for example, and there were fewer passages of beautiful lines although the writing of place and nature is always notable in Murdoch’s novels. I did, however, appreciate the seventies color schemes and trends in fashions and interior design from Kiki St Loy and her ‘apple green tights’, very brief black velvet shorts and ‘shapeless scarlet shirt’ to Emily’s outlandish decoration of her apartment;

‘the russet carpet, the purple and blue blotchy curtains, the maroon armchair of corded velvet (they could not afford a “suite), the long haired, tasseled multi-coloured woolen Finnish rug, like a big animal, the long low glass coffee table, the gilt mirror”. As a child of the seventies, this brought back some memories!

The ‘machine’ of the title moves relentlessly on throughout the novel as the mechanics of love play out and everyone seems to love someone who doesn’t love them. The plot is relatively simple but to dissect it would provide too many spoilers and the ending is somewhat unsatisfying both in a moral and sympathetic sense. This isn’t one of my favorite of her novels but once again Iris Murdoch has created this suburban novel that has all the passion and tragedy of a Greek play while no doubt having layers of complexity that I’ve barely scratched the surface of.

Some Favorite Lines

‘The presence of both the men in this sort of quietness filled her with a kind of happiness which was also anguish, was terror. Life had been so terrifyingly generous to her.’

‘He was wearing a white shirt and one of his narrowest, silkiest indigo ties, and suit of speckled close-grained black. He looked like a rich, discreetly foppish eighteenth- century curate.’

‘the room was full of garden smells but fairly cool, the marbled wallpaper dimly swirling, the coffered ceiling studded with shadows, the narrow stained-glass cupboards, designed for tall vases, and willowy Madonna, gleaming sully, their jeweled foliage extinguished.’

‘Vague images of girls floated around him, battering him like malevolent butterflies.’

‘Once outside the front door, they were suddenly in a different world. The clouded sun was already announcing twilight. A blackbird, bright as a toy amid the motionless swirl of the leaves, was singing in a tall snaky birch tree. He sang against silence.’

[Maria Jesus N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cada libro que leo de Iris Murdoch me gusta más que el anterior y no me refiero necesariamente a que sea mejor libro o que me guste más la trama, sino a que una vez que le coges el aire a su manera de narrar, a sus personajes y argumentos recurrentes, la disfrutas el doble.
En la máquina del amor sagrado y profano tenemos de nuevo el enredo elegante: amor, engaño, deseo sexual, mucha reflexión y conversaciones de altura. Finales abruptos y comienzos repetidos. Un teatral ir y venir de personajes que buscan sentido a sus vidas o que simplemente sobreviven. Un puzle perfecto con un final redondo.

[Ugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever read another book with quite such a convincingly fully-fleshed cast of characters. This is my first Murdoch, but I assume this ensemble psychological interplay stuff was her thing, seeing as she did it so well here. This is one of those books that makes you realise you could never be a writer, because some people really are just so damned good at it...

I can't say that I loved TSaPLM. It was engrossing as I was reading it, but whenever I put it down I felt disinclined to pick it back up again. It's written in sections of around 5 pages at a time, and each starts with a page or two of updating the reader on the current state of mind of whichever character's turn it is before the next bit of drama unfolds, and this is too often rather tedious, especially on the not infrequent occasions when a dream sequence is shoehorned in. On the other hand, whatever personal growth there is to be gleaned from reading the book comes from this psychoanalysis of the characters, which ought at least make you think more about the inner lives of others, even if it doesn't make you think more about your own motives and traits, which it probably will.

It's also surprisingly chaste when it comes down to it, and I'm not sure whether that was through authorial preference or peccadillo.

Finally, I felt the book was about 20% too long, and I'm quite relieved to have finished it. I will however read more of Murdoch's - Iris's (somehow saying Murdoch just feels wrong) - work in the not-too-distant future. It's almost soap opera, but soap opera-plus. And I like a bit of that from time to time.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have tried Iris Murdoch's work several times and have always bogged down and given up. This one tempted me to do the same, since it's not the kind of novel that appeals to me--it has hardly any plot: it's more an agonizing situation, repetitively described from multiple characters' perspectives, with, finally, some actual events that precipitate a very surprising conclusion--one which Murdoch clearly enjoyed, since she fooled the reader with a false one near the end. One Goodreads reviewer commented that she really put her characters through the wringer in this one, and that is certainly true. Some of the scenes were quite funny, many too dark to be funny at all. Exactly what the machine was, and exactly which loves were sacred and which were profane were (for me, anyway) tantalizingly ambiguous. But there were far too many pages repetitively describing the characters' self-justifications and self-serving analyses of what was going on. Actual dialogue and confrontation, when it occurred, was vivid and memorable; I think the reader could have deduced from these scenes much of what Murdoch went to great lengths to explain in exposition. But finally, not a lot of plot, and very few, if any, admirable characters.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine concerns the absurdly tragic and the tragically absurd. It's a send-up of the ridiculous cycles people get caught up in. This dark satire contains a wealth of social commentary and sober reflection. It shows the bleakness of life while satirizing marriage, affairs, and human connection. It is, in short, Vintage Murdoch.

Blaise Gavender is a psychoanalyst with a loving wife, a teenage son, and a lovely house in the country. He also has a mistress in London and has been living a lie for years. He is both tormented over this lie and unable to see how his life could go on minus either woman. The Gavenders' neighbor is Montague Small, a bestselling author of a detective series he can't abide and a new widower who is emotionally bereft. Over the course of the novel, three households become irrevocably intertwined while love, lust, and chaos reign.

TSAPLM possesses a great setup and way of introducing the characters, something Murdoch always excels at. The very cool dreams everyone had the night before the story begins are recounted. Dreams feature throughout, which is fitting in a book about a psychoanalyst. The opening is also spooky, with a boy seen at dusk through a window in an apple orchard that divides the Gavender and Small properties.

This novel is funny, really very amusing. There's a fascinating ensemble cast, complex with all their quirks, foibles, and faults. There's Harriet Gavender, who comes into her own and feels powerful in a crisis. Monty feeds off the misery of others in the face of his bereavement as it distracts him from his own pain. There's Pinn, a sly conniving character who likes to siphon satisfaction from all the chaos and cause trouble. David Gavender is in the midst of teenage torment amongst all these adult troubles, feeling unseen and misunderstood. Blaise Gavender is one of the most singularly selfish characters I've ever encountered. He's a Grade-A narcissist. He only wants what he can't have; he's the epitome of wanting one's cake and eating it too. Monty and Blaise are classic Murdoch heroes: deeply flawed men, conflicted and tormented in their marriages and relationships. The level of detail makes the characters and their problems feel so real.

The vivid descriptions are the kind I want to eat up with a spoon and chew over for a very long time—I loved to reread them. The twilight, the country houses, the history and layout of those houses and the grounds—LOVE IT! I adored the erudite references to art and antiquity, that—as always in Murdoch—inform the story so well. This book is so deeply intelligent. No one else has had a mind like Murdoch—so bright and diamond sharp.

TSAPLM reminds me of Jane Austen. It's a comedy of human nature told in wonderfully and deliciously old-fashioned prose. It's amazing the different modes of writing Murdoch adopts stylistically, even within this one novel. There are interesting passages about writing and being a writer. This is a story of people's separate loneliness, with everyone suffering privately while close together. They're next to each other yet isolated in their personal hells.

This work deals with power structures and dynamics. It deals with the shifting, passing, and taking of the mantle of who's in control. My favorite character was Harriet. I enjoyed watching her reclaim her identity, her sense of self, and her power. I loved the funny pack of dogs who follow her around everywhere and have distinct personalities.

Murdoch explores the dark desires and parts of people's characters which they either fight to control or they give into. She writes about the reasons for wanting to commit suicide and how it feels to be emotionally and circumstantially trapped with such truthfulness. Blaise's murky justifications are done so well. This book contains a shocking finale. It's exciting: so much transpires at once. You can't guess what will happen next or how it will all turn out. During the crisis, it all comes together and falls apart with alarming rapidity. There's a great and sly use of Chekhov's gun.

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine is a rich novel well worth diving into. It's full of beautiful and haunting imagery. Murdoch is so unique in her descriptions and turns of phrase. This work is a master class in great prose. In the world of this novel, as in the real world, everyone has to muddle along, entrapped, in their falsity and uncertainty. In this thing we could refer to as the love machine—also known as life.

[Mery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo sagrado solo puede serlo cuando significa salvarse

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

When people tell me they find Iris Murdoch hard going, I can see their point with this book. Its very dense and with long long pages of characters inner thoughts with comparatively little actual action/plot. But to me therein lies her genius. This is normal people, inflicting damage on each other - marriage, infidelity, conflicts of maternal love, jealousies etc - as normal people do. Murdoch, I think, deliberately sets this in very ordinary suburban setting. No gothic mansions or crumbling churches, characters from exotic place this time.

[Bistra Ivanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Много хубава книга! Въпреки че е роман от ~400 страници, ми се видя като пиеса - няколко герои, както обичам, нищо не разсейва от същността на нещата, концентрирани конфликти, хората се сблъскват едни с други и най-вече сами със себе си.
Доста паралели направих с "Лятото преди мрака" на Дорис Лесинг, явно и двете знаменити писателки-феминистки са ги вълнували същите неща.
Смислена литература! Обичам!

[nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hot train wreck of Freudian musings with the most hilariously tragic individuals trying to love each other, loving when they shouldn't, loving when they want it most, loving when they need it most.

Love is complicated.

Hurt people hurt people.

Nobody wins. Everybody loses.

Everybody wins. Nobody loses.

With rich prose that swells and dialogue that dances in humor and heart, Murdoch entertains with grand gestures that make for one helluva ride.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no dichotomy in love, it’s both sacred and profane. Great book with twists and turns and stream of consciousness of its characters .

“It’s all to do with the hygiene of the ego. A successful religion is a recipe for an innocent-feeling fantasy life and happy sex”