A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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A friend gave me this book and I found it a fairly good read. 

It’s about this man who is having an affair on his wife, who then finds out that his wife is having an affair on him and wants a divorce. His life begins to fall apart after that as we discover all kinds of hidden secrets about the lives of those around him. His wife’s lover is also having an affair with his own sister, and his wife and his girlfriend are both having affairs with his brother.

It’s a tangled and complicated tale, but it held my attention both because of the prose style and because throughout all the ups and downs the characters more or less maintain stilted and phony cordial relations with one another.

I took it to be a book at least partly about the need to maintain certain appearances in society, even when the dirty reality beneath it all is a whole other matter.

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.