The Sea, the Sea

Written by Iris Murdoch

Narrated by Simon Vance and Kimberly Farr

Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
• Release date: Apr 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524782962

Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) is the author of twenty-six novels, including Under the Net, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea, as well as several plays and a volume of poetry. Murdoch taught philosophy at Oxford before leaving to write fulltime, winning such literary awards as the Booker Prize and the PEN Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.  

Reviews for The Sea, the Sea

[theampersand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are some people who get frustrated when they see characters make bad decisions. People who scream "don't do that!" in the theater when they realize that the brunette in a horror movie has decided to investigate the spooky house all by herself, for instance. (Not the blonde; she's always the one who survives until the very end.) Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" is not recommended to those sorts of people. If you've ever wanted to slap a fictional character for acting stupid, you could probably wear your palms out on Charles Arrowby. If you can get past that and the fact that, as per usual, all of Murdoch's characters seem ridiculously improbable and somehow true-to-life at the exact same time, and the fact that this book's about six hundred pages long, well, "The Sea, The Sea" is a pretty good novel. In an age where we tend to think of mental disorders as a mere accident of the brain's chemistry, this novel's a remarkable study of obsession. At the heart of it is the aforementioned Charles Arrowby's obsession with a teenage love he meets again by accident in old age. Charles is wrong to pursue her again, and he's even got the presence of mind to tell himself so. But that doesn't stop him. One begins to ask what's actually driving him: is it vanity, or an inability to live in the present, or a desire to recover a purer state of being while in old age? These are real questions, and Murdoch investigates them bravely, if perhaps for too long: whatever virtues she had as a writer, economy was not one of them. Frankly, I suspect that the book's length, coupled with its main character's stubbornness, may get in the way of some of the book's deeper symbolism. There's the sea, a witch, a tower, and a cauldron in this book, but it's hard to consider what all of these might mean when Charles is acting like a thoughtless, monomaniacal jerk for four hundred straight pages. This novel also offers a few other pleasures: there are, fittingly, startling descriptions of the sea and stars, descriptions, both touching and awful, of family life, some wonderful meditations on Buddhist philosophy, and a handsome young man. But this one pretty much wore me out regardless. Recommended to those who like Iris Murdoch, or a challenge.

[magicians_nephew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charles Arrowby is a retired actor, theater director, busybody, and textbook narcissist. He hasn't really retired from those last twoHe buys a ramshackle casa loco of a cottage by the sea and settles down to "Adjure his magic . . . and study to do good" So we're talking about "The Tempest" here - or are we?AND he meets an old love of his life in the village and -- egomaniac that he is -- decides on less than no evidence that he is still in love with her and she is still in love with him -- and it's off to the races.The sea outside his window is wild, beautiful, calm, embracing, and deadly.As Charles ruthlessly stages this last best drama of his life and bends all around him to his will, the sea outdoors pushes and pulls and roars and whispers and takes life and gives life with a matching cruelty and indifference to human life. A casting couch load of Charles' town friends drop by - and there is some low comedy right out of "I Love Lucy". Theater gossip is the best gossip.But also James, his cousin drops in to remind everyone of the Buddhist virtues of listening and studying and being, after all, at rest.Murdoch is such a wonderful writer - her descriptions do go on but that's all right with. Her descriptions of the sea are worth the price of admission. .And all these people who run around comically and tragically have life and heart and humanity. You care about them.a Long book and a slow book - you have to downshift. It's worth it.

[dawnlovesbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

beautiful language and such detailed vivid descriptions of the sea. i could picture each character perfectly. i did find the main characater, charles arrowby, annoying and at times out of his mind. the book is mostly about his obsession with his first love, hartley, and how it has affected his whole life. a lot of the book is unbelievable but the sea lurking in the background and murdoch's writing make the book worthwhile. i can see that the book won the booker for being such an artistic and beautiful piece of writing.

[ebt1002 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Charles Arrowby retires from the theater where he was a moderately successful actor and a wildly successful director, buys a creepy old house by the wild and indifferent sea, with plans to write a memoir of his great love affair with the actress Clement Makin. A series of odd events, including an unlikely encounter with a childhood friend and sweetheart, and visitations from London friends who just can't let him retire in peace all divert him from his plans. At times passionately suspenseful, at other times meandering and slow, the novel explores "the inward ravages of jealousy, remorse, fear and the consciousness of irretrievable moral failure." Charles acknowledges that he is an egoist and his unremittingly flawed nature renders him a paradoxically reliable narrator. He is, after all, writing a memoir and we are to believe that the narrative we're reading is a faithful diary of his experiences in the months after moving to the vaguely haunted house by the sea. Paranoid distortions abound, no doubt, but he believes them so wholeheartedly and only occasionally suggests that his interpretations of situations might be colored by his obsessive tendencies, not to mention the fact that he drinks like a fish. Again, these sly glimpses of self-awareness render him credible as a witness and tangible as a character. Reading the novel, I was frequently reminded of the experience of attending the theater: I never forgot where I was but I was perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief and see where Charles' madness would lead. The novel requires some dedication but the rewards of Murdoch's writing are worth the concentration. Her use of imagery, metaphor, and allusion is so sophisticated: at times subtle, at times so blatant as to be self-mocking. I googled terms and references to history or mythology or literature more than once and was happy to do so. Truly, reading this novel was an intellectual delight.

[facucas1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting book, especially the last chapter. The story didn't always keep me all that interested, but good overall.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Charles Arrowby is a wonderful anti-hero; yes, he's a kidnapper who treats his friends and lovers (bar one) with contempt, but I couldn't help but root for him. The hilariously pompous opening 'memoir' won me over straight away, but the action that followed never quite matched that excellent beginning. Still, a great book for anyone escaping to the country near some cliffs - as long as the reader's a strong swimmer.

[alisony-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bravo, Iris Murdoch - this was extremely clever and uncomfortable reading. But my goodness - it took me 170 pages to get hooked.Charles Arrowby is perhaps one of the most dislikable protagonists I've read in a long time. A narcissist through and through, he is egotistical, extremely self-deluded and supremely arrogant, and as is always the way with such people he has a loyal band of friends and ex-lovers who remain moths to his flame, available to be summoned at will when his ego requires further stroking.There's not much I can say about this novel that wouldn't be a total plot spoiler, therefore I'll limit it to saying that Charles, a somewhat famous theatre director, has retired to a remote house by the sea for a supposedly quiet life, only to unexpectedly bump into his first love. Given Charles' narcissistic disposition, his need to rewrite the past to become the victor in love blindsides him into a dangerous obsession which is played out in front of a cast of eccentric friends who turn up uninvited to stay with him. This turned into a real page-turning book a third of the way in, but I definitely found the first part tedious as Murdoch set the scene of Arrowby's daily life in the quiet, unfriendly coastal village. I do usually need to fall in love a little bit with at least one of the characters in a novel (however flawed they might be), but Murdoch deliberately makes her characters in this book hugely unlikeable for different reasons. That said, it works - Arrowby's total egotism and obsession is such that we are left unsure of what he is capable of doing next, which makes for a great reading ride.The ending wasn't what I expected it to be, and I can't decide if I feel a little cheated by it or not - the jury is out on that one.This was my first Murdoch, and clearly she was a supremely gifted writer. This wasn't a take-to-your-heart type of novel, but more of a can't-put-down-literary-car-crash that I almost read peeping through my fingers. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it (after a week of labouring through the first part), but I'm glad it's finished.Would I read it again? Yes, definitely. Perhaps that's the skill of Murdoch as a writer - she puts you into a total discomfort zone as a reader which confuses the equilibrium somewhat.4 stars - some marks deducted for a long drawn out start, but such startling characterisation and outright weirdness make this a great read (eventually).

[jack2410 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What was this about? "Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor both professionally and personally, and to amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolve . . . ."

[neurodrew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a difficult book, mostly because of the protagonist Charles Arrowby, who seems to be egotistical and blind to others, inciting one to rage at his behavior. Nonetheless he keeps your attention, with his odd food preferences and diktats, and with his mad obsession with a love from his childhood, whom he meets by chance when he retires to the seaside. Charles is a famous director in the London theater, and, despite his assertion that he never loved anyone after his schoolboy crush on Hartley, a womanizer and marriage wrecker. He buys a house for retirement on a remote promontory on the northwest coast of England, complete with a tower, and a natural bridge over the tidal pools. At the beginning of the novel he writes to a former lover, who he suspects would still run to him, and he is proved right, but succeeds in breaking her new relationship with another actor. That actor comes to be a sort of butler for Charles at some point in the book. Charles, in his obsession with Hartley, contrives to get her to the house and keeps her there for days under lock, assuming she will abandon her husband for him; she is now old and not very attractive. His brother, an officer in India, involved in Tibetan espionage and meditation, arrives, and will eventually save Charles, and give him his fortune. The bare outlines of the plot do nothing to suggest the deep complexities of the characters, and of the writing and allusions in the book. It would have been hard to push through this except that I was confined on a long air trip.

[ecumenicalcouncil · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like all Iris Murdoch's books I just don't know how to describe The Sea The Sea. The story goes nowhere and everywhere. She leaves us feeling as if we have just read something profound without being able to put our finger on what. Unlike the other Murdoch novels I've read this one is told first person and takes us into the mind of Charles Arrowby so well we feel as if we've sat down and talked to him. Perhaps that's where the genius of the novel lies.

[vivl_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. This one had been sitting on my "to read" shelf for a long time. The polarised reviews from other readers prompted me to continuously put off picking it up as I had had a bit of a dud run book-wise and didn't feel up to facing another reading disappointment. Perhaps I was in just the right, magic place for this meandering diary-style tale. I loved it from the start and was even happy to accept the inconclusive conclusion: it seemed appropriate. Yes, Charles is not a pleasant person. Some have said he is unlikeable but that was not my impression, indeed one thing that astounded and impressed me was how Iris Murdoch put me in the head of this seriously flawed personality and yet I found him strangely likeable!Some also were discomforted by the depiction of female characters, disliking what they saw as their weakness or madness (or both). I didn't see it like that. We receive only Charles's perceptions of these women and I feel it is apparent throughout that his point of view is so selfishly flawed as to be almost entirely unreliable. Reading between his lines, I see women who aren't actually that helpless at all, indeed are often just good, normal people (characteristics Charles is intrinsically incapable of understanding, indeed that he doesn't even believe exist since he is so convinced that everyone else feels and acts in the same egotistical manner as himself.) Some of the women (not all) are perhaps a little inexplicably in his sway, but I did get a sense of his cruel charisma so that made a fair amount of sense as well.Was this her best? I don't know, but I need to read more from Dame Iris Murdoch to find out!

[evilmoose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

That Iris Murdoch is certainly great at creating a sense of unease and foreboding. A Booker winner that I really enjoyed.

[amanaceerdh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

beautiful language and such detailed vivid descriptions of the sea. i could picture each character perfectly. i did find the main characater, charles arrowby, annoying and at times out of his mind. the book is mostly about his obsession with his first love, hartley, and how it has affected his whole life. a lot of the book is unbelievable but the sea lurking in the background and murdoch's writing make the book worthwhile. i can see that the book won the booker for being such an artistic and beautiful piece of writing.

[kjacobson1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book sucked me in. I couldn't stop reading, even though Charles Arrowby's obsession with Hartely became annoying. His thoughts show how we can twist any evidence to fit our personal hypotheses. So why did I keep reading? I loved the description of the sea and the house and Charles' food preferences and the cars, etc. The plot twists, though extreme, were entertaining. I liked the blend of unusual plot and philosophy. I would have liked to know James better...

[michaelbartley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a very interesting novel. ms. murdoch explores the dark side of love(?) and relationships. the main character in the name of saving his first love, from what he believes is a terrrible marriage is very emotionally abusive. this book remains be of loltia, in that we see the main character in both novels as human even though their behavior is abusive

[brentcnall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the most memorable and enjoyable books I have EVER read.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" is the tale of Charles Arrowby, a narcissistic actor/director who retires to Shruff End, a gloomy seaside home to write his memoirs. His peace and quiet is quickly interrupted by a bevy of girlfriends past, including a chance encounter with Mary Hartley Smith, his first love.Arrowby is at once smitten and obsessed with Hartley and the book becomes a complicated tangle of jealousy, obsession and possibly even madness. The line between reality and fiction (in Arrowby's world) is so blurred that the book really plunges along moving from the ridiculous to the absurd in an entertaining way.I liked the book a lot, though I won't say that I loved it. (Reading the first 100 or so pages, I thought this might be a five star book for me... but as the story evolved I saw that it wouldn't be.) I adore Murdoch's writing style. However, as the absurdity and egotism of the narrator builds to a crescendo, the overall story lost a little steam as it stretched the bounds of credibility farther and farther. I still give the book a good, solid thumbs up... just not as enthusiastically as I initially thought it would be.

[perednia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rich, full story that appears trivial only on the surface. A novel to read more than once.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some evocative prose from Iris Murdoch. As she explores the potent mixture of power, illusion, and self-delusion in retired actor, playwright, and theater director Charles Arrowby, Murdoch narrates a series of startling events: old love affairs revive and die again, friendships sour into attempted murder, hallucinations (or are they?) portend ominous happenings, and the drowning embrace of the sea waits restlessly in the background. An intricate portrait is drawn of a man bewitched and bewildered by his own powers of self-promotion and manipulation. Murdoch is at her best with these characters and the cottage by the sea.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lama lama lama!Rudyard Kipling and Iris Murdoch are probably the only English writers who could get away with putting a Buddhist sage at the centre of an ironic modern novel without it becoming sickeningly twee. The sea, the sea keeps you guessing for a long time about where it's going: Murdoch obviously decided it was worth the risk that readers might give up on the unlovable Charles halfway through the book. It's a risky strategy making your narrator a man who habitually mistreats women, and an innocent first love the main motor for the bad things that happen in the plot, but Murdoch has to take the reader down into the depths of humiliation with Charles for the ending to make sense. You can see from the reviews here that most people either love this book or fail to see what all the fuss is about. I think I could have come down either way, but the book caught me in the right frame of mind (and at a moment when I could get through it in a couple of days: I don't think it's a good book to leave lying around for weeks and weeks).

[startingover_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A gorgeous atmosphere is evoked of a retired theatre director's seaside home. Too many of Murdoch's women seem to be either predatory hysterics, or downtrodden and passive. There were also a few too many coincidences in this novel, but it's an interesting study of jealousy, 'the sea serpent' and the self-delusion of projecting love where it doesn't exist. [March 2004]

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charles Arrowby is a London theatre director who has recently retired to a seaside cottage in the south of England. He plans to write his memoirs, with particular focus on his lover-mentor, a woman named Clement. The book is written in the first person; Charles chronicles both day-to-day living in his cottage, and describes his life and loves. Vanity and jealousy are central themes. Charles spent his life immersed in theatre, entangled in complex relationships. His cousin James grew up in a more privileged environment and was a perennial cause of envy. Hartley was Charles' childhood sweetheart and, having been rejected by her as a young adult, Charles has been unable to deeply love anyone else. He toys with the affections of two actresses, Lizzie and Rosina, and fancies himself as having power over them when in fact, it is exactly the reverse. The plot thickens when Charles meets up with Hartley, who surprisingly lives in the village near his cottage. She is married, with an adult son. But this does not stop Charles from pursuing her, and trying to re-create the happiness he felt as a teenager. Meanwhile James, Rosina, Lizzie, and others make frequent visits and try to talk sense into Charles. As Mary Kinzie writes in her introduction to the Penguin classic edition, Charles "violently and bullheadedly persists in all the wrong directions." None of his plans work out as he hopes. And as these plans unravel, he keeps trying to find another way to achieve his dreams. A climax of sorts occurs about 100 pages before the end, in which Peregrine, a theatre friend, calls him on his negative and manipulative behaviors: "You're an exploded myth. And you still think you're Genghis Khan! Laissez-moi rire. I can't think why I let you haunt me all these years. ... You never did anything for mankind, you never did anything for anybody except yourself." (p. 395)Despite these character traits, Charles is not completely despicable. Iris Murdoch had a tremendous talent for portraying the middle-aged to older man and all his foibles, in a way that made the man mostly likeable. The Sea, the Sea also includes some interesting plot threads: Charles' pursuit of Hartley; Hartley's marriage; Hartley's son Titus; Charles' relationship with James, and so on. All in all, a satisfying read.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an odd and wonderful book. Five pages in, I was enmeshed in the mind of the fascinating narrator and nearly unable to put down this mystery of a book. In a way, it reminds me of Turn of the Screw, and I think fans of either Henry James or Kazuo Ishiguro would do well to explore this book of Murdoch's. The prose is delightful, the characters challengingly real, and the book as a whole a journey well worth exploring. I admit that I wanted things to wrap up more neatly by the end, but then, in the end, I believe I am satisfied. I'll be looking up more of Murdoch's work, there's no doubt. Highly recommended.

[nocto_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bizarre! One of those books where you're never quite sure where it's going, or why. On the whole that's a good thing though!

[saturdayreadinggroup · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

How can a book manage to be hysterical, banal and tedious all at the same time? That life, or indeed Charles Arrowby, can be all of these things may have been the point but it didn't make for pleasant reading. The apparent philosophical profundity was lost on me as I was hoping the sea monster would put in a re-appearance and maul the insipid, irritating and unappealing characters to death. Sadly it didn't and the infuriatingly repetitious plot, complete with Charles Arrowby's Cooking for Theatrical Hermits, meandered on and on all the way to page 511. Where a postscript cruelly adds another 27 pages, just when I thought I'd made it to the end, the end. However, the lentil and chipolata stew did sound delightful.

[southpaw_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this taut, fascinating, and as my first foray into Murdoch, I'm definitely going back for more. It's beautifully constructed and characterised.

[pipster_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book sucked me in. I couldn't stop reading, even though Charles Arrowby's obsession with Hartely became annoying. His thoughts show how we can twist any evidence to fit our personal hypotheses. So why did I keep reading? I loved the description of the sea and the house and Charles' food preferences and the cars, etc. The plot twists, though extreme, were entertaining. I liked the blend of unusual plot and philosophy. I would have liked to know James better...

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really don't know what to make of this book. Retired actor Charles Arrowby buys a small house on the sea in Southern England, where he plans to write his memoirs. However, his plans are shattered by the discovery that his first love...his one, true love...Hartley is living in the same town. He is certain that she still loves him (despite a total lack of evidence) and plans to rescue her from her bad marriage (as he perceives it). Meanwhile, a number of other friends, relatives and ex-lovers arrive to visit Charles, all trying to talk him out of his delusions.Oh, and there's a sea monster. Maybe.Somehow the story and characters didn't ring true for me. I wonder if this novel was supposed to be satirical? At the same time, Charles cannot be relied on as a narrator of his own story, so maybe I've missed something that so many others seem to have found in this novel.It took me a long time to get into it, but the story picked up with time. I especially liked Charles' reflections on what he'd written at the end of the book.

[theprincess_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite books of all time. Interesting, twisted, well deserving of the Booker Prize. A frustrated old actor moves to an old house on the sea and thinks he's going to encase himself in a cocoon. But old memories and particularly an old love stir up demented memories and ideas. A page turner, for sure.

[lyzzybee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bought late 1980s (?)A re-read of a favourite Murdoch and it didn't let me down, though it was interesting to read it in the context of our project to read all IM's novels in order as I did pick out a lot of the themes in more detail. I remembered this one well although I did conflate two parts together. An atmospheric read with beautiful descriptions of the sea and coastline and a plot in which much of the action interestingly took place offstage. James, the mystical cousin, is one of my favourite characters in all of Murdoch, although interestingly when I imagine him and Charles, I swap their physical appearances in my head.If you want to read about the effect first, lost love has on a lifetime, or just a cracking good read (not to mention Booker winner) then I recommend this one wholeheartedly.