Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) het wysgerige werke en romans geskryf. In hierdie opsig was sy soos twee Franse eksistensialiste, Jean-Paul Sartre en Simone de Beauvoir, wat haar albei (veral aanvanklik) sterk beïnvloed het. Kort voor en kort na Murdoch se dood het haar man, John Bayley, 'n trilogie oor haar en hulle lewe geskryf (SêNet, 22.08.2011). Dit het aanleiding tot 'n rolprent (Iris, 2001) gegee wat die openbare beeld van Murdoch deurslaggewend beïnvloed het. Hierdie beeld berus op hoofsaaklik twee elemente, haar seksualiteit en die latere verbrokkeling van haar gees weens alzheimersiekte. Die beswaar wat opgeklink het, is dat haar essensie, haar eens briljante intellek en haar skryfwerk, nie tot hulle reg gekom het nie.
Seker die heftigste besware word deur AN Wilson in sy boek, Iris Murdoch as I new her (London: Hutchinson, 2003, 265p), geopper. Hy beskuldig Bayley daarvan dat hy die aandag op homself probeer vestig ten koste van Murdoch, wat 'n uiters private mens was. Wilson het aansien verwerf met biografiese werke oor Walter Scott, John Milton, Hilaire Belloc en Leo Tolstoy. Sy boek oor CS Lewis(SêNet, 29.07.2011) is egter minder goed ontvang. Wilson vertel hoe hy dit later gehaat het om oor Lewis te skryf (p 29). Hy het homself afgevra: "Was he [Lewis] worth it?" (p 44).
Maar Wilson se weersin gaan wyer en dieper as dit: "I had ... lost faith in the possibility of writing biography. Wasn't it all a bit too neat, the notion that you could 'explain' a human life simply by telling the story of it in chronological order, plundering the diaries and letters ... or interviewing the survivors who had known him or her? Did not a reading of the best fiction, psychology or ... the modern philosophy of mind suggest that the human personality was altogether more protean, complex and strange than the simple exercise of biography would usually suggest?" (p 40-41).
Murdoch het in haar eerste roman, Under the net (1954), 'n mening hieroor gegee: "When does one ever know a human being? Perhaps only after one has realized the impossibility and renounced the desire for it" (p 238, aangehaal deur Richard Todd, Iris Murdoch, London: Methuen, 1984, p 32). In 'n brief aan David Hicks skryf sy: "Human lives are essentially not to be summed up, but to be known, as they are lived, in many curious & inarticulate ways" (bron hieronder, p 200).
Peter J Conradi het Murdoch se gemagtigde biografie, Iris Murdoch: A Life (2001), geskryf. Na sodanige omvattende navorsing is biograwe geneig om nog publikasies daaruit te tap. 'n Voorbeeld hiervan is Conradi se Iris Murdoch a writer at war: letters & diaries 1938-46 (London: Short Books, 2010, 303p). Dit is Murdoch se vroegste nagelate geskrifte, dus geskryf voordat sy 'n gepubliseerde outeur geword het. As sodanig het dit 'n mate van waarde, maar dan in 'n gespesialiseerde opsig en in beperkte geledere. Niks hiervan was vir openbare aandag bedoel nie. Die teks bestaan uit drie dele.
Die eerste deel kom uit Murdoch se "Magpie Journal, her first surviving extended prose narrative" (p 25). Dit handel oor 'n groep Oxford-studente wat in 1939 tot kort voor die Tweede Wêreldoorlog toneelopvoerings in die Britse platteland gedoen het. Murdoch was een van hulle. In daardie stadium wou sy 'n aktise wees. "Theatre, as an image of life, mattered to Murdoch always" (p 27). Dit is kwalik die moeite werd om die teks te lees, behalwe miskien hierdie opmerking: "He ... talks fine sound sense with just the correct dash of nonsense to make it highly palatable" (p 44).
Deel twee bevat die teks van hoofsaaklik haar briewe aan Frank Thompson, maar daar is ook 'n hele aantal van sy briewe aan haar. Hy het diens in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gedoen en die briefwisseling was in die periode 1940 tot 1944. Conradi merk tereg op: "The war was a great age of letter-writing, providing a virtual chat-room for a generation" (p 86). Murdoch het aan 'n vriendin geskryf: "I can live in letters" (p 87). Thompson het aan Murdoch geskryf: "A letter is a golden gift, a winged gift - worth more than half the world to a mortal in depression" (p 118). Maar hierdie briewe is nie werklik liefdesbriewe nie. In sy laaste brief uit die oorlogsone voordat hy gedood is, het Thompson aan Murdoch geskryf: "I've never been in love" (p 162).
In hierdie vroeë stadium was Murdoch reeds met morele probleme gepreokkupeer: "The only problems that [matter] are the moral ones" (p 99). Die oorlog het haar vertroue in rasionaliteit aangetas: "The war begins to affect me emotionally far more than it did - possibly because my watertight rationalism has broken down" (p 101). "We aren't peasants with a straightforward line on life, we're just bemused intellectual misfits" (p 103). Sy noem vertaling "a gentle civilised activity" (p 104). Oor die aanleer van nog 'n taal skryf sy: "A new language does refresh the heart" (p 145). "Poetry ... obsesses me more & more - it is a great sea into which, whenever I can escape from my detestable duties, even for ten minutes, I slip with a sigh of relief" (p 128). 'n Goeie gedig laat haar in 'n gesmelte ("melted") toestand: "that liquefaction of the inner organs which fine poetry produces" (p 222).
Murdoch bied 'n voorskou van haarself as romanskrywer: "I want to write a long long & exceedingly obscure novel objectifying the queer conflicts I find within myself & observe in the characters of others. Like Proust I want to escape from the eternal push & rattle of time into the coolness & poise of a work of art" (p 126). Haar ontluikende skryftalent blyk bv uit 'n brief wat sy soos volg begin: "There is no recent letter for me to set my foot upon as a stepping stone toward you ... 'Whether or not I am a writer' - a thought which has obsessed me all the year" (p 150). Twee weke later skryf sy: "The only conclusion of imp[ortance] I have come to of late is that if ... I have any métier it is to be a writer. Writing is the only activity which makes me feel 'Only I could produce this'" (p 154).
In daardie stadium (1943) het sy reeds groot waardering vir die werk van Henry James gehad. Sy erken "excessive reading of Henry James" (p 214). "Your remarks about Henry James interest me. 'A comfortable American' - no one with so deep a sensibility & so full an appreciation of what being a human being is could really be called 'comfortable'" (p 156). "Henry James ... is the only novelist I know who really says everything - & gets away with it" (p 159).
Daar is tekens van rasionele besinning, al noem sy filosofie "a dubious activity" (p 149). "I wonder & wonder what the future holds for us all - shall we ever make out of the dreamy idealistic stuff of our lives any hard & real thing?" (p 132). "A healthful nihilism can flourish at any age - but only for the very young do certain aspirations & idealisations attain their perfect roundness & brilliance. We shall never feel complete that way again - but it is good to have felt so - tubers, perhaps, stored against this lean season when we are growing hard fibres & impenetrable bark" (p 143). "I am a Western person myself. I cannot bear the suppression of the individual which most Eastern philosophies have at heart" (p 150). "Universal brotherhood is not a condition that comes naturally to people" (p 227).
Deel drie bestaan uit Murdoch se briewe aan David Hicks in die periode 1938-1946. Die boek word met 'n enkele brief van Hicks afgesluit, waarin hy skryf: "I like you enormously better than anyone I can think of. But was much worried at the thought of being married to you" (p 302-303). Dit beëindig hulle kortstondige verlowing. Haar briewe is deels liefdesbriewe, maar die liefde het grootliks van Murdoch se kant af gekom. Hicks was aan die gevegsfront, maar hy oorleef die oorlog.
Murdoch: "Sometimes I feel lonely, like something left on the shore by the receding tide" (p 194). "It may be foolish - & it's certainly difficult - to try to keep alive at this distance of space & time a friendship which was difficult & unequal at the best of times" (p 195). "One goes on believing in friendship ... though there may be bombs I give up expecting angels through the roof" (p 204). "I still take my love very seriously & let it tear my guts out every time" (p 205).
"Writing a novel is after all rather like learning to ski! One may know the theory perfectly, watch the experts with attention, study the line of the slope, have a clear idea of what one is going to do - but when one is well started & has a good speed one loses all control & ends up by turning a somersault or going in quite the wrong direction" (p 282).
"I feel some regret at having to leave philosophy just when I'm beginning to see what it's about" (p 191). "My bloody education is just a piece of grit that won't either disappear or produce a pearl. Go back to the academic world? ... the only subject I'd wish to have truck with at a university is philosophy" (p 206). "I do require from people ... plenty of the good old Oxford & Cambridge clearness of thought & expression" (p 243).
Die waardevolste wat ek uit die oogpunt van die Suid-Afrikaanse politiek uit die boek gehaal het, is die frase: "Qui s'excuse s'accuse", dus "he who apologises, accuses himself" (p 253).
Johannes Comestor