Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE is certainly a name that one would not miss when traveling across the vast territory of British and Irish literature. She has established quite a reputation as one of the revered names in the contemporary landscape as her works transcend boundaries. Her long, prolific, and highly heralded literary career all started with the publication of Under the Net, her first novel. Published shortly after the end of the Second World War, Under the Net set the tempo for Murdoch’s literary career. Murdoch has displayed an uncanny ability to construct memorable lines and passages. For this Quotable Quotes, I am featuring some of the lines that left an impression on me. Without more ado, here are some quotable quotes from Murdoch’s debut novel.
Do check out my complete review of Iris Murdoch’s debut novel by clicking here.
“When the sun was set I might perhaps go to sleep. I never let myself sleep during the day. Daytime sleep is a cursed slumber from which one wakes in despair. The sun will not tolerate it. If he can he will pry under your eyelids and prise them apart; and if you hang black curtains at your windows he will lay siege to your room until it is so stifling that at last you stagger with staring eyes to the window and tear back the curtains to see that most terrible of sights, the broad daylight outside a room where you have been sleeping.”
~ Iris Murdoch, Under the Net
“There are special nightmares for the daytime sleeper: little nervous dreams tossed into some brief restless moments of unconsciousness and breaking through the surface of the mind to become confused at once with the horror of some waking vision. Such are these awakenings, like an awakening in the grave, when one opens one’s eyes, stretched out rigid with clenched hands, waiting for some misery to declare itself; but for a long time it lies to suffocation upon the chest and utters no word.”
~ Iris Murdoch, Under the Net
“ By daylight the whole project seemed very much less attractive. I felt that to be snubbed by a film star would put me in a bad state of mind for months. But I regarded the matter as something which had been decided and which now simply had to be carried out. I often use this method for deciding difficult cases. In stage one I entertain the thing purely as a hypothesis, and in stage two I count my stage one thinking as a fixed decision on which there is no going back. I recommend this technique to any of you who are not good at making decisions.”