By far, the coolest book title ever to grace these loving eyes. The book concerns Blaise Gavender, a therapist who maintains a wife and a mistress, each household with a little boy of Blaise' sire, each lady attached to Blaise at a young age, and each lady developmentally stunted because of their long relationships to the philanderer.
Harriet, Blaise' the wife at Hood House (Iris Murdoch names all of her houses in every book. I wonder if it is a british thing) is the most compelling woman in this story. From the outset, we see that she has a deep hunger and love and has a hard time finding an object that requires her to use all of the excess goodness in her heart. She is the actual wife, so Blaise treats her with much more dignity than his mistress. They have a bright, beautiful, and beloved boy, who is a bit of a private school prig, but a decent young man.
Emily McHugh is kept at Putney(the name of the flat) with Luca. Emily, Putney, and Luca are all degraded from Blaise' neglect. Luca is even a bit feral. Not violent, just more animal than person. They send Luca to a public school where he is bullied and it is doubtful that he can read. Luca, stows away in secret in the back of Blaise's car, sees the Hood House family, and we are off.
Blaise has to tell his Hood House about his Putney family, and he uses Harriet's excess love to paint himself as a victim who needs her strength to get through this terrible muddle. Harriet rises to the occasion, and copes with the situation be being entirely too magnanimous and controlling.
Emily is as unhappy as before because she doesn't care whether Harriet knows about the affair. All she ever wanted was to be normal with Blaise. And she still doesn't have that now.
Eventually, Blaise leaves Harriet to start over with Emily, and give her her due, and Harriet doesn't know whether to accept her position as second lover, or jettison Blaise entirely. This is all terribly sad because both of these women have grown up with Blaise being their only man.
The book is middling. Iris Murdoch is a decent storyteller, what she does do well is make it the case that I'm always surprised at who hops into bed with whom. That's no small feat, and she gets me everytime. I'm always surprised at who is doing it by the end. It's not my favorite Murdoch book, but there is too much wisdom in it to call the book a failure.
The title refers to Blaise' mechanical relationship with both women, the banal arguing and machine like responses. Skip it.