A Compelling Novel
I have recently read the Iris Murdoch novel, The Unicorn. It is what is technically referred to as a 'closed' novel in 'gothic' style; closed in the sense that the characters are constrained in a closed world by the structure of their situation and gothic in the sense that it is in a dramatic setting with cliffs, castles, desolate moorland and many other props that evoke feelings of dread and awe.It is a good read that keep you turning the pages.
As with most of Murdoch's novels there is philosophy woven in, yet in a way that is not obtrusive. One can see in it a clash between Platonist, modern-rationalist, Christian and pagan elements.
The novel's themes are worked out through the relationships that the characters have with one another, relationships in which there is often a large degree of mutual misunderstanding.
It is a drama and by the end of the book there have been two murders, an attempted murder and two suicides, so it is not lacking in action.
Courage
You could understand the moral of the book in many ways, and this openness to multiple interpretations is no doubt part of the fascination and demonstrates the skill of the author. I was inclined to take is as being primarily about the effects of ‘moral courage’ and the lack thereof. In the book neither seems to yield happiness and one is left with a sense of the pathos of the human condition.
Some characters are more courageous than others, and broadly speaking, the more civilised they are the less courageous. The more primitive characters come across as stronger if more frightening.
Relationships
The book also says a good deal about sexual relationships. There are hetero- and homo-sexual couplings in the story. There is the scenario of the woman who waits for a man who never comes, the woman who appeals for help to a man who is too weak to be any use, the woman who falls for a man who is strong, independent and a mystery to her who leaves her because they have nothing in common, the woman who gives herself to the strongest man around even though she does not love him, there is the woman who is abused by her husband and tries to kill him, the woman who is dominated by a strong man and does kill him, there is the woman who falls for a man while she is still adolescent and goes on adoring him all her life until he does fall in love with her many years later after which they both immediately realise it is not a good idea and go their separate ways, there is the young man who falls in love with an older man after the latter beats him, there is the man who has an affair with another man’s wife who runs away when the husband finds out, there is the frustrated spinster who becomes bitter, there is the man who thinks that a woman is in love with him and plays her along while she who is not actually in love with him nonetheless joins in the game of letting him think that she is. And so it goes on. None of these stories ends happily or satisfactorily and mostly because people are not willing to be decisive, but sometimes because they are.
Freedom
One can also see the book as being about freedom. Why do people stay in situations that are miserable when they do not have to? Why do other people then feel impelled to try and rescue them? Why do such rescue attempts often lead to the rescuer becoming as enmeshed and trapped as the person they are trying to rescue? It shows how a semblance of ‘normality’ and acceptability can be accomplished when everybody is equally guilty so that all can be relied upon not to rock the boat.
Tragedy
This is not a ‘happy ever after’ story, more a tragedy in which half the significant characters are dead by the last page and one is left wondering whether those who live on have really learnt anything or not. No doubt it is, in some ways, a microcosm of common life dramatised to make the processes more apparent but essentially a picture of how people live compromised half lives yet how one can understand them doing so when breaking out can also be disastrous.
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