I've
just written and posted a free e-book. 'Microwalking' is a
pamphlet about short walks. It includes
descriptions of several examples taken from Swaledale in the
Yorkshire Dales. As it says in the pamphlet: 'A 'microwalk' ...
contains, in microcosm, the kind of experience one can enjoy in a far
longer walk. Scrambling up a stream-bed, enjoying a panoramic view,
negotiating tricky terrain, encountering a waterfall or a hidden
valley.'
To read it as a flip-book, just click on the link, and 'enlarge' as one would a YouTube video. It is, I think the easiest way to read it:
I've just finished reading Iris
Murdoch's novel, The Sea, The Sea. Ageing actor and director, Charles
Arrowby, decides to retire from the limelight. He buys a house,
Shruff End, in a remote spot on the coast of the North of England.
It's a strange, dilapidated place with no electricity. The sea, only
a short walk from the house, looms large.
He seeks solitude: among other things,
to write his memoirs (the text of which becomes the book). However,
his old friends, uninvited, seek him out. Not only that, but he
discovers that his first sweetheart, now old, like himself, lives in
a nearby village. She and her husband have bought a bungalow there.
Arrowby, though charming, is a
controlling, manipulative monster. He gives a disarmingly honest
account of his doings. He seems not to realize how unacceptable and
out of the ordinary his behaviour is. The seeds, though, are there for the rest of us to
see. Talking of his love for his father, he says 'if you long and
long for someone's company you love them' – a remark that might be
innocuous when seen in some contexts, but which turns out to be
revealing in the context of this man.
Again and again, as the story unfolds,
he describes the controlling, abusive behaviour of others while
seeming blind to his own. Having been a famous theatre director, he
seems to think he can direct the lives of real human beings the way
he directed actors. He thinks of himself as the magician, Prospero.
The whole book, in fact, has the feel of a Shakespeare play. It helps that many of the characters – Arrowby's
old friends – are actors. The way the house itself and the sea let
us know how the balance of the universe (and Arrowby's mind) have
been disturbed has a Shakespearean feel to it, too.
As the book goes on, it becomes clear
that the man who thinks he's a magician is no more than a bully,
incapable of foreseeing, understanding or caring about the effect of his actions on the emotional life of others. The real magician in the
book is his cousin, James, a (retired?) soldier and Buddhist. To
explain much more would be to give too much away, although at one point, Arrowby
asks James about a man he'd once seen at his London flat:
'Oh him,' said James, 'he was just a
tulpa.'
'Some sort of inferior tribesman I
suppose! And talking of tulpas, what about that Sherpa that Toby
Ellsmere said you were so keen on? The one who died on the mountain?'
James doesn't pick up and correct his
cousin's facile assumption. (Incidentally, it's not the only time
Arrowby's racism breaks through). If he had, he would have explained
that in Buddhism, a tulpa is 'a magical creature that attains
corporeal reality, having been originally merely imaginary'. It can
also be defined as 'a type of thoughtform capable of
independent action, with a persistent personality and identity; a
kind of modern imaginary friend.' (Wiktionary). The idea has disturbing similarities to the way Arrowby thinks
about Hartley. That he is
cheerfully oblivious to the real meaning of the word is an irony that
reverberates through the book Iris Murdoch would have us believe he's
written.
The Sea, the Sea won the Booker Prize for Murdoch in 1978. Has it aged well? I'd say so. I first read it back in the 1980s. Re-reading it now, it's still an enthralling read.
