«The Sea, The Sea», was Iris Murdoch’s 19th novel. It was also her fourth to make the Booker shortlist.

Naturally, the fact that Murdoch was so often nominated and only triumphant later in her career has been the cause of plenty of speculation. But it’s easy to understand why she so often fell at the last hurdle.

She is a writer likely to divide opinion. For some she is one of the greatest of her generation. For others, although her intelligence and early promise aren’t in doubt. Her later books exemplify a peculiarly 1970s strain of brown and overwrought prose. The surprise isn’t so much that she failed to scoop the prize three times in a row, but that a jury managed to unite behind one of her books. Especially one as variously sublime, ridiculous, difficult, facile, profound and specious as The Sea, the Sea.

Charles Arrowby, leading light of England’s theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor both professionally and personally. And to amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out. His memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors–some real, some spectral–that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core.

In exposing the jumble of motivations that drive Arrowby, Iris Murdoch lays bare «the truth of untruth». The human vanity, jealousy, and lack of compassion behind the disguises they present to the world. Charles’s confrontation with the tidal rips of love and forgiveness is one of Murdoch’s most moving and powerful tales.