Leaving your man because he scares you and coming back for the same reason

In a book titled Ninety-nine novels. The best in English since 1939 (1984), Anthony Burgess defined this novel, first published in 1958, as "the synthesis between the traditional and the revolutionary." The structure of The bell It is traditional in style: well-prepared, it progresses in a straight chronological sense – everything happens over several days – without putting any obstacles in the way of the reader. It can even recall the plot outline of a Victorian novel, due to the rural setting, which seems inspired by a certain gothic realism, and the mixture of dramatic elements, of varied colouring, and comics, which are scarcer than the previous ones. What is revolutionary, rather, is the treatment of the characters, servants of moral themes that interested and occupied the author, also a renowned philosopher (and here I would like to take the opportunity to recommend the high-voltage conversation, recorded for the BBC in 1977, that Iris Murdoe had with the author). Philosophy & literature).

The couple formed by Paul and Dora Greenfield is held together by a threadbare precariousness. There is a notable age difference between the man, a mature scholar with a tendency to anger, and the woman, a young woman with an idle disposition, given to all kinds of whims. They are not at all alike, but there is something that keeps them together, and that we know from the first two sentences of the novel: "Dora Greenfield left her husband because he scared her. She decided, six months later, to get back with him for the same reason." It must be said that the protagonist is an anthological doubter. Yes, fear is one of the themes of that story. And jealousy, and some more, which we will now review.

Paul has decided to spend several days of vacation at Imber Court: a kind of Anglican lay community associated with a convent of cloistered Benedictine nuns, in Gloucestershire, not far from London. Its members pray and cultivate a garden. No one ever enters the convent, not even a woman, unless it is to enter (and no one ever leaves either). However, a new bell will soon enter, as if it were a postulant. The symbol of the bell is very powerful, and depends on a 14th century legend that circulated in the monastery and its surroundings. It involves a nun, who had allegedly sinned out of lust. But the name of the nun is unknown. impure This was never known, so the bishop of the time uttered a curse against the abbey. And it happened that the great bell "flew like a bird from the tower and fell into the lake." Around this bell, Iris Murdoch pushes a somewhat bizarre story, which, already within the realm of symbolism, could be related to the outcrop - she was going to write the exhumation– of elements that end up being very uncomfortable in a society.

The interesting debate on sexuality that opens the novel

One of the most fascinating aspects of The bell is the debate on sexuality. Michael, one of the strong men of the congregation and owner of the house where he has settled, is homosexual, and, although he lives his desire in a rather restrained and prudish way, on a couple of occasions he has been on the verge of compromising his religious vocation and his reputation. The puritanism of the time and the environment in which he moves never ceases to close him down. After two failed approaches to two young women, the feeling of guilt suffocates him. In a passage of the novel, Michael, in charge of giving the sermon of the week, says – and it is impossible not to guess the purpose of the novelist-philosopher –: "Each one of us perceives a certain degree of reality." In what, above, I have called a bit of a story rocambolesque, there will be a couple of characters who will try to recover the old bell from the bottom of the waters (indeed, there is one, at the bottom of the lake, which has been discovered, by chance, by one of these two characters). The nocturnal and clandestine struggle to bring it to the surface, although less agonizing, reminds us of that maintained by the fisherman ofThe old man and the sea, by Hemingway, with the huge fish he has caught and is unable to bring to a safe harbor.

The bell of the title, then, stands as a symbol of that which cannot remain silent: "A great bell does not exist to be silenced [...]. Its whole essence is clear and open, and if it moves it is to ring." Murdoch is relentless: he passes his scalpel through these minds tortured by the feeling of guilt. "Disaster is not something that is perceived quickly": the novel accounts for it, with great descriptive skill. I found it comparable to The sea, the sea, his masterpiece.