Iris Murdoch SPEAKING OF WITIN G-XII From Our Special Correspondent Perhaps of all the novelists I have been talking to in the past few weeks, Iris Mlurdoch lives most effectivelv in two separate spheres of action, her time divi- ded happily and, seemingly, with no diffi- culty or tension between creative writing and teaching: the teaching of philo- sophy. The act of teaching is to her as much of an attraction as the subject taught: "I love teaching ", she says, ' and if I were not able to teach philo- sophy I would happily teach something else, just to go on teaching." But it may be that having this regular means of expression of a strong and profound interest in philosophy is in itself an aid in her creative work, helping to reduce any feeling that the novels must be made a channel for theoretical philosophy- for that, Miss Murdoch thinks, would probably be fatal. "I suppose I have certain philosophical ideas about human life and character, and that these must somehow find expression in my novels: but for the most part I am not conscious of this process, and I think it would be destructive if I were. Certainly I am not a philosophical novelist in the sense that Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir is." How did Miss Murdoch see herself, then ? Would she accept the label, which has often been applied, particu- larly to such early workls as Under thie Net and Flight from the Enchanter, of comic novelist? "Well, I don't really think that such labels have much mean- ing, but I wouldn't object to being called a comic novelist. On the con- trary, 1 hope that even in the most serious sections of my later novels a strong cur- rent of comedy is still to be seen. I don't think one can avoid it in a novel. In a play it is possible to limit one's scope artificially to 'pure' tragedy or ' pure' cornedy, but the novel is almost inevitably an inclusive genre, and breaks out of such limitations. Can one think of any great novel which is without comedy? I can't. Often comedy is not the most important part of the final impression one carries away, but it is nearly always there when one stops to consider it. I have been rereading Dostoevsky recently, and you know I have been amazed at the amount of humour there is in him, the scenes and sections of the novels which are often very funny indeed. What one tends to r remember afterwards is the great, terrible bits, but when actually looking at the books again one realizes that much of their effect comes from the way they are placed and set off by much lighter sections. Anyway, if the novel does in some sense hold up a mirror to life, it is bound to have strong elements of comedy, because there is so much which is funny in life: especially if we extend our definition of 'funny' a little to include strange, incongruous, bizarre, ironic...." This view of the novel as something of its nature romantic and irregular, more inclined to be picturesque than sublime or beautiful. comes in a way rather strangely from Miss M urdoch, whose own novels, whatever their mix- ture of comic and tragic. are designed and constructed with such evident care and precision. How, I wondered, did she actually set about writing them ? ' 1 do not begin the actual writing until a fairly late stage of creation. First of all I plan out a novel in great detail- characzers, scenes, the overall structure -and only when I have the shape of the book and the people in it very clear in my mind do I begin writing; after which I write as a rule two drafts of the whole thing, and maybe three or four of par- ticular scenes. I sometimes think that I may plan too much in advance: I have never yet begun a book without know- ing exactly how it would turn out and where I was going in it. I know other writers work that way, but I can't imagine myself doing it; still, people %hose opinions I respect tell me I ought to try, and perhaps I Wjll. One of the .roubles of having everything planned out in advarnce is keeping the thing alive while one is writing it; but if one's creativity is functioning properly. the very act of writing engenders its own excitement-something stants working inside the language itself, bringing up all sorts of new qualities and ideas un- foreseen in the initial plans." How much fiction by other writers did Miss Murdoch herself read, and how far did she feel that what she read influenced her own practice as a novelist '? " I read quite a lot of current tiction. for one reason or another, and I read and reread the classic novels, though according to my mood at the moment rather than to any plan: if I feel in the mood to reread some Dickens, say, or George Eliot, then I do, but on the other harid there are quite a number of accepted great novelists-Balzac, for example-whom I have never found very sympathetic and would certainly not persevere with from a sense of duty. As for influences, well, of course, one would like to think one was influenced by all those great writers who because of the unique qualities of their greatness could not possibly exert any definable influence: perhaps, though, Homer and Shakespeare can be influences in that they may inspire one with the hope of expanding oneself to a comparable imaginative scope, even if that hope remains only a remote aspiration. More immediately, I would like to think that something of the spirit of Jane Austen, whose work I love dearly, had entered into my work. But the only writer I am really sure has influenced me is Henry James: he is a pattern man too." Evidently, at least, Miss Murdoch was not influenced by her critics, since she never reads them ? No, it seems to me a waste of time. One never learns anything one doesn't know from critics. Any novelist worth his salt knows very clearly what is wrong with his work before it is ever published: why else, after all, would he be writing his next novel except to try to correct in it the mistakes of his last ? " IRIS MURDOCH