A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Praise for Iris Murdoch and A Fairly Honourable Defeat:

“[A Fairly Honourable Defeat] remains, fifty years later, perhaps the most beautiful literary representation of a same-sex marriage I know . . . the richness of Murdoch’s novel comes from its success [. . .] in combining Shakespearean tragedy with Shakespearean comedy . . . decidedly her best.” —Garth Greenwell

“Murdoch was the rare kind of great, buoyant, confident writer who could drive the whole machine.  She was as in touch with animal instincts as intellectual ones.  The scope of her vision makes you feel, when you are close to her fiction, that you have glimpsed the sublime.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times 

“An ambitious exploration of the philosophical problem of evil . . . one of the most enjoyable and interesting of Iris Murdoch’s recent books . . . one is left with a feeling of admiration for the brilliance and complexity of Murdoch’s intellect.” —Rubin Rabinovitz, The New York Times

“The most important novelist writing in my time.” —A.S. Byatt

“A distinguished novelist of a very rare kind.” —Kingsley Amis

“Of all the novelists that have made their bow since the war she seems to me to be the most remarkable—behind her books one feels a power of intellect quite exceptional in a novelist.” —Sunday Times