A Severed Head
Iris Murdoch
205 pages

It was later that the pain came, a pain unutterably obscure and confused like that induced by some deprivation in childhood. The familiar world of ways and objects within which I had lived for so long received me no more; and our lovely house had put on suddenly the air of a superior antique shop. The things in it no longer cohered together. It was odd that the pain worked first and most immediately through things, as if they had at once become the sad symbols of a loss which in its entirety I could not yet face. (p. 33)

In the first pages of A Severed Head, Martin Lynch-Gibbon is lying in the arms of his mistress, basking both in her beauty and affection, and in the belief that he has both a young attractive lover and a strong marriage. Later that evening his wife Antonia returns home and announces she is leaving him for her psychoanalyst, Palmer. Martin is outraged, while still holding fast to the "correctness" of his own infidelity. He maintains a stiff upper lip with Antonia and Palmer, who seem to delight in his continued friendship. Martin hangs on his much younger mistress, Georgie, expecting her continued adoration without commitment. Then Palmer's half sister, Honor Klein, comes on the scene and Martin finds himself alternately repulsed by and attracted to her. Here is a man completely destroyed and terribly confused.

As in her other novels, Murdoch seems to enjoy giving the arrogant male his comeuppance, and playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse. I found it difficult to like Martin or, for that matter, any of the characters, but enjoyed the way Murdoch tore down Martin's defenses, exposed his arrogance and weakness, and revealed the soft vulnerable center inside. A Severed Head is both painful and fascinating reading. ( )