Iris Murdoch
Irish-British novelist and philosopherWikipedia
72
MENTIONS
33
EPISODES
31
PODCASTS
Search complete. 72 mentions across 33 episodes found for "Iris Murdoch".
Nov 3, 2026
Jay RuudHOST
Number 23.
Jay RuudHOST
23, The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch.
Jay RuudHOST
I would
Stacey Margaret JonesHOST
read that.
Art O'ConnorHOST
He was this like minor mid-century Scottish philosopher, but he asked this question about Is there a dubious assumption here that the culture of the inner life is the one supremely valuable thing? And this was kind of in these like Neoplatonic philosophical circles.
Art O'ConnorHOST
Iris Murdoch and these kind of people would have been involved in this conversation.
Art O'ConnorHOST
I was thinking about Yeats.
Art O'ConnorHOST
I was thinking about Edwin Moore.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
And then really recently, I was doing my favourite thing, going to a car boot sale in Hexham.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
And among all the dodgy lampshades and saucepans, I saw an almost complete set of Iris Murdoch first editions.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
I've got mine here, which I bought for an absolute song and I've been reading my way through them.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
I don't actually think A Severed Head is the best, but it's definitely one of the shortest.
John BirdGUEST
The other point I'd make, I really enjoyed reading it and I'd recommend it to anybody who wants to have a good laugh at these Ponzi people who lived in this particular period between 56 to 60.
Harriett GilbertHOST
Yeah, this book's published in 61, so obviously about the late 50s, 60s.
Harriett GilbertHOST
I'm not an unmitigated fan of Iris Murdoch, but I mean, I have said before on this programme, I think her plots are absolutely preposterous.
Harriett GilbertHOST
But still, having said that, I too enjoyed the novel.
Harriett GilbertHOST
Lucy, would you start us off? What have you chosen as a good read?
Lucy KellawayGUEST
So I've chosen A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
I read a lot of Iris Murdoch when I was a teenager because my parents had all of those orange penguins and I thought they were incredibly sophisticated and I loved all the sex and the whole world.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
And then really recently, I was doing my favourite thing, going to a car boot sale in Hexham.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
And among all the dodgy lampshades and saucepans, I saw an almost complete set of Iris Murdoch first editions.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
I've got mine here, which I bought for an absolute song, and I've been reading my way through them.
Lucy KellawayGUEST
I don't actually think A Severed Head is the best, but it's definitely one of the shortest, and I think it's a great place to begin because it's so tight.
John BirdGUEST
The other point I'd make, I really enjoyed reading it and I'd recommend it to anybody who wants to have a good laugh at these Ponzi people who lived in this particular period between 56 to 60.
Marilee AlbertGUEST
I love Patricia Highsmith.
Marilee AlbertGUEST
I love Iris Murdoch.
Marilee AlbertGUEST
I know a lot of people don't see her as crime thriller, but I do.
Marilee AlbertGUEST
I've read all the James Ellroy and the Michael Connelly and just I'm a huge fan of the Japanese crime thriller genre.
speaker_6HOST
We talk about seduction as something performed on another person.
speaker_6HOST
The novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch described love as the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
speaker_6HOST
Sit with that for a second, because it might be the only technique in this entire video.
speaker_6HOST
The most seductive thing a human being can do is fully register that someone else exists.
Dwight GarnerGUEST
I mean, so much thought of all kinds you can smuggle into a book review.
Dwight GarnerGUEST
I think Iris Murdoch said that.
Dwight GarnerGUEST
And you can talk about the culture, you can talk about ideas.
Dwight GarnerGUEST
And you it's just I feel lucky to be able to sort of read great books every week.
Sean KeilenGUEST
The fact of the matter is that I think that all of us should care about the way literature is being taught now in higher education and in secondary education.
Sean KeilenGUEST
And why do I think that? I think that, well, there's something that the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch wrote.
Sean KeilenGUEST
She wrote that, Literature is absolutely essential for culture because it is an education in the way we imagine human situations.
Sean KeilenGUEST
In other words, it's a kind of vast, diverse archive for trying to imagine what other people are like and what they do in different kinds of contexts.
speaker_0NARRATOR
There is a fierce tenderness in it that often brings me to tears.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Iris Murdoch describes something like it in The Sublime and the Good, 1959, when she writes, Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Love is the discovery of reality.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The exercise of overcoming oneself, of the expulsion of fantasy and convention, is indeed exhilarating.
Russell KaneSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Yeah, that was a surprise.
Russell KaneSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Every year, I don't know if it still goes on, the Iris Murdoch Society met in Oxford.
Russell KaneSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So I would get the train on my own.
Russell KaneSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It was like 90% sort of 60-year-old women with spectacles talking.
Matthew ParrisGUEST
I think he's very clever and I think he's very funny.
Matthew ParrisGUEST
And I do know that he's actually a bit of an intellectual, secretly.
Matthew ParrisGUEST
But Iris Murdoch, gosh, he knew much more about Iris Murdoch than I ever did.
Andrea CatherwoodHOST
What have been your other standout moments?
23 more episodes mention Iris Murdoch.
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