Jackson's Dilemma

by Iris Murdoch

Overview

On the eve of their wedding, Edward Lannion and Marian Berran are led away onto dark and strange paths, while their friends and lovers are forced to make new and surprising choices. Watching over all of them is Jackson, a mysterious and charismatic manservant who, in guiding all the young lovers into the light, has to make his own agonizing decisions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101174128
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/1997
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	415 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

Editorial Reviews

Ever since she made her debut with Under The Net, Iris Murdoch has continued to perfect the freewheeling novel of ideas, in which philosophical positions are happily subordinated to the quirks and tics of human character. Jackson's Dilemma continues this literary hot streak, which has now lasted for more than forty years. As the novel opens, a storybook marriage is about to take place between Edward Lannion, the master of an idyllic country manor called Hatting Hall, and Marian Fox. The night before the ceremony, however, Marian shocks Edward and a half-dozen friends by bailing out, without a word of explanation. The immediate effect is bafflement, tinged in every case by "very private griefs, losses, regrets, and disappointments." Yet Marian's no-show eventually brings about a Shakespearean reshuffling among the characters, each of whom ends up with the appropriate beloved. To whom do we owe this spate of happy endings? Part of the credit must go to Jackson, a mysterious butler who seems to dabble in angelic intervention. But, this being a Murdoch novel, I'd also suggest that there's a kind of Platonic machinery at work, which inclines the characters toward love as a heightened form of consciousness. This doesn't, of course, take romantic passion out of the picture. At one point Murdoch compares the process of falling in love to "someone undergoing, still conscious, a very serious operation by a wonderful surgeon whom he trusted utterly, and all the time his eyes were open." That captures it very nicely, Platonic or otherwise. -- Salon

James Marcus

*Starred Review*

With 25 novels in the bank, Murdoch has decided to have fun, so her twenty-sixth is a romp as well as a homage to that master of convoluted comedy, Shakespeare. Murdoch has adopted a syncopated, slightly mocking tone, and many scenes have a distinctly theatrical air. She has also achieved a disarming sense of timelessness, due in part to the fact that her eccentric characters, a close-knit circle of friends, are extremely well-off and spend their days and nights dashing between their country estates and their London houses. They seem utterly free of responsibilities but quite burdened by tragic pasts and a great deal of remorse. The tale begins on the eve of a wedding. Edward of Hatting Hall is to marry the lovely Marian. Benet, his rather fussy and reclusive friend and neighbor, is in charge of the proceedings. He's also the one who finds Marian's hasty note calling the whole thing off. Everyone is thrown into a tizzy. As they all wait for further word and worry about suicide and abduction, we learn their painful secrets in scenes notable for their dramatic intensity. These dark interludes play in counterpoint to lighter moments as Murdoch treats us to a giddy series of felicitous surprises. But who is Jackson? He's a mysterious, Caliban-like fellow who works for Benet and is instrumental in transforming disaster into bliss. If Murdoch were to choose a Shakespearean title for this brilliant and charming novel, it would have to be All's Well That Ends Well.

Donna Seaman

Murdoch's particular mastery is in representing the maelstrom of falling in love, which is the characteristic activity of nearly all her men and women. -- The New York Times Book Review

Harold Bloom