Reading 1001 discussion

Just finished this one for my randomiser this week and it is…a weird book. Sometimes In ways I feel work, sometimes in ways I’m not so sure of. Overall, I gave it 3 stars.

The book is a thriller/Romantic Comedy (yep, you read that mashup correctly), that starts out like it’s going to be a crime thriller or occult thriller or both, but then most of it turns out to be more of a Shakespearean romantic comedy of errors in the modern age. Yes, it’s an odd but original combo. No, it’s not always seamless and successful (at least that’s how I felt).

The plot itself kicks off when British civil servant Octavian Gray asks department legal head John Ducane to investigate the recent suicide of a colleague (Joseph Radeechy), who is revealed to have been involved been involved in occult affairs, muder, blackmail, etc. that their boss is implicated in. The civil servant’s families, mistresses, and housemates all end up part of this multifaceted drama that devolves largely into who is going to get with who. There is also some magical realism happening in here, with some trips to the underworld via air-raid shelter, and a servant who claims to be part mermaid on his mother’s side. These aspects didn’t fit well into the narrative for me and felt distracting to the rest of what was going on.

The two very different focuses (the occult crime aspect and relationships aspects) didn’t seem to gel well together either, and it made me confused as to what the point of this book was. Apparently it was inspired by Murdoch’s philosophical work on secular morality and how can we be good in the absence of god/religious morality. Which, honestly that confused me more. Like I get that this book is about different moral dilemmas (infidelity, murder, extortion, etc), but aren’t most books? This one didn’t seem to make any clear points about secular morality that drew me in or impressed me beyond what I’ve read in other books. I feel like the introduction of the supernatural and religiously associated motifs also helped undermine this point rather than make it.

But, the actual investigation bits were well done, as were some of the interpersonal bits, even if I didn’t love them together. I enjoyed it enough for 3 stars, but didn’t feel it was cohesive enough to warrant more.

Rating: 3.5 stars


This book is a mess of entangled relationships and secrets. It seems that everyone (and there are a lot of characters) has some sort of secret, most of which involve love and affairs. All of the characters have a link with the Trescombe household. As Amanda mentions, this book combines elements of the thriller and romantic comedy, with a dash of philosophy and magical realism. While not perfect, I did enjoy it.

This ensemble novel revolves around a large house in Dorset, owned by one couple but with several of their friends and children also in residence. There's an open marriage and various other "free" sexual relationships that we are always told happened in the 1960s/70s but which I certainly never witnessed in real life in the small town where I grew up, and therefore can never quite believe in. There's also an apparent suicide of a civil servant known to several of the men, which involves black magic and made the whole thing even more hard to believe for me.

Having said that, after I managed to suspend disbelief (about halfway through), I did enjoy this, although nowhere near as much as my favourite Murdoch novels. It swerved too fast from earnest self-analysis to melodrama.