Book Review: "A Word Child" by Iris Murdoch

For some reason, I am on a run of slightly average Iris Murdoch novels. After reading The Red and the Green recently, the one thing I noticed is that some Murdoch novels have far too many half-characters in them and some characters leave the story for what is, in my opinion, not a good enough reason. Endings seem rushed and novels seem incomplete, genres are muddled and I think this is a slump that I'm seeing in comparison to her more brilliant novels: The Sea, The Sea - The Book and the Brotherhood and A Severed Head. It was nowhere near as strong as these that I regard as her best works and that can also be said for this book entitled: A Word Child. Too many characters, too much 'fluff' and adding unnecessary amounts of words that don't require to be there and finally, big characters who disappear for not enough reason.

Hilary Burde is a character of strange contradictions - he seems to want it all. He's been to Oxford but doesn't have a job to reflect that he went at all. On the whole, he is an unlikeable character who thinks very little of other people, to the point of referring to others as 'snobs' when he is clearly one himself. He has a girlfriend named Thomasina who he keeps trying to break up with and is constantly cruel to - he doesn't seem to understand the proper nature of a loving relationship. Aside from this, he starts off by living with a guy who used to be in a band called Christopher and of course, he is cruel, condescending and patronising towards him. I feel like the writing of this character often reflects that we are supposed to feel sympathy for him but I found it very hard to do any such thing.

Things go awry after Hilary loses control of the narrative and of course, it is written in first person. I would've thought this book would be better written in third person so that we could see all the pathetic angles of Hilary Burde, but no - instead when Gunnar arrives, Hilary seems to go into a nosedive of sheer stupidity. The way he loses control of the narrative, of his friends, of the people in his life he is trying to keep together and yet, away from each other, the truths and lies he has told certain people etc. is pretty standard and cliché - especially after he meets Lady Kitty.

The ending is somewhat unfinished. It has no rounding off, no redemption arc and no sense of closure, there is just a small, minor event where we are expected to believe that something has changed and though I can't tell you what actually happens - I just want you to know that I was wholeheardtedly disappointed in the ending. After such a long time of reading and attempting to understand the characters, the excuse for the ending seemed to be a rush for publication rather than a type of closure.

All in all, this is probably one of the worst Iris Murdoch books I have read and honestly, it is a surprise because she is such a great author. I might need to re-read my favourites by her in order to delete this one from my brain. Ultimately though, I feel like this is a bit of a slump for the author in terms of what kind of story she could possibly come up with. Too many characters, not enough personality and the narrator hasn't got a likeable bone in his body. It is sure to say that this wasn't her best novel.