Bradley Pearson, sitting in prison, writes a manuscript “a love story.” Considering an unhappy love that changed two lives as a search for wisdom and truth in a world of deception and lies.
Bradley himself, tired of working as a tax inspector, having saved up money, decides to go to the sea for the summer. Having collected his suitcases, just before leaving the house, the bell rings and his former brother-in-law Francis Marlowe comes to visit him with the news of the return of his ex-wife, who has become rich and has recently been widowed. In the years since they had not seen each other, Francis had turned into a fat, rude loser. He was deprived of his medical diploma for fraud, and his practice as a psychoanalyst did not bear fruit. He came to ask for help. He wanted to get a job living off his rich sister. This was outrageous and Pearson threw him out the door. Immediately the phone rang. Arnold Baffin called. He begged to come to his home urgently, since he had killed his wife.
Pearson and Francis went to Arnold. His wife Rachel locked herself in the bedroom and showed no signs of life. After persuasion, she only let Bradley in, she lay with a beaten, bloody look, accusing her husband of not allowing her to live her own life and do what she loves. Francis conducted an examination and said there was no threat to life. Having pacified his anger, Arnold said that during a family quarrel, he accidentally hit his wife with a poker.
The Baffin family returns to London. Bradley had known their daughter Julian since birth; he had a kind of related interest in her, because he did not have any children of his own. Julian comes running to him and becomes her teacher to help her write the book.
The next day, Pearson decides to leave. Having collected his things again, his doorbell rings. It was his sister Priscilla. She left her husband and has nowhere else to go. While Bradley put the kettle on, Priscilla swallowed some sleeping pills. To save his sister's life, he calls Francis for help. The Baffin family comes along with him. Priscilla is taken away by an ambulance.
Priscilla was discharged the next day, Bradley decided to forget about leaving and stay to help his sister get out of her depression. A new, rather unpleasant turn of events awaits him soon. Seeing Bradley's depressed state, Rachel comes to him and, after a long conversation, drags him into bed. Julian saw all this, and so that she did not stir too much. Pearson buys her boots. While trying on boots, Bradley begins to experience some kind of physical desire for Julian. He later finds out that she complained to her parents about his harassment. Christiane Baffin, who was his ex-wife, comes to him and offers to remember their forgotten love.
Realizing that he has fallen in love with young Julian, Bradley refuses a party with his colleagues. Sitting at home, he begins to realize that he no longer needs anyone except his beloved. After suffering for a couple of days, he reveals to Julian his feelings for her. She reciprocates.
Julian tells his parents about his feelings. This infuriates them, they lock their daughter under house arrest. They go to Bradley and ask him to leave their daughter alone, because what kind of love can there be between an old man and a young girl.
The next day, Julian runs away from home, goes to Pearson and he takes her to the Patara villa. Their idyll is disrupted by a call from Francis. He reports that Priscilla committed suicide. Back at the villa, a frustrated Bradley takes possession of Julian's young body for the first time.
In the morning, without telling her anything about his sister’s death, he leaves for the funeral. Waking up, Julian doesn't know where Bradley has gone and runs out into the street in a panic. There she sees that Arnold has come for her. He gives her the letter. After reading it, Julian leaves.
A letter from Julian to Pearson arrives from France. Bradley is getting ready to go to his beloved. But a call from Rachel gets in the way. She tricks Pearson into getting him into her home. There he falls into a trap. Rachel killed Arnold with a poker.
Pearson was convicted quite quickly, because Rachel's testimony against him, personal hostility towards Arnold and tickets abroad were quite strong evidence.
Rachel explained this behavior only by saying that Bradley should have stayed with her, because he always loved her and Julian used her for revenge.
There is no instructive moment in the work as such. You just have to get rid of the “ghosts of the past”, start a new life with a clean slate and never let traitors and people you dislike approach you.
Picture or drawing of Murdoch - Black Prince
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Iris MURDOCK
BLACK PRINCE
PREFACE BY THE PUBLISHER
This book owes its existence to me in several ways. Its author, my friend Bradley Pearson, entrusted me with the responsibility of publishing it. In this primitive mechanical sense, thanks to me, it will now be published. I am also that “dear friend,” etc., addressed here and there on its pages. But I do not belong to the characters in the drama that Pearson tells. The beginning of my friendship with Bradley Pearson dates back to a time later than the events described here. In times of disaster, we both felt the need for friendship and happily found this blessed gift in each other. I can say with confidence that if it were not for my constant participation and approval, this story, most likely, would have remained unwritten. Too often, those who shout the truth to an indifferent world eventually break down, fall silent, or begin to doubt their own sanity. Without my support, this could have happened to Bradley Pearson. He needed someone to believe in him and believe in him And in need he found me, his alter ego.
The following text, in its essence, as well as in its general outline, is a story about love. Not only superficially, but also at the core. The history of human creative struggles, the search for wisdom and truth is always a story about love. It is presented here vaguely, sometimes ambiguously. The struggles and searches of man are ambiguous and gravitate toward mystery. Those whose lives pass in this dark light will understand me. And yet, what could be simpler than a story about love, and what could be more captivating? Art lends glamor to horror, which may be its blessing, or perhaps its curse. Art is rock. It became rock for Bradley Pearson too. And in a completely different sense for me too.
My role as publisher was simple. I probably should have called myself something else sooner... How? Impresario? A jester or a harlequin who appears in front of the curtain and then solemnly parts it? I have reserved for myself the very last word, the final conclusion, the conclusion. But I'd rather be Bradley's buffoon than his judge. In some ways, I seem to be both. Why this story was written will become obvious from the story itself. But in the end, there is no mystery here. Every artist is an unhappy lover. And star-crossed lovers love to tell their story.
F. LOKSIY, PUBLISHER
FOREWORD BY BRADLEY PEARSON
Although several years have passed since the events described here, in telling about them, I will use the latest narrative technique, when the spotlight of perception moves from one present moment to another, remembering the past, but not knowing the future. In other words, I will again incarnate into my past “I” and, for clarity, I will proceed only from the facts of that time - a time that is in many respects different from the present. So, for example, I will say: “I am fifty-eight years old,” as I was then. And I will judge people inaccurately, perhaps even unfairly, as I judged them then, and not in the light of later wisdom. But wisdom - for I hope that I rightly consider it wisdom - is not completely absent from the story. To some extent, she will still inevitably have to “illuminate” him. A work of art is equal to its creator. It can't be bigger than him. In this case it cannot be less. Virtues have secret names; virtue itself is a mystery, inaccessible to the mind. Everything that matters is mysterious. I will not attempt to describe or name what I have learned in the austere simplicity of the life that I have been living lately. I hope that I have become wiser and more merciful than I was then - I have undoubtedly become happier - and that the light of wisdom, falling on the figure of a simpleton, will reveal not only his errors, but also the stern face of the truth. I have already made it clear that I consider this “report” a work of art. By this I do not want to say that he is a figment of fiction. All art deals with the absurd, but strives to achieve simplicity. Real art expresses the truth, it is the truth, perhaps the only truth. In what follows, I have tried to be wise and tell the truth as I understand it, not only about the superficial, "interesting" aspects of this drama, but also about what lies beneath.
I know that people usually have a completely distorted view of themselves. A person truly manifests himself in a long chain of deeds, and not in a short list of self-interpretation. This is especially true of artists who, while imagining that they are hiding, actually expose themselves throughout their work. So I am all on display here, although my soul, in complete contradiction with the laws of my craft, alas, still craves shelter. Under the sign of this preliminary reservation, I will now try to characterize myself. I will speak, as I have already explained, on behalf of myself, as I was several years ago - the main and sometimes inglorious “hero” of this story. I am fifty eight years old. I am a writer. “Writer” is my simplest and perhaps most accurate general description. That I am also a psychologist, a self-taught philosopher, a researcher of human relations, follows from the fact that I am a writer, a writer of exactly my kind. I spent my whole life searching. Now my search has led me to try to express the truth. I hope and believe that I have kept my gift pure. This means, among other things, that I was not successful as a writer. I have never strived for pleasantness at the expense of truth. I have known long, painful stretches of life without self-expression. "Wait!" - this is the most powerful and sacred command for the artist. Art has its martyrs, among them the silent ones occupy not the least place. I am not afraid to say that there are saints in art who simply remained silent all their lives, but did not desecrate the purity of the paper sheet by expressing something that would not be the height of beauty and proportionality, that is, would not be the truth.
As you know, I have published very little. I say “as is known”, relying on the fame I acquired outside the sphere of art. My name is famous, but, unfortunately, not because I am a writer. As a writer I have been and will undoubtedly be understood only by a few connoisseurs. The paradox, perhaps, of my entire life, the absurdity that now serves me as a subject for constant meditation, is that the dramatic story attached below, so unlike my other works, may well turn out to be my only “bestseller.” It undoubtedly contains elements of cruel drama, “incredible” events that ordinary people love to read about. I even had the privilege of, so to speak, basking in the rays of newspaper fame.
I will not describe my works here. Due to the same circumstances that have already been discussed here, quite a lot of people know about them, although I’m afraid almost no one knows them. I published one hasty novel at the age of twenty-five. The second novel, or rather a quasi-novel, when I was already forty. I have also published a small book, “Excerpts” or “Etudes,” which I would not dare to call a philosophical work. (Pensees, perhaps, yes.) I was not given the time to become a philosopher, and I only partly regret this. Only magic and stories remain for centuries. And how poor and limited our understanding is, art teaches us this, probably no worse than philosophy. There is a hopelessness in creativity that every artist knows about. For in art, as in morality, we often miss the point because we are able to hesitate at the decisive moment. What moment should be considered decisive? Greatness lies in defining it, and having defined it, hold it and stretch it. But for most of us, the gap between “Oh, I’m dreaming about the future” and “Oh, it’s too late, everything is in the past” is so infinitely small that it’s impossible to squeeze into it. And we always miss something, imagining that we will still have time to return to it. This is how works of art are ruined, this is how entire human lives are ruined because we either procrastinate or rush forward without looking back. It happened that I would have a good plot for a story, but while I thought it through thoroughly, in all the details, I lost the desire to write - not because it is bad, but because it belongs to the past and is no longer of interest to me. My own thoughts quickly lost their appeal to me. I ruined some things by tackling them prematurely. Others, on the contrary, because I kept them in my head for too long, and they ended before they were born. In just one instant, plans passed from the realm of foggy, vague dreams into hopelessly old, ancient history. Entire novels existed only in titles. It may seem to some that the three thin volumes remaining from this massacre do not give me sufficient grounds to claim the sacred title of “writer.” I can only say that my faith in myself, my sense of calling, even doom, did not weaken for a minute - “it goes without saying,” I would like to add. I waited. Not always patiently, but, at least in recent years, more and more confident. Ahead, behind the veil of the near future, I invariably foresaw great achievements. Please laugh at me - but only those who have waited just as long. Well, if it turns out that this fable about myself is my destiny, the crown of all my expectations, will I feel deprived? No, of course, because in the face of this dark force a person has no rights. No one has the right to divine grace. We can only wait, try, wait again. I was driven by the elementary need to tell the truth about what was everywhere distorted and falsified; tell about a miracle that no one knows about. And since I am an artist, my story turned out to be a work of art. May he be worthy of other, deeper sources that fed him.
A few more information about yourself. My parents ran a store. This is important, although not as important as Francis Marlowe suggests, and certainly not in the sense that he means. I mentioned Francis first of my “characters” not because he is the most important of them all; it has no meaning at all and is not truly connected with the events described. He is a purely secondary, auxiliary figure in the story, as, apparently, in life in general. Poor Francis is organically incapable of being the main character. It would make an excellent fifth wheel for any cart. But I make him a kind of prologue to my story, partly because in a purely mechanical sense it really all began with him, and if on a certain day he had not... and so on, I probably would never... and so on. Here's another paradox. We must constantly reflect on the absurdity of the case, which is even more instructive than thinking about death. Partly, I put Francis in a special place because, of the main actors in this drama, he is the only one who does not consider me a liar. Please accept my gratitude, Francis Marlowe, if you are still alive and happen to read these lines. Later, someone else was found who believed, and this meant incomparably more to me. But then you were the only one who saw and understood. Through the abysses of time that have passed since this tragedy, my greetings to you, Francis.
My parents ran a shop, a small stationery shop in Croydon. They sold newspapers and magazines, all kinds of paper, and ugly “gifts.” My sister Priscilla and I lived in this store. Of course, we didn’t literally eat and sleep in it, although we often had tea there, and I have a “memory” of supposedly sleeping under the counter. But the store was the home and mythical kingdom of our childhood. Happier children have a garden, some kind of landscape against which their early years pass. We had a store, its shelves, drawers, its smells, its countless empty boxes, its peculiar dirt. It was a run-down, unprofitable establishment. My parents were seedy, unlucky people. Both of them died when I was not yet thirty years old, first my father, and soon after him my mother. My first book still found her alive. She immediately became proud of me. My mother made me angry and ashamed, but I loved her. (Be silent, Francis Marlowe.) My father was decidedly unpleasant to me. Or maybe I've just forgotten the affection I once had for him. Love is forgotten, as I will soon see.
I won't write more about the store. To this day, I dream about him about once a week. Francis Marlowe, when I told him about this one day, saw something significant here. But Francis belongs to the sad host of half-educated theorists who, in the face of the uniqueness of their personal destiny, hide in horror behind the commonplaces of stupid “symbolism.” Francis wanted to "interpret" me. In the days of my glory, some others, smarter than him, tried to do the same. But human personality is always infinitely more complex than this kind of interpretation. When I say “infinitely” (or is it more correct to say “almost infinitely”? Alas, I am not a philosopher), I mean not only a much greater number of details, but also a much greater variety in the nature of these details and a greater variety in the nature of their connections than imagine those who strive to simplify everything. You might as well “explain” Michelangelo’s painting on a piece of graph paper. Only art explains, but art itself cannot be explained. Art and we are created for each other, and where this connection is cut off, human life is cut off. This is the only thing we can say, only this mirror gives us the true image. Of course, we also have the subconscious, and my book will be partly about it. But we do not have maps of this inaccessible continent. “Scientific” maps, at least.
My life until the dramatic climax described here was quite serene. Some would say it's even boring. If we may use such a beautiful and powerful word in a non-emotional context, we can say that my life was sublimely boring - a wonderful boring life. I was married, then I stopped being married, as I will tell you below. I don't have children. I suffer periodically from stomach upsets and insomnia. I have lived alone almost my entire life. Before my wife, and also after her, there were other women whom I am not talking about here, since they are not important and are not relevant to the matter. Sometimes I imagined myself as an aging Don Juan, but most of my victories belong to the world of fantasy. In recent years, when it was too late to start, I sometimes regretted not keeping a diary. The human capacity to forget is truly limitless. And this would be an undeniably valuable monument. It has often occurred to me that a kind of "Diary of a Seducer", flavored with metaphysical speculations, would probably be my ideal literary form. But these years have passed and sunk into oblivion. Everything about women. On the whole I lived cheerfully, alone, but not unsociable, sometimes I was depressed, often sad. (Sadness and cheerfulness are not incompatible.) I had almost no close friends in my life. (I could not, it seems to me, have a woman as a friend.) In essence, this book is about such “close friendship.” I made acquaintances, though not close ones (“friendships,” perhaps you could call them), and in my own service. I am not talking about the years spent in the service here, just as I am not talking about these friends, not out of ingratitude, but partly for aesthetic reasons, since these people do not appear in my story, and, moreover, out of delicacy, since they , may no longer want their name mentioned in connection with mine. Of these friends, I name one Hartbourne - he was a typical inhabitant of the world of my great boredom and can give an idea about the others, in addition, by mistake, but out of sincere friendly feelings, he nevertheless became involved in my fate. I should probably explain that my “service” was the financial management office and that I served there as a tax inspector for most of the years.
I repeat that I am not writing here about myself as a tax inspector. I don’t know why, but this profession, like the profession of a dentist, makes people laugh. However, in my opinion, this is a forced laugh. Both the dentist and the tax inspector naturally symbolize for us the hidden horrors of life; they say that we must pay, even if the price is ruinous, for all our pleasures, that blessings are given to us on credit, and not bestowed, that our most irreplaceable riches rot already in the process of growth. In a literal sense, what else causes us such persistent suffering as income taxes or toothache? Hence, of course, this secretly hostile defensive ridicule with which you are greeted as soon as you announce your involvement in one of these professions. I have always believed, however, that only for such fools as Francis Marlowe, a person who chooses the profession of a tax inspector is a hidden sadist. I don't know anyone who is further from sadism than me. I'm quiet to the point of timidity. But it turned out that even my peaceful and respectable occupation was eventually used against me.
By the time this story begins—and I don’t have long to put it off—I was no longer working in my tax office, having retired before retirement age. I became a tax inspector because I needed income, which I knew writing wouldn't give me. And he left the service when he finally saved enough money to have a decent annual income. Until recently, I lived, as already mentioned, quietly, without tragedies, but with a higher purpose. I worked tirelessly and patiently waited until the hour of my freedom came and I could only write. On the other hand, I managed to write a little during the years of slavery and am not inclined, as some are, to attribute my lack of productivity to a lack of time. Overall, I consider myself rather lucky. Even now. Maybe especially now.
The shock of leaving the service was greater than I expected. Hartbourne warned me this would happen. But I didn't believe it. Apparently I'm more of a creature of habit than I thought. Or maybe the point is that I stupidly expected inspiration to come with the first glimpse of freedom. One way or another, I was not ready for my gift to leave me. Before, I wrote all the time. Or rather, he wrote all the time and always destroyed what he had written. I won’t say how many pages I destroyed, this figure is huge. And that was my pride and my sadness. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had reached a dead end. But I did not despair for a minute in my quest for perfection. Hope, faith, and selfless service carried me forward as I continued to work, grow old, and live with my emotions. At least I knew I could always write something.
But now I left the tax office and could now sit at my desk every morning at home, thinking about any thought. And then it turned out that I had no thoughts at all. But I endured this too with infinite patience. I waited. I tried again to develop an orderly way of life, to create a monotony from which bursts are born. I waited and listened. I live, as will be explained in more detail below, in a noisy part of London, in a once “decent” but now run-down neighbourhood. I think we, together, my neighborhood and I, embarked on this pilgrimage that took us away from “decency.” But now the noise, which I had not noticed before, began to get on my nerves. For the first time in my entire life, I felt the need for silence.
True, as some may remark to me, not without caustic irony, I have always been in some sense a supporter of silence. Arnold Baffin once said something similar to me with a laugh and it offended me greatly. Three small books in forty years of continuous literary work - this cannot be called verbosity. If I really know how to discern true values, then I, in any case, understood how important it is to keep your mouth shut for the time being, even if this threatens you with silence for the rest of your life. Writing is like marriage. Under no circumstances should you take a decisive step until you are amazed at your own happiness. I have always been disgusted by immoderate spewing of words. Contrary to popular belief, the negative is stronger than the positive and its ruler. But then I needed real, literal silence.
And I decided to leave London and immediately felt closer to my buried treasure. Faith in my own capabilities returned to me, I felt in my chest that dormant, expectant force that is the grace of an artist. I decided to rent a house by the sea for the summer. I haven't had enough of the sea in my life. I didn’t have to live alone with him, spend days and nights in a deserted place on the shore, where only the sound of the surf is heard, which is not even a sound at all, but the voice of silence itself. In this regard, I must tell you about one rather wild idea that I had been nurturing for many years: for some reason I came up with the idea that I would achieve greatness as a writer only by going through some kind of test. I waited in vain for this test. Even a total war (I was not in the army) did not disturb the calm course of my life. It seemed that serenity was my evil fate. She took such a hold of me and my mental timidity was so great that the summer outside London already seemed to me almost a feat. True, for a person of my type, old-fashioned, neurasthenic, with puritanical inclinations, a slave to his habits, such a trip was indeed an adventure, a desperately bold, dangerous step. Or maybe I knew in the depths of my soul what formidable miracles were waiting to finally happen, frozen on the edge of existence behind the light veil of the near future? My searching gaze fell on an advertisement in the newspaper: a house on the seaside, called “Patara,” is available for rent for a reasonable fee. I wrote, agreed on everything and was ready to leave when Francis Marlowe, like a messenger of fate, knocked on my door. In the end, I finally ended up in Patara, but what happened there was not at all what my premonitions promised.
Re-reading this preface now, I am convinced how incompletely it conveys my essence. How little words can convey at all, unless they are the words of a genius. Although I am a creative person, I am more of a puritan than an esthete. I know that human life is terrible. I know that it is in no way similar to art. I do not profess any religion, I only believe in my own destiny. Conventional religions are akin to dreams. They hide abysses of horror and fear under a thin outer layer. Any person, even the greatest, cannot be broken; there is no salvation for anyone. Any theory that denies this is false. I don't have any theories. All politics is a drying of tears and an endless struggle for freedom. Without freedom there is neither art nor truth. I admire great artists and people who can say “no” to tyrants.
All that remains is to write the words of dedication. First of all, there is someone whom I, of course, cannot name here. But with all my heart, out of a duty of justice, and not for the sake of eloquence, I dedicate this work, inspired by you and written thanks to you, to you, my dear friend, my comrade and mentor, and I express gratitude, the measure of which is known to you alone. I know that you will be lenient towards its many shortcomings, just as you invariably, with merciful understanding, forgave the equally numerous weaknesses of its author.
BLACK PRINCE
Holiday of love
End of free trial.
The novel was published in 1972, that is, even before postmodernism became the subject of broad philosophical reflection, or, at least, did not yet occupy a central place in the discussions of philosophers, writers, and art critics. The book, as a whole, is not distinguished by the author’s desire to refute the literary canons that have developed within the framework of modern culture. Moreover, the problematic of “The Black Prince,” based on the relationship between art and reality, gives grounds to attribute the novel to a greater extent to modern literature, which tends toward elitism, while postmodernity seeks to overcome hierarchy and all kinds of barriers. However, from a certain angle, the world of Bradley Pearson, the main character of the novel, can be described as a “postmodern state.”
The entire novel is a story about how it was written. Such a high degree of self-reflection is a characteristic feature of writers of postmodern orientation. The reader finds the main character of the work in a state of crisis of worldview (is he experiencing “his” postmodernity?) The fact that in a book written by a woman, the narration is told from the perspective of a man can be interpreted as the author’s desire to move away from the principle of binary oppositions traditional for modernity. Confidence in this increases as you read the novel. The few sex scenes and erotic experiences of Pearson can only evoke a sympathetic attitude towards him, if we consider them from the standpoint of phallocentrism, traditional for Western European culture. Pearson's only attempt at male self-assertion ends in a dramatic denouement, against the backdrop of which his short-term possession of the object of his passion looks ridiculous and inappropriate. In general, the protagonist’s relationship with women can most likely be defined in the spirit of Baudrillard as a simulation of a special world in which “the feminine is not opposed to the masculine, but seduces him.” It is known that in Baudrillard's system the concept of temptation differs from desire as associated with production. Maybe that's why Pearson doesn't seem cynical when he responds to his sister Priscilla's complaints about her childlessness, the result of an abortion: “You'd be a twenty-year-old big guy, a drug addict, and the bane of your life. “I never wanted to have children, and I don’t understand this desire in others.”
It is no coincidence that Pearson does not understand the attempts of his ex-wife Christian to get closer to him again. Obviously, their marriage became impossible due to her attempts to dominate the relationship with her husband. Christian herself is aware of the reason for the alienation: “It seemed to you that my love was a destructive force, that I needed power...”.
Indicative in this regard is the attitude of Pearson (and, presumably, Murdoch herself) towards another character, Francis Marlowe, whom Pearson classifies as a cynic and a pseudoscientist. This image evokes hostility simply by its appearance and way of existing: a short, foul-smelling, drinking, unkempt and narrow-minded loser, a doctor without a diploma, a self-proclaimed psychoanalyst. Even his appearance during a rather intimate conversation between Rachel and Pearson produces on the latter, this sophisticated intellectual, the impression of nothing more than the presence of a pet in the room. The constantly present irony addressed to Marlowe, it seems, is actually directed against his pseudoscientific theory, at the center of which is the opposition of masculine and feminine principles, various kinds of phallic symbols, the Oedipus complex, etc. The author’s irony here is quite consonant with the position of Deleuze and Guattari, thanks to which, in the context of the methodology of schizoanalysis in postmodern philosophy, the paradigmatic figure of Anti-Oedipus appeared. In contrast to psychoanalysis, which assumes the presence of forced causation, schizoanalysis postulates the need to constitute subjectivity, free from external causation. Characterizing his relationship with Rachel, Pearson contrasts two interpretations of them. One of them does not go beyond the generally accepted framework of psychoanalysis: “In our age, it is customary to explain the boundless and incomprehensible world of causal relationships with “sexual desires”... The subject is middle-aged and has not achieved success in life, is not confident in himself as a man, naturally he hopes that having got a woman , will feel like a different person... He pretends to be thinking about his book, but he himself has women’s breasts on his mind. He pretends to care about his honesty and directness, but in fact he is worried about a completely different directness.” Pearson himself has a different opinion: “Such interpretations not only simplistic and vulgarize, but also completely miss the mark... I was not so flat and stupid as to imagine that simple sexual release could bring me that highest freedom that I was looking for, I did not at all confuse animal instinct with the divine principle.” To some extent, it can be recognized that here Pearson, in the spirit of Heidegger, refuses the search for some initial fundamental principle, and also opposes the alienation of the mental and physical.
Opposition to modernism is also revealed in Pearson’s attempts to describe his feelings for his beloved: “My love for Julian was probably predetermined even before the creation of the world... God said: “Let there be light” - and then this love was created. She has no history." This kind of experience can be interpreted as a rejection of the claims to novelty inherent in modernity, as a situation denoted in postmodernism by the term DEJA-VU . If in modernity the lack of novelty is incompatible with creativity, then the awareness of the impossibility of innovation in postmodernity is the basis and act of creativity. Despite the fact that “time became eternity” and “there was nowhere to rush,” the ideal love of the protagonist did not in the least prevent him from realizing his dream of becoming a great artist. Let us once again pay attention to the relationship between flesh and spirit in Pearson’s mind: “of course, the flame of desire warmed and animated... blissful and unsullied visions, but it did not seem like something existing separately, or rather, I did not perceive anything separately at all. When physical desire and love are inseparable, it connects us with the whole world, and we join something new. Lust becomes a great connecting principle that helps us overcome duality, it becomes a force that turns disunity into unity...” Such a love experience fits well within the framework of the philosophy of “new corporeality” that took shape in postmodernism, which recognizes the unconscious as natural, but not organic, desire as bodily, but outside of physiology. “Sex is the link that connects us with the world, and when we are truly happy and experience the highest spiritual satisfaction, we are not enslaved by it at all, on the contrary, it fills with meaning everything we touch, no matter what we do.” looked." The process described in this passage of the world acquiring the features of divinity, miraculousness, the opening of a new horizon that does not follow linearly from the previous state in postmodernism is expressed by the concept transgression, applied primarily to the sphere of sexuality.
Murdoch also expresses his position on this issue in the afterword of the publisher, a certain Mr. Loxia, who published the sad story of Pearson. Loxius opposes the authors of the three previous afterwords, the heroes of the story. Of particular interest are his remarks addressed to Julian, whose love became a source of both great sadness and creative inspiration in Pearson's life. Julian writes: “Pearson is mistaken in believing that his Eros is the source of art... Erotic love is not capable of giving rise to art... The energy of the spirit beyond some point can be called sexual energy... Love is possession and self-affirmation. Art is neither one nor the other. To confuse him with Eros, even a black one, is the subtlest and most destructive of mistakes that an artist can make.” Loxius responds as follows: “There are no depths accessible to your gaze, ... or to the gaze of another human being, from which it would be possible to determine what nourishes. And what does not feed art. Why did you need to bifurcate this black brute, what are you afraid of?... To say that great art can be as vulgar and pornographic as it pleases is to say only the smallest thing. Art is joy, play and absurdity.” Also important is Loxius’s remark about the fact that Pearson, according to Julian, understood only the vulgar side of Shakespeare: “When you grow older in art, you will understand many things more clearly. (Then perhaps you will be worthy of comprehending the vulgar side of Shakespeare).”
In general, Shakespeare, or rather his Hamlet (however, according to Pearson, these are the same person), occupies a very special place in the novel. The whole story of Pearson, as told by himself, is in one way or another compared with the great tragedy of Shakespeare. Pearson's reflective nature is inevitably associated with the image of the Prince of Denmark. The heroes of the novel themselves, Pearson and Julian, find corresponding allusions in their behavior and relationships, for example, their first declaration of love is interspersed with quotes from the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia. And Pearson’s first great insight, his comprehension of ideal love, comes to him during his conversation with Julian about Hamlet. It is noteworthy that the conversation itself seems quite incoherent to a reader familiar with the traditional methods of literary criticism. Young Julian, who dreams of becoming a writer, turns to Pearson as an accomplished writer and experienced critic. However, the result of their communication, perhaps pleasant for her emotionally, hardly satisfied the girl’s expectations. Pearson gives an unusual interpretation that makes Shakespeare an even more mysterious author, and his work even more confusing and difficult for Julian (and, most likely, for most readers) to understand. The dialogue between the writer and his young interlocutor about the great tragedy is constantly interrupted in the most ridiculous way; the attention of the reader and the characters themselves is constantly switched to objects and actions that are little compatible with a deep understanding of one of the most majestic images in world literature - purple boots, pink tights, an unbuttoned shirt collar, heat, smells, noise from the street, etc. The main meaning of the conversation constantly eludes, the narrator tries to express something important, but not in words, but as if between the lines, essentially refuses a single matrix meanings. At the same time, there remains a wide field for the activity of the reader himself, for his ability to independently create the meaning of the text. Shakespeare, according to Pearson, “created a book that endlessly thinks about itself, not incidentally, but essentially, a construction of words, like a hundred Chinese balls one in another, ... a meditation on the bottomless fluidity of the mind and the redemptive role of words in life those who actually do not have their own "I", that is, in people's lives. “Hamlet” is words, and Hamlet is words. Here we can see the idea of text self-movement, founded in postmodernism, as a self-sufficient procedure for generating meaning. In other words, the “death of the author” is proclaimed as a symbol of external forced causation. Addressing the reader, Pearson himself says of his narrative: “The story must inevitably soon escape from my control.”
The rejection of the linear type of determinism in the novel should, one way or another, lead to the metaphor of the “death of God.” However, Murdoch’s position on this issue can hardly be considered unambiguous. On the one hand, when it comes to love and art, Pearson’s reasoning is more in tune with the views of Plato, whose name is repeatedly mentioned on the pages of the book: “I felt that everything that was happening to me... is thought some divine power... Human love is the gateway to all knowledge, as Plato understood. And through the gate that Julian opened, my being entered another world.” But as for Pearson's worldview as a whole, the postmodern metaphor mentioned above is quite applicable to him. God as the support of the Universe and man is absent from it. “God, if he existed, would laugh at his creation... life is terrible, meaningless, subject to the game of chance,... it is dominated by pain and the expectation of death. ... Man is an animal constantly suffering from anxiety, pain and fear ... Our world is a vale of horror ... "
Being in this unstable reality, according to Pearson, gives rise to irony, a phenomenon that, as we know, occupies a central place in postmodern philosophy. Pearson’s reasoning on this matter is quite consonant with the postmodernist idea of constructing a way of being in conditions of cultural and symbolic secondary signification: “Irony is a type of “tact”... This is our tactful sense of proportion when selecting forms to embody beauty... How can a person “correctly” describe another? How can a person describe himself?... Even “I am tall” sounds differently, depending on the context... But what else can we do but try to put our vision into this ironic-sensitive mixture, which, if I were a character fictional, would it be much deeper and denser?
It is also necessary to say something about the title of the novel. “Black Prince” (“black Eros”) - this symbolic figure can be interpreted as widely as desired. However, it is unlikely that any version will be exhaustive. Here again it would be appropriate to return to the postmodern concept of temptation, in which the main thing is the endless process of solving a riddle, the secret of which cannot be fully revealed. In this case, we can also talk about seducing the reader. The extreme abstractness of the title is a kind of guarantee against imposing on the reader some rigidly defined interpretation of the work, that is, the novel rejects the classical epistemological paradigm of representing the fullness of meaning.
Thus, the novel exhibits such features of postmodern discourse as the rejection of binarism and phallocentrism, of hierarchy (“the arts do not form a pyramid”), temptation, corporeality, irony, the figure of Anti-Oedipus, “death of the subject” (respectively, “death of God” , “death of the author”), etc. This gives grounds to consider the novel as a special case of the formation of postmodernism as a system of value perception of the world in the second half of the 20th century. One way or another, the very possibility of such an interpretation may indicate changes in consciousness and culture caused by the phenomenon of postmodernism.
14. Graham Greene
(1904–1991) - English writer, many of whose works combine detective plots with religious overtones.
From 1926 to 1930 he served in the letters department of the London Times.
Greene said goodbye to journalism after the success of his first novel, The Inside Man (1929). In 1932 he published the action-packed political detective story Istanbul Express. He called this and subsequent books with elements of the detective genre - The Hitman (1936), The Confidant (1939), The Office of Fear 1943 "entertaining." His novels This Battlefield (1934) and England Made Me (1935, Russian translation 1986) reflect the socio-political ferment of the 1930s. Brighton Lollipop (1938) is the first “entertainment” novel, the events of which are highlighted by religious issues.
In the late 1930s, Greene traveled extensively in Liberia and Mexico. Deeply personal accounts of these trips were compiled into two books of travelogues, Traveling Without a Map (1936) and Roads of Lawlessness (1939). Political persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico prompted him to create the novel The Power and the Glory (1940), the hero of which, a sinful “drinking padre,” confronts the persecutors of the church.
From 1941 to 1944, Greene, as an employee of the Foreign Office, was in West Africa, where the events of his novel The Heart of the Matter (1948), which brought him international recognition, unfold. Greene's next important novel, the love story The End of One Affair (1951), takes place in London during the German bombings of World War II.
Greene's later work is characterized by a sense of topicality, which he probably acquired while working as a correspondent for the New Republic magazine in Indochina. Greene's later novels were set in exotic lands on the eve of international conflict: in the revealing, visionary novel The Quiet American (1955) in Southeast Asia before the American invasion; in Our Man in Havana (1958) - Cuba on the eve of the revolution; in Comedians (1966) – Haiti under the reign of François Duvalier. In Green's late work, although religion is present, it recedes into the background, and its authority ceases to be indisputable. For example, the ending of the novel The Price of Loss (1961) makes it clear that Christianity is unable to help modern man.
Greene's other works include the plays Room for the Living (1953), The Greenhouse (1957) and The Complaisant Lover (1959); short story collections Twenty-One Stories (1954), A Sense of Reality (1963), and Can We Kidnap Your Husband? (1967); collections of essays “Lost Childhood” (1951; subsequently expanded), “Selected Essays” (1969); novels “Travel with Auntie” (1969, Russian translation 1989), “Honorary Consul” (1973, Russian translation 1983), “The Human Factor” (1978, Russian translation 1988), “Monsignor Quixote” (1982, Russian translation) translation 1989) and “Tenth” (1985, Russian translation 1986); biography "Lord Rochester's Monkey" (1974). Many of his works have been made into films, including the film “The Third” (1950); sometimes he acted as the scriptwriter.
The name of Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) is inscribed in the history of English literature of the last century. A native of Dublin, she, like some of her venerable compatriots, Shaw, Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Beckett, left her homeland early. She received her education at the prestigious Oxford, where she specialized in classical philosophy, which largely determined the nature of her artistic methodology. Subsequently, she revealed a type of writer characteristic of post-war literature (both England, France and the USA), who combined not very burdensome teaching work at universities, which provided a stable income, with writing and the creation of monographs of a scientific nature. As a philosopher, Murdoch began, like Colin Wilson, with a passion for existentialism and wrote a special study "Sartre - romantic rationalist" (1953). Then I started to develop ideas Plato, becoming interested in his concepts of truth and beauty (which was reflected in several of her studies), and also dealt with the moral and ethical problems of Christianity.
Since the mid-1950s. Murdoch switches to fiction. In total, 24 novels came from her pen. ("Under the Net", "Bell", "Scarlet and Green", "The Time of Angels", "Black Prince", "Child of the Word", "Green Knight" etc.), which can be attributed to philosophical-intellectual And psychological genre variety. Her novels are unconventional in terms of genre, which causes debate in the field of criticism; Most often they are classified as psychological detective stories - they are distinguished by stylistic diversity and keen observation, complex, extraordinary structure. They incorporate detective and psychological elements, eroticism, and sophisticated love relationships. Her style contains multifaceted symbolism and allegories, the plots are dramatic, with sharp turns, scenes, sometimes dramatic, sometimes comic. The subject of her depiction is the middle class, the intelligentsia with its spiritual and moral problems characteristic of English society.
Murdoch's literary debut is the novel " Under the network "(1954), immediately made the author famous. The hero of the novel is Jack Donahue - a writer (a figure characteristic of the Murdoch typology), who makes his living by translating French verbal waste paper. He is preoccupied with the search for the meaning of life and the need to escape from the dull everyday routine. The love that seemingly visited the hero is not realized. But in the finale he experiences a creative surge, remembering his native Ireland. Such an open ending points to a possible happy turn in Donahue's literary destiny.
Writer Bradley Pearson - the hero of one of Murdoch's popular novels "Black Prince" (1973), works with a complex structure and plot. The novel opens with a message about the book's release. Bradley Pearson entitled "The Black Prince, or the Feast of Love". The author died of cancer in prison, and the publisher, a friend of the deceased, published his story about the author in order to clear Pearson of murder charges. Pearson lived to be 58 years old and published only three books. Having saved some money and left his job, he decided to devote himself entirely to writing, but soon his inspiration left him, and he experienced creative “dumbness.” Hoping to overcome it, he rents a house by the sea, after which a chain of extraordinary events begins. Pearson's brother-in-law Marlo, a degenerate man, deprived of medical practice, informs him that Pearson's ex-wife Christina, who left for America, where she became rich, became a widow and returned to her homeland and intends to reunite with her ex-husband.
At this moment, Pearson receives an alarming call from Arnold Baffin, his friend, a financially successful but mediocre writer. Once upon a time, Pearson helped Baffin, then a teacher, publish his first book, after which they became friends. Pearson visited the house of Baffin, who, although loving his friend, nevertheless feared his unflattering opinion of his writings. It turns out that Baffin is having another violent marital conflict with his wife Rachel: but this conflict is just “another peak of love.” At the same time, Baffin shows suspicious interest in Christina's return to London. A new round of twists and turns is connected with Pearson’s sister Priscilla, who, having left her husband, finds shelter with her brother. Being in a hysterical state, she tries to commit suicide by taking a powerful dose of sleeping pills. But she is saved by being taken to the hospital. Pearson's misadventures do not end there. He has to reject Christina's attempts to get together with him. A new tangle of relationships begins between the main characters. Baffin becomes close to Christina, and Rachel seduces Pearson. The latter is a victim of “Black Eros”: he has a passion not only for Rachel, but also for her young daughter Juliana, who announces her intention to unite in marriage with Pearson. This angers her parents, who consider their family friend a "lusty old man." Events take a fatal turn. Priscilla, discharged from the hospital, commits suicide. Juliana, loving Pearson, breaks up with her husband. Rachel, in a fit of jealousy, kills her husband, blaming Pearson, who, depressed by what happened, does not find the strength to defend himself.
Pearson's published book, The Black Prince, concludes with an afterword in which the four participants in the drama: Christina, Rachel, Frances Marlowe And Julian – comment on their role in events. Juliana, who became a poet, says of her relationship with Pearson: “It was a love beyond words.”
What is this unusual but fascinating novel with extraordinary characters and fatal accidents about? I think it is about the power of love and creative work. Pearson, for all his psychological instability, was devoted to his literary calling. In this regard, he is the antipode of Baffin, a supplier of commercially successful crafts.
Iris Murdoch was a serious, prolific author whose themes varied from novel to novel. In recent novels such as "Philosopher's Apprentice" ", "Good apprentice ", "Green Knight" it moves from family-psychological to socio-political issues related to modernity.
PREFACE BY THE PUBLISHER
This book owes its existence to me in several ways. Its author, my friend Bradley Pearson, entrusted me with the responsibility of publishing it. In this primitive mechanical sense, thanks to me, it will now be published. I am also that “dear friend,” etc., addressed here and there on its pages. But I do not belong to the characters in the drama that Pearson tells. The beginning of my friendship with Bradley Pearson dates back to a time later than the events described here. In times of disaster, we both felt the need for friendship and happily found this blessed gift in each other. I can say with confidence that if it were not for my constant participation and approval, this story, most likely, would have remained unwritten. Too often, those who shout the truth to an indifferent world eventually break down, fall silent, or begin to doubt their own sanity. Without my support, this could have happened to Bradley Pearson. He needed someone to believe in him and believe in him And in need he found me, his alter ego.
The following text, in its essence, as well as in its general outline, is a story about love. Not only superficially, but also at the core. The history of human creative struggles, the search for wisdom and truth is always a story about love. It is presented here vaguely, sometimes ambiguously. The struggles and searches of man are ambiguous and gravitate toward mystery. Those whose lives pass in this dark light will understand me. And yet, what could be simpler than a story about love, and what could be more captivating? Art lends glamor to horror, which may be its blessing, perhaps its curse. Art is rock. It became rock for Bradley Pearson too. And in a completely different sense for me too.
My role as publisher was simple. I probably should have called myself something else sooner... How? Impresario? A jester or a harlequin who appears in front of the curtain and then solemnly parts it? I have reserved for myself the very last word, the final conclusion, the conclusion. But I'd rather be Bradley's buffoon than his judge. In some ways, I seem to be both. Why this story was written will become obvious from the story itself. But in the end, there is no mystery here. Every artist is an unhappy lover. And star-crossed lovers love to tell their story.
F. LOKSIY, PUBLISHER
FOREWORD BY BRADLEY PEARSON
Although several years have passed since the events described here, in telling about them, I will use the latest narrative technique, when the spotlight of perception moves from one present moment to another, remembering the past, but not knowing the future. In other words, I will again incarnate into my past “I” and, for clarity, I will proceed only from the facts of that time - a time in many respects different from the present. So, for example, I will say: “I am fifty-eight years old,” as I was then. And I will judge people inaccurately, perhaps even unfairly, as I judged them then, and not in the light of later wisdom. But wisdom - for I hope that I rightly consider it wisdom - is not completely absent from the story. To some extent, she will still inevitably have to “illuminate” him. A work of art is equal to its creator. It can't be bigger than him. In this case it cannot be less. Virtues have secret names; virtue itself is a mystery, inaccessible to the mind. Everything that matters is mysterious. I will not attempt to describe or name what I have learned in the austere simplicity of the life that I have been living lately. I hope that I have become wiser and more merciful than I was then—I have undoubtedly become happier—and that the light of wisdom, falling on the figure of a simpleton, will reveal not only his errors, but also the stern face of the truth.