![]() ![]() Similar inconsistencies arise throughout. The first significant piece of dialogue shifts “I may have just killed my wife” to “I may have just killed Rachel” in the first twenty pages. This fulfills early premonitions about Pearson’s unreliability as a narrator. Pearson and four other characters offer competing postscripts. Loxias and Pearson both write forewords to the main text. This allows Murdoch to address an audience directly, pausing for philosophical musings, without engaging in the post-modern trick of acknowledging the reader. The Black Prince is structured as Pearson’s apologia to his editor and friend P.A. Eros defeats art and the comic part of the novel ends tragedy predictably follows. Pearson falls in love and abandons his desire to leave London and his novel. On the third attempt, Pearson’s best friend and rival Arnold Baffin’s 20-year-old daughter rings. Each time he tries to leave, the doorbell rings and his work is delayed. The first half of the novel outlines Pearson’s attempts to escape to the countryside to work on his would-be great novel. ![]() The Black Prince is the story of Bradley Pearson, a 58-year-old retired Inspector of Taxes and author. Penguin Classics, 2003 (Originally published: 1973) Reviewed in this essay: The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch. Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince was the fourth entry on her list. This piece continues a series of reviews highlighting philosopher-novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s list of the best “novels of ideas”. ![]()
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