Jane Merryman

Murdoch, Iris. The Bell. London, Chatto & Windus, 1973.

    Just as scenery functions as a character for film directors John Ford and David Lean, the English countryside serves as a protagonist—from the poems of John Clare to the novels of Thomas Hardy. So it is not surprising that the gentle folds of southern England appear not only as a backdrop but also as a palpable presence in Iris Murdoch’s novel The Bell. From Dora Greenfield’s first glimpse of the grounds of Imber Court to her final goodbye 300 pages later, a petit point of lake, forest, and field suffuses the narrative. Water and woodland inhabit the pages as well drawn as any of Murdoch’s people and reflect the roiled relationships of the humans, made small under skies huge with sun or impending storm.

    The English have been celebrating their countryside ever since Shakespeare extolled   “this sceptred isle, . . . this other Eden, demi-paradise.” Constable painted his love affair with the East Anglian “big sky” country and romanticized cumulus clouds. British musicians, even as expats, have been drawn to landscape as a theme—Delius returned from Florida toting a suitcase full of compositions with titles such as “A Summer Night on the River.” The world of Peter Rabbit created by Beatrix Potter with pen and brush is a paean to the fields and byways of the Lake District. And the genre of the murder mystery would be sparse indeed without the horror lurking in a cozy village set among the hedgerows and lanes.

    I persuaded my book group to read The Bell because I had just seen the film Iris and felt compelled to buckle down and read something written by her. A bit of Internet surfing found reviews of Iris Murdoch’s fiction, which is heavily laced with philosophical introspection. I was surprised to discover that many of her novels are noted for their dry humor. That seemed to bode well for our book discussion—substance and a bit of fun as well. I chose The Bell because it is about a lay religious community—men and women, male and female, married or celibate, who live together without vows or lifetime commitment, under some sort of monastic rule, in order to serve God, the church, and the world. I find this subject as fascinating as the nuns’ cloister at my convent high school.

    The failings and foibles of the spiritual seekers gathered at Imber Court did interest me, but I was much more enchanted by its setting. As a roamer of the American West, I find it amazing that Murdoch and her fellow artists have managed to keep their polite and pretty landscape from becoming boring. Their mountains are little more than hills, their lakes mere ponds, their seashores lapped by demure ripples. Lacking a Grand Canyon or Yosemite high country, they have capitalized on windswept moors and fogbound cliffs, woodsy paths and gentle downs that gather you into their green womb.

    Although The Bell is a study of a conflict of religious perceptions, I read this novel for the refreshment of a weekend in the English countryside.

(This review appeared in The Redwood Coast Review, Summer 2006.)