Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Murdoch, (Jean) Iris (Vol. 31) - John Updike

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JOHN UPDIKE

[If we] long for what James called "the palpable present intimate that throbs responsive," we can turn to no more reliable purveyor of intimacy than Iris Murdoch, whose latest novel, "The Philosopher's Pupil" …, is one of her biggest and best. It opens with a whirlwind of an argument between husband and wife, and its first paragraph is the best description of driving a car in the rain—a "palpable present" sensation par excellence—that I have ever read:…

The malignant rain rattled on the car like shot. Propelled in oblique flurries, it assaulted the windscreen, obliterating in a second the frenetic strivings of the windscreen wipers. Little demonic faces composed of racing raindrops appeared and vanished. The intermittent yellow light of the street lamps, illuminating the grey atoms of the storm, fractured in sudden stars upon the rain-swarmed glass. Bumping on cobbles the car hummed and drummed.

Let...

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1. Introduction
2. Steven Cohan
3. Elizabeth Dipple
4. Nicholas Mosley
5. Robert Taubman
6. Robertson Davies
7. Richard Eder
8. Joyce Carol Oates
9. John Updike
10. William H. Pritchard
11. Copyright

1. John Updike