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beq3's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A weirdly uncomfortable read. You are pulled back and forth, liking and disliking the characters, horrified by them, sorry for them, willing them to do better, understanding when they don't. People are really sometimes impenetrable, they don't understand themselves and growth is hard.
Even the landscape is difficult people walk down lanes, and through gates, find doorways in the wall and plunge into the water. The landscape is endlessly described but I could never visualise it clearly. I think now this is probably deliberate as it adds a lot to the unsettling atmosphere of the book and increases your sense of these being people who are in some way lost.
An excellent read, but quite challenging. One of those books that you find yourself puzzling over afterwards.
Even the landscape is difficult people walk down lanes, and through gates, find doorways in the wall and plunge into the water. The landscape is endlessly described but I could never visualise it clearly. I think now this is probably deliberate as it adds a lot to the unsettling atmosphere of the book and increases your sense of these being people who are in some way lost.
An excellent read, but quite challenging. One of those books that you find yourself puzzling over afterwards.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
irenelpynn's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Homophobia, Suicide, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Adult/minor relationship
aquakirst's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
iris murdoch will deliver batshit crazy plots complete with sexual scandals and rich characterisations and i'll eat it up every time
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
jeremie's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Suicide attempt
knkoch's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The more I read of Iris Murdoch, the more I find she’s becoming a favorite author. I was delighted and enthralled by this story, and found it very much like The Black Prince. The plot’s convergence on a small religious lay community in west country England really focused the drama, like a bottle episode of television or a play without much set change. I love the intense nervous energy of Murdoch’s characters, and she does a spectacular job of reproducing their extensive silent introspections. Their internal lives account for so much of the material, and feel very real to my experience. And there’s nothing like the hilarity of depictions of social anxiety, that I am sometimes prey to, but ratcheted up to tragicomic proportions.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
A teacher begins to engage in an inappropriate relationship with a student.seanajk's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Homophobia
joanaprneves's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
The Bell is a lesson in plot-making and character building. The thing with plot is that 1) you have to anticipate a bit of what’s coming 2) but you also have to be surprised either by the way it’s delivered (not everything is a thriller or a murder mystery) or by one or two plot twists. Murdoch manages to do both. But what I appreciate most is that at the end of the book I am still intrigued by the characters. None of them is stereotypical. And they all maintain an inner world the other characters do not understand and that the reader also is unsure about. Exactly like life. I sometimes think about one of them and wonder how they lived a certain twist in the events within the commune. It is such a powerful modern trait of this book not to go into every single thought the characters have! Characters are never explained, they just manifest through intriguing gesture and attitudes. They are nevertheless cohesive and believable while turning the story into a sort of artifice. The reader knows this is a sort of fictional hypothesis, but full of life, wonder, doubt, introspection, experience, development.
The story builds up to be exactly that, a hypothesis. Imagine a small community gathered close to a nunnery, trying to live a simple life of devotion and as devoid of modern comfort as possible. Some of them are there for different motives (Dora and Nick), which unsettles the peaceful routine of the group. However even some characters, like Michael, who aspire to a spiritual life but are eaten away by their more pedestrian desires, also break the community from within.
There is, however, in one of the plot lines, as aspect of Nabokov’s Lolita (that is, a sexual predatory tendency seen from within) that may be treated with too much detachment for today’s mores and awareness about grooming. Having said that, the way lust and love are rendered in the book is unique as we get to follow the fleeting force of lust and the quiet explosion of love. Also, the “Bell” is a metaphor that evolves along the book, it’s never stereotypical, it’s always intriguing and would make for an interesting debate in a book club. Loved it loved it loved it. Did not give it full marks because of the way homosexuality is referred to - although with total acceptance by the writer who, I believe, was bisexual - and the relations between an adult and a minor which are not flagged as problematic.
The story builds up to be exactly that, a hypothesis. Imagine a small community gathered close to a nunnery, trying to live a simple life of devotion and as devoid of modern comfort as possible. Some of them are there for different motives (Dora and Nick), which unsettles the peaceful routine of the group. However even some characters, like Michael, who aspire to a spiritual life but are eaten away by their more pedestrian desires, also break the community from within.
There is, however, in one of the plot lines, as aspect of Nabokov’s Lolita (that is, a sexual predatory tendency seen from within) that may be treated with too much detachment for today’s mores and awareness about grooming. Having said that, the way lust and love are rendered in the book is unique as we get to follow the fleeting force of lust and the quiet explosion of love. Also, the “Bell” is a metaphor that evolves along the book, it’s never stereotypical, it’s always intriguing and would make for an interesting debate in a book club. Loved it loved it loved it. Did not give it full marks because of the way homosexuality is referred to - although with total acceptance by the writer who, I believe, was bisexual - and the relations between an adult and a minor which are not flagged as problematic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Alcoholism, Outing, Adult/minor relationship, and Suicide
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