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A review by eberico
Elegy for Iris by John Bayley
5.0
It's amazing the memories that old reading lists dredge up. I read this for the first time at the laundromat on South Alpine, seated in a hard plastic chair, waiting for polyester work uniforms to dry and trying to tune out the noise of others doing laundry and watching TV.
I suppose these memories are fitting, as much of this memoir involves the day-to-day and the domestic, as [a:John Bayley|21660|John Bayley|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg] remembers his life with [a:Iris Murdoch|7287|Iris Murdoch|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1238673382p2/7287.jpg] once brilliant and vivacious, now reduced to a shadow of her former self by the ravages of Alzheimer's. It's a wonderful and emotional book, and the movie - for which Judi Dench and Kate Winslet earned Oscar nominations and Jim Broadbent won an Oscar - is almost as good.
I suppose these memories are fitting, as much of this memoir involves the day-to-day and the domestic, as [a:John Bayley|21660|John Bayley|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg] remembers his life with [a:Iris Murdoch|7287|Iris Murdoch|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1238673382p2/7287.jpg] once brilliant and vivacious, now reduced to a shadow of her former self by the ravages of Alzheimer's. It's a wonderful and emotional book, and the movie - for which Judi Dench and Kate Winslet earned Oscar nominations and Jim Broadbent won an Oscar - is almost as good.