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A review by baellamy
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
3.0
I read this as part of a book club I’ve joined.
The book’s main plots are religion, innocence, (mlm) love, and virtue. It’s set within a country estate that acts as an Anglican lay religious community attached to a Benedictine nunnery. The novel does not actually tell the story of the nuns, but instead focuses on separate “outsiders” that visit the commune over a 1950s summer.
The Bell was definitely character driven, rather than plot driven and Murdoch evidently gave the characters room to breathe through the pages and fully dragged you into the minds of the individual characters.
It was an interesting read and the philosophy aspect gave me much to think about afterwards. This felt like a book that would have been good to study during high school.
The book’s main plots are religion, innocence, (mlm) love, and virtue. It’s set within a country estate that acts as an Anglican lay religious community attached to a Benedictine nunnery. The novel does not actually tell the story of the nuns, but instead focuses on separate “outsiders” that visit the commune over a 1950s summer.
The Bell was definitely character driven, rather than plot driven and Murdoch evidently gave the characters room to breathe through the pages and fully dragged you into the minds of the individual characters.
It was an interesting read and the philosophy aspect gave me much to think about afterwards. This felt like a book that would have been good to study during high school.