Description
Book SynopsisFor years, Alfred Ludens has pursued mathematician and philosopher Marcus Vallar in the belief that he possesses a profound metaphysical formula, a missing link of great significance to mankind.
Luden''s friends are more sceptical. Jack Sheerwater, painter, thinks Marcus is crazy. Gildas herne, ex-preist, thinks he is evil. Patrick Fenman, poet, is dying because he thinks Marcus has cursed him. Marcus has disappeared and must be found.
But is he a genius, a hero struggling at the bounds of human knowledge? Is he seeking God, or is he just another victim of the Holocaust, which casts its shadow upon him and upon Ludens, both of them Jewish?
Can human thinking discover the foundations of human consciousness?
Iris Murdoch''s endlessly inventive imagination has touched a fundamental question of our time.
Trade ReviewShe was a brilliantly clever woman -- Dame Judi Dench
There is no doubt in my mind that Iris Murdoch is one of the most important novelists now writing in English...The power of her imaginative vision, her intelligence and her awareness and revelation of human truth are quite remarkable * The Times *
I love the novels of Iris Murdoch -- Philippa Gregory
Miss Murdoch is blessedly clever without any of the aridity which, for some reason, that word is supposed to imply -- Philip Toynbee
Iris Murdoch has imposed her alternative world on us as surely as Christopher Columbus or Graham Greene * Sunday Times *
