These not only supply a denouement, they also shed entirely new light on everything that was written before. After Bradley’s story is complete, four important characters offer postscripts. A second foreword, written by Bradley, provides the reader with his personal history. Bradley’s story is written in the first person, as if he is telling it to the book’s editor, who wrote a “foreword” to this book. The Black Prince has a very interesting structure. How marvellously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so neatly apportioned to our need. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to little new beginnings.
We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. It is, on the whole, a merciful arrangement. The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities on this planet. I also love Murdoch’s ability to describe the ordinary in such extraordinary ways: Rachel and Arnold’s relationship is typical of many long marriages, but Bradley fails to understand how two people are angry or frustrated with one another without fracturing the strong bond between them. Rachel and Priscilla are women of a certain age, each with her own set of neuroses. Bradley is a bumbling fool but doesn’t know it. Iris Murdoch’s characterizations are brilliant. And then Bradley becomes positively delusional, falling head over heels for a much younger woman and being just arrogant enough to think the relationship will work. Watching Bradley is like watching a row of dominoes fall.
Bradley immediately falls into “fix-it” mode, but every act has consequences. But barriers arise in rapid succession, as he learns of his ex-wife’s arrival in London, his friend Arnold Baffin calls asking for help resolving a quarrel with his wife Rachel, and his sister Priscilla breaks down after trouble with her husband. At the beginning of the novel Bradley is preparing to leave on holiday, sure that a change of scene will inspire him to write his greatest work. Bradley Pearson is a marginally successful author well past his professional prime, who fancies himself much more talented and good-looking than he is.
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