The Bell (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Iris Murdoch
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0141186690
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns. A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. And then things begin to change. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Michael averted his face and stepped outside. Murphy, who had been standing over the body, followed him out whining. James and Mark were approaching down the avenue at a run. Michael called to them, ‘Nick has killed himself.’ Mark stopped at once and sat down on the grass at the side of the avenue. James came on. He took a look into the Lodge and came out again. ‘You go and phone the police,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll stay here.’ James turned and went back towards the lake. Mark got up and followed
cassock who must be a priest, and near him she now made out with an unpleasant shock a shapeless pile of squatting black cloth that must be a nun. Behind them, in a group with James and Toby, there were three or four men. Mrs Mark was to be seen, kneeling very upright, her head covered by a crumpled check handkerchief which she must have whipped out as she came through the door. The dark girl whom Dora had glimpsed in the hall was kneeling nearer to the back, her face covered in her hands and
himself sometimes to look at her, searching for another face, and finding now and then her cool eyes resting upon him. Patchway arrived, James arrived. The community began very tentatively to take shape. The garden was dug, the first seeds ceremonially planted. Then Catherine spoke to Michael of her brother. She made no reference then or later to the past, except by implicitly assuming that Michael and Nick knew each other. She was seriously worried, she said, about her brother. It seemed that
house, as to a retreat. He had looked for an inspiration and an example. That Michael’s own halo had abruptly vanished mattered less: but the whole experience of Imber would now be ruined for Toby. Bitterly and relentlessly Michael explored the implications of what he had done. That something so momentary and so trivial could have so much meaning, could achieve so much destruction! In a sense, Michael knew what had happened: he had drunk too much and yielded to an isolated and harmless impulse of
looked like someone acting Michelangelo’s Moses in a charade. Next to him sat Catherine, her hands clasped, the palms moving slightly against each other. Her head was inclined forward, her eyes brooding, the heavy expanse between the lashes and the high curved eyebrows slumberously revealed. Her gipsy hair was thrust carelessly behind her ears. Dora wondered if she was really listening to the music. Toby sat in the centre, opposite to the window, curled gracefully in the chair, one long leg under