Under The Net

So, I am on a three day staycation and I am hoping that I get lots of reading done! I have finished 2 other books that were on the 1001 Books List, so I am going to do my review of the first one that I finished a couple of weeks ago. It's nice when two of my book clubs take on some of the 1001 books, and not just my 1001 Book Club. I have no idea how many books I have read from the list, so I should probably figure that out then I can keep track in this blog.
The book that I read was Under The Net by Iris Murdoch. Apparently, Iris Murdoch was a philosopher so she makes some philosophical references so maybe I will take an intro class and then re-read this book. Since that will not be happening anytime soon, let us go upward and onward to my thoughts. Under The Net can best be described as a Seinfeld episode. Essentially, a book about nothing, except for a couple of weeks that we get to peek into the life of Jake Donaghue and a couple of his friends Dave and Finn. The character development was excellent and the prose was amazing. This is definitely a easy read book, not necessarially a beach read but it is one of the easier 1001 Books to read, but now I am not so sure because of the philosophical references I might have missed!

But, as I have mentioned, this book really is a book about nothing. It really is a string of novellas. One of my favorite is when Jake and Finn "dog nap" a famous movie star dog Mars and try to get ransom money out of him. There are some colorful characters like Hugo Belafonte that we meet later on in the novel. One of my favorite messages that the novel brings is that you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you might find, you get what you need (I had to quote some Rolling Stones, it was too perfect, I mean British rock music to a British novelist, genius!).

Jake is always imagining scenarios and what will happen if he meets someone or if he says the right thing or shows up in Paris. However, when he does get into those situations, they do not turn out the way that he has imagined them to be. For instance, Jake and Hugo have been estranged for several years now. When Jake runs into him again, he just wants to talk to him. He doesn't necessarially know what he really wants from this conversation but he does want to be friends with Hugo again. He even goes to great lengths and breaks Hugo out of the hospital. When they finally do talk again, Jake is disappointed in the conversation. He wants to rid himself of Hugo. But after he does, he imagines meeting up with him again and dreams up what will happen next time they meet!

My only complaint with the novel is that Murdoch was long winded on certain passages that you could skip 10 sentences and then you would still be on the same description of the door.

All and all great book. My next review will be on Everything Is Illuminated.

Until next time, on to the next!