A Severed Head
Penguin 1st Edition, published 1963.
A novel that somehow manages to be completely cynical while maintaining a belief in the possibility of love. The plot is hurtlingly insane, as the lead, Martin Lynch-Gibbon, and the five most important people in his life form an improbable love-hexagon whose Freudian complications are legion. As macabre as a Jacobean tragedy, as frivolous as a Restoration comedy, Iris Murdoch's fifth novel takes sombre themes - adultery, incest, castration, violence and suicide - and yet succeeds in making of them a novel that is brilliantly enjoyable.
Condition grading: Good . Minor wear to spine. Some minor creases to both covers. Binding tight. Photographs form part of the description.
Penguin 1st Edition, published 1963.
A novel that somehow manages to be completely cynical while maintaining a belief in the possibility of love. The plot is hurtlingly insane, as the lead, Martin Lynch-Gibbon, and the five most important people in his life form an improbable love-hexagon whose Freudian complications are legion. As macabre as a Jacobean tragedy, as frivolous as a Restoration comedy, Iris Murdoch's fifth novel takes sombre themes - adultery, incest, castration, violence and suicide - and yet succeeds in making of them a novel that is brilliantly enjoyable.
Condition grading: Good . Minor wear to spine. Some minor creases to both covers. Binding tight. Photographs form part of the description.
Penguin 1st Edition, published 1963.
A novel that somehow manages to be completely cynical while maintaining a belief in the possibility of love. The plot is hurtlingly insane, as the lead, Martin Lynch-Gibbon, and the five most important people in his life form an improbable love-hexagon whose Freudian complications are legion. As macabre as a Jacobean tragedy, as frivolous as a Restoration comedy, Iris Murdoch's fifth novel takes sombre themes - adultery, incest, castration, violence and suicide - and yet succeeds in making of them a novel that is brilliantly enjoyable.
Condition grading: Good . Minor wear to spine. Some minor creases to both covers. Binding tight. Photographs form part of the description.
