''A Fairly Honourable Defeat'' is a novel by the British writer and philosopher

Iris Murdoch Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her fi ...

. Published in 1970, it was her thirteenth novel.

Plot summary

The lives of several friends are thrown into disarray by the machinations of Julius King. Julius makes a bet with his ex-girlfriend Morgan that he can break up the homosexual couple Axel and Simon; meanwhile, Morgan and her brother-in-law Rupert are tricked into embarking on an affair, and Morgan's nephew Peter is falling in love with her.

Characters

*Julius King, academic biochemist *Rupert Foster, his former colleague, a senior civil servant writing a book on living morally *Hilda Foster, Rupert's wife *Simon Foster, Rupert's brother *Axel Nilsson, Rupert's colleague and Simon's partner *Morgan Browne, Tallis' wife, Julius's rejected lover and Hilda's sister *Tallis Browne, Morgan's estranged husband *Peter Foster, Rupert and Hilda's son *Leonard Browne, Tallis's father

Major themes

The story hinges on the wager that comes half-way through the book when Julius bets Morgan that he will be able to break up Simon and Axel's relationship. The consequences of the wager recall Shakespearean comedy (particularly ''

Much Ado About Nothing ''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' ( W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. 1387 The play ...

''), as well as Mozart's operas and the story of

Job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

. The gap between moral theory and practice is central to the book, and is exemplified by Rupert's inability to withstand temptation, despite having written a book about morality. Julius is a satanic figure, while Tallis is represented as Christ-like, since he absorbs suffering while Julius sows it. The underlying idea, which Murdoch adopted from

Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...

, is that evil is propagated in the world by the transmission of suffering from one person to another, and that it can only be stopped by someone's being willing to accept the suffering without passing it on. The relationship between Simon and Axel, which survives Julius's attempt to destroy it, is one of many portrayals of homosexuals in Murdoch's novels. According to

Philip Hensher Philip Michael Hensher FRSL (born 20 February 1965) is an English novelist, critic and journalist. Biography Son of Raymond J. and Miriam Hensher, his father a bank manager and composer and his mother a university librarian, Hensher was born in ...

, their relationship is "one of the most convincing and warm portrayals of marriage in English fiction".

Literary significance and reception

''A Fairly Honourable Defeat'' received mixed reviews on its publication in 1970. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (June 14, 1934 – November 7, 2018) was an American journalist, editor of the ''New York Times Book Review'', critic, and novelist, based in New York City. He served as senior Daily Book Reviewer from 1969 to 1995. Bi ...

praised its ingenious plot and "comic spirit", and called it "the most entertaining Iris Murdoch I've read in years". Another ''The New York Times'' review remarked on the improbability of the plot, but considering the book as primarily a novel of ideas, found it "one of the most enjoyable and interesting of Iris Murdoch's recent books". On the other hand, writing in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'',

Nuala O'Faolain Nuala O'Faolain (; 1 March 19409 May 2008) was an Irish people, Irish journalist, TV producer, book reviewer, teacher and writer. She became well known after the publication of her memoirs ''Are You Somebody?'' and ''Almost There''. She wrote a b ...

objected to an absence of sympathetic characters, while in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

found the characters "vacuous". The literary critic and Murdoch biographer

Peter J. Conradi Peter J. Conradi (born 8 May 1945) is a British author and academic, best known for his studies of writer and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, who was a close friend. He is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Kingston and has been vi ...

describes ''A Fairly Honourable Defeat'' as a "brilliant and decisive masterpiece", and the novel with which she entered a "new artistic maturity" in which plot and characters are equally balanced. Literary scholars have examined various aspects of the novel, including its attempt to portray, in Tallis, an "interesting" good character, and its sympathetic depiction of a loving and stable homosexual relationship only three years after the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalized private sexual acts between adult men. In 2010 ''A Fairly Honourable Defeat'' was one of the 21 novels on the long list for the

Lost Man Booker Prize The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970 as the books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the priz ...

, but it did not appear on the short list of six from which the winner was chosen. In 2022 British religious scholar

Karen Armstrong Karen Armstrong (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and m ...

said she left a book club when its members dismissed the novel as "evil."

Plot summary

Characters

Major themes

Literary significance and reception

References

Further reading