Irish Murdoch's twenty six novels have one thing in common--unendearing characters who somehow keep us reading. They also nearly-always talk too much, and not necessarily to themselves.

But she has a gift as well--for those who stick around, surviving the first half, watching the nearly-flaccid run of the story, there is always a WHAM. That is when the action starts, and nearly always non-stop, often leaving the reader breathless, way after the last page.

Written two decades before she passed away in 1999 at age eighty.

Skip the introduction. For all of Prof Nussbaum's credentials, if she ever edited a book and appeared in the movie "Dead Poets' Society", let's just say that Mr Keating's class would not linger on her pages.