The Good Apprentice

Chatto & Windus Ltd, The Hogarth Press, London, first edition, 1985. Cloth, 8vo, 21 cm,. [2], 522 pp. From the blurb: "Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives. Stuart's step-brother Edward Baitram is tormented by guilt because he has, he believes, killed his best friend. He dreams sometimes of redemption, sometimes of suicide. Edward is sent on a 'journey to the underworld' to find his natural father, the painter Jesse Baitram, whom he has not seen since childhood. He discovers a father strangely different from his expectations, and succumbs to an enchantment quite unlike the redemptive cure for which he has been seeking; and meets perhaps the one person in the world who has the power to forgive him. Meanwhile Stuart's moral apprenticeship is causing nothing but trouble. Coming to rescue Edward, Stuart provokes a final catastrophic clash of forces. Funny, compelling and extremely moving, Iris Murdoch's new novel is about obsessive guilt-ridden despair, and the difficult problem of how to try to be good - and the various magical devices which console those who are sensible enough not to try. A little rubbed, contents slightly agetoned, otherwise Near Very Good in Near Very Good dustwrapper..