Present Imperfect

In Welsh, It's Always "Y" | April 10, 2003

Well, where can I go after that last sacrilegious post? How about a stab at moral philosophy? I've been on a mission to read every Iris Murdoch novel in print, about 26 in all. I've never really wanted to read an author's entire canon before. I was always of the mind that broad exposure to a number of writers was better than deep exposure to a few. Then again, the ideal scenario is a deep exposure to everything. If I were independently wealthy, I would do nothing but read. Well, not "nothing." I would eat and drink and sleep and read and walk and swim. I would have a dog. I would live in the country, but close to a city. I would take trains. I would travel to places where I could eat and drink and sleep and read and walk and swim surrounded by different scenery.

Most scholars agree that Murdoch's books are about goodness. I tell people that her books are about "everything." Does that mean that goodness is everything? It may be. It may be that the driving force behind every life is a quest to be or know what is good.

I'm reading an essay on Murdoch by Joyce Carol Oates. She says "Nothing is so fascinating, so enigmatic, as the nature of the Good, and of Love, and Freedom: yet nothing is so elusive, and brings us to such muddles (to use a word that Murdoch employs often)." And then, this:
"There are even amusing Murdoch characters who realize that they are doomed to happiness and to the mediocrity that seems to imply, since the circumstances of their lives prevent them from continuing the quest for the nature of truth," which is terrifying to me. What if I'm doomed to happiness and mediocrity?

And that brings me to The Mabinogion. I want to retell Branwen because it is about goodness and evil and happiness and misery. Branwen's brothers want her to be doomed to happiness. She seems like the type, after all. So they send her off to Ireland, believing that she will be happy. Bran believes she will be, because he is powerful and noble and what other possible outcome could befall his own beloved sister? Nissyen believes she will be because he is the personification of pure goodness (which cannot actually exist in human form). Evnissyen hopes she will not--not because he hates her, but because he hates Matholuch and because he is Nissyen's twin: the personification of evil. Only Manawyddan knows what will happen. Manawyddan is the closest to being a Murdochian hero: One who is not doomed to happiness, but doomed to a lifelong awareness and devotion to his despair or joy or regret. He is the only one in search of truth and goodness and he is the only one who knows that even if he finds it, he cannot keep it. It does not belong to him. Manawyddan is a druid and a scholar.

And now I'm just talking to myself. Which is fine, I guess.