A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch

 

Probably the fourth time I've read this. Always enjoyable. Murdoch's protagonist (rather late in the game revealed to be a concentration camp survivor) is a puppet-master of his friends, and his malevolent gamesmanship destroys character's lives by setting up clashes of their own vanity with other characters' vanity.

The diabolical Julius sending Morgan's old love letters to him (Julius) to the noble husband Rupert - and Rupert's old love letters to his noble wife Hilder on to Morgan - just too satisfying. He creates their brief love affair out of their own self-regard and vanity.

Cartoon-level drinking - women swill whiskey like it was water, semi-unbelievably. Most of the plot comes from dialogue.

There are times when one's just got to go on loving somebody helplessly, with blank hope and blank faith. When love just is hope and faith in their most denuded form. Then love becomes almost impersonal and loses all its attractiveness and its ability to console. But it is just then that it may exert its greatest power. It is just then that it may be really be able to redeem. Love has its own cunning beyond our conscious wiles. [p. 18]

Good is dull. What novelist ever succeeded in making a good man interesting? . . .  

Evil on the contrary, is exciting and fascinating and alive. It is also very much more mysterious than good. Good can be seen through. Evil is opaque. [205]