在网下 (1954)

Under the Net is a 1954 novel by Iris Murdoch. It was Murdoch's first published novel. Set in London, it is the story of a struggling young writer, Jake Donaghue. Its mixture of the philosophical and the picaresque has made it one of Murdoch's most popular novels.

It is dedicated to Raymond Queneau. When Jake leaves Madge's flat in Chapter 1, two of the books he mentions taking are Murphy by Samuel Beckett, and Pierrot mon ami by Queneau, both of which are echoed in this story. The epigraph, from John Dryden's Secular Masque, refers to the way in which the main character is driven from place to place by his misunderstandings.

In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923. The editors of Modern Library named the work as one of the greatest English-language novels of the twentieth century.

Explanation of the title

The "net" in question is the net of abstraction, generalization, and theory. In Chapter 6, a quotation from Jake's book The Silencer includes the passage: "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself and this is unutterably particular here. Indeed it is something to which we can never get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net."

Michael Wood, writing in the London Review of Books, notes that "the work’s title,... borrows and interrogates an image [of Newtonian mechanics] from Wittgenstein's Tractatus." Peter J. Conradi, in his 2001 biography of Iris Murdoch, specifies that "the title alludes to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, 6, 341, the net of discourse behind which the world's particulars hide, which can separate us from our world, yet simultaneously connect us." According to Conradi, Hugo Belfounder is "a portrait of Wittgenstein's star pupil from 1937, Yorick Smythies."

Plot summary

In this lightly comic novel about work, love, wealth and fame the main character is Jake Donaghue, a struggling writer and translator. He seeks to improve his circumstances and make up for past mistakes by reconnecting with his old acquaintance Hugo Belfounder, a mild mannered and soft-spoken philosopher.

Jake, a shameless mooch and hack-writer—now homeless and out of other solid options—tracks down his ex-girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her elegant sister, an actress named Sadie. He also reacquaints himself with Hugo, whose philosophy Jake had long ago presumptuously tried to decipher and interpret to his own liking. The plot develops through a series of adventures involving Jake and his offbeat minion, Finn. From the kidnapping of a movie-star canine to the staging of a political riot on a film set, Jake attempts to discover and incorporate Hugo's abstruse philosophies in real life situations. Berated yet enlightened, Jake's aspirations to become a true writer/philosopher may at last be at hand.

Chapters 1–5: Thrown out

Jake Donaghue has just arrived back in London from a trip to France. Finn, a distant relative who is so obliging that he is sometimes mistaken for a servant, tells Jake that they are being thrown out of Madge's house, where they have been living rent-free for eighteen months. A conversation with Madge reveals that they are being moved to make way for her new lover, the rich bookmaker Sammy Starfield.

He goes with his suitcase to the cat-filled corner shop of Mrs Tinckham to check he has all his manuscripts and figure out where to live. Only one manuscript is missing: his translation of Le Rossignol de Bois, a novel by Jean-Pierre Breteuil. It is a mediocre work which he has done for money. He thinks of an old friend, a philosopher named Dave Gellman, and goes to his flat. A political meeting is being held there, and Dave is dismissive, but allows him to leave his suitcase. Finn suggests that he ask Anna Quentin, (a singer he once fell in love with) for help.

Jake has not seen Anna for several years. He eventually tracks her down to the Riverside Miming Theatre, on Hammersmith Mall, and finds her in a prop room "like a vast toy shop". She is happy to see him, but somewhat uncomfortable when he asks about her new project, involving mime. She suggests that he ask her film-star sister, Sadie, for help. After she leaves he spends the night sleeping in the prop room.

The next morning Jake goes to Welbeck Street to look for Sadie, and learns that she is at her Mayfair hairdresser. He spruces himself up, and goes to talk to her. She is very happy to see him there, and asks him to look after her flat while she hides from an admirer named Hugo Belfounder, a fireworks manufacturer who now owns a film studio.

It so happens that Hugo was a former friend of Jake's. They had met long ago as fellow participants in a cold-cure experiment, and had had long philosophical discussions which Jake, without Hugo's knowledge, had turned into a book called The Silencer. Because Hugo believed that language was corrupt, Jake felt that creation of the book was a kind of betrayal, and had unilaterally broken off the friendship after its publication, not wishing to face Hugo's anger.

Jake goes back to Madge's to fetch his radio, and finds Sammy there. Jake is prepared to fight, but the bookmaker is friendly and even offers him money to make up for having disrupted his life. This leads to a series of bets being placed by phone; they win £633 10s, and Sammy promises to send him a cheque for that amount.

Chapters 6–10: Anna and Hugo

Jake goes to Sadie's flat to begin housesitting and is surprised to see a copy of The Silencer on a bookshelf, wondering whether Hugo had given it to her. His pleasure in the flat's luxury is soon destroyed: firstly by a call from Hugo, asking for Miss Quentin (he hangs up when he hears Jake), and secondly by the discovery that he has been deliberately locked in. He calls from the window to his friends, Dave and Finn, who pick the lock and rescue him. Jake resolves to find Hugo, who he thinks must love Anna, and must have given her the idea for the mime theatre.