Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Murdoch, a philosophy don at Oxford, was that rarity, a philosophical novelist who could create real characters, not premises with names attached. Born in Ireland, she revered Wittgenstein, who fostered her contempt for abstractions. (Her title refers to the "net" he believed language cast over truth.) She also wrote the first English-language elucidation of Sartre, whose existentialism was behind her sharp appreciation of the human potential for leaps into the void. But it was as a novelist that she will be remembered. Until she began sinking into Alzheimer's in the mid-1990's, she maintained a ferocious output. This was the first of her 26 novels, about a circle of bewildered and lovesick friends and acquaintances in London, with excursions into aesthetics and left-wing politics. Right out of the gate she displayed all her sinuous gifts—her questing mind, her comic skepticism, her wildly entangled plots.— R.L.

- Time

The 458th greatest fiction book of all time


This book is on the following lists:

  1. - 90th on The Telegraph’s 100 Novels Everyone Should Read (Telegraph)
  2. - 95th on The Modern Library | 100 Best Novels (Modern Library)
  3. - TIME Magazine All Time 100 Novels (TIME Magazine)
  4. - 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (The Book)

Buy This Book

Name Binding Sales Rank Lowest New Lowest Used Published
Under The Net Hardcover 2833339 $7.55
Under the Net Paperback 3762316 $8.98 $0.26
Under the Net Hardcover 8464850 $614.29 $21.19 1954
Under the Net Mass Market Paperback 9940313 1967
Under the Net Paperback 4460038 $140.38 $0.90 1964
Under the Net Hardcover 7248020 $11.91 1955
Under The Net: Vintage Classics Murdoch Series Paperback 5673831 $9.13 $11.71 2019
Under the Net - First Edition Hardcover 3885672 $22.76
Under The Net Hardcover 5646834 $5.99
Under the Net Paperback 92106 $10.91 $3.79 1977
Under the Net Kindle Edition 294285 $6.99 1977