The Sacred And Profane Love Machine

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Additionally, you use a more colorful and circular feminine pattern on the man, which recalls the dress of the women in The Kiss. Were you looking at this painting while working on The Slap? What role does art history play in your planning and execution of a new work? But the influence was subliminal rather than conscious. I was more involved with creating a confrontational narrative using abstract patterns. I am not thinking about art history per se. The intensity in which the two look at each other is passionate and most clearly, for me, corresponds with the Murdoch quote Karla uses in her description for the show.

The background in this painting is filled with the colorful abstract expressionist language of Jackson Pollock. Because of the background it makes me wonder if this an intimate moment shared between Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner? How much are you thinking about Pollock in the studio while working on this painting? Please speak to the inspiration and execution of this work in more detail.

I started with a pencil drawing on the canvas based on the still from the film Lady By Choice Then I proceeded to work on the painting in sections.

I first executed the heads and hands and then worked on the background and clothing. I wanted a clash of colors and patterns between the figures. However, both figures are resting on a piece of fabric, which has one set of colors and a separate pattern. My approach to the background is similar in spirit to the language of abstract expressionism.

I used enamel paint, which I dripped, and sand and oil paint to create textures. I want the background to symbolize in visual terms the intermediate space between the two people portrayed. Pickpocket has an obvious Mondrian reference in the prison bars you painted in between the couple in the painting. What are you thinking about when you collage together an image from a film like Pickpocket with a rich art historical reference such as Mondrian and geometric abstraction? How do you blend those two ideas together conceptually? I was looking at the black and white still, which features the geometry of the prison bars, and imagining how the flesh of the lovers remains warm against the relentless vertical metal lines.

The composition grew gradually from my original sketch. In fact, the painting is layered with many buried passages. There was a layer of abstract expressionist painting that I covered over at one point, though some areas remain. Then I added and subtracted triangles. Kandinsky made symphonic use of colored triangles and squares and I was interested in setting up a syncopated rhythm with this composition.

These paintings are more like playful jazz riffs on a famous melody, rather than a strategy of conscious art historical appropriation. I see the Kandinsky influence. I was trying to pinpoint the whimsical part of the painting and that is exactly what I was missing. Thank you for clarifying that. I want to take away the idea of yearning for another human body and replace it with the act of making art.

I think most creative people relate to the feeling of needing to create, and if this need to create is not satiated, then a dark fog of depression can set in and the day-to-day struggle can become overwhelming. You mentioned in a past interview that your parents were artists and did not really want you to pursue the arts yourself. How did you come to terms with the need to pursue the arts? Do you think it is great mystery of living that artists have a need to make and there are no substitutes? As I have said elsewhere, it seems that I was born into the profession, since my parents were artists.

I was taken to galleries, museums, and to their studios as a child. I would sit in the corner and paint and work on prints. Now, making art is my pleasure and my daily practice: I find it inescapable in my life. I can bask in my imagination or create dream spaces or dip into colors in the dead of winter. Painting is stimulating and it is a provocation that unleashes my pent-up energies that would remain buried otherwise. I think this theory evens applies to the discipline of art we decide to work in. I am a photographer, and I think it is because I am totally and completely in love with light.

I think light is beautiful and amazing, I understand it, I know how to manipulate it. How did you pick paint as your medium of preference and was it an obvious obsession? My mother, Miriam Laufer , was a painter, so I grew up with the smell of oil paint. She also worked as a commercial illustrator with watercolor and gouache.

Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The Sacred and Profane Love Machine 3. Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two.

Instead, he lets loose misery and confusion and—for the spectators at any rate—a morality play, rich in reflections upon the paradoxes of human Swinging between his wife and his mistress in the sacred and profane love machine and between the charms of morality and the excitements of sin, the psychotherapist, Blaise Gavender, sometimes wishes he could divide himself in two. Instead, he lets loose misery and confusion and—for the spectators at any rate—a morality play, rich in reflections upon the paradoxes of human life and the nature of the battle between sacred and profane love.

Paperback , pages. Published March 6th by Penguin Books first published Whitbread Award for Novel To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. Sep 23, Maureen rated it really liked it Shelves: View all 19 comments. Jul 12, Ivana Books Are Magic rated it really liked it. You've killed me and sent me to hell, and you must descend to the underworld to find me and make me live again.

If you don't come for me, I'll become a demon and drag you down into the dark. About two pages into this novel, I was ready to propose to this ingenious piece of writing. Let's for the purpose of this metaphor imagine I really went searching for the big fat engagement ring, but I forgot to pop the question because I was so engrossed with my love interest i.

Can I propose now, Iris? I could feel it in my bones. That sweet anticipation, that lovely sensation of having on your knees a book you know will bring you nothing but satisfaction. In all honestly, this novel was probably never anywhere close my thighs, thighs area or knees, who reads like that?

Has there ever been such a delicious group of selfish, insane and dysfunctional people? The way they interact is marvellous. The way this novel is written is brilliant. As messy and crazy as possible. It is that brutal honesty that I appreciate the most in this novel. Nothing is certain, people change their lives in a heartbeat. It is as Tennessee Williams said, in real life we betray each other in a heartbeat. This novel captures that. This is real life but at the same time it is also a novel. It is life but it is also great writing.

I could feel for every single character despite their selfishness, possibly just because of their weakness and selfishness, their humanity. The way they are stripped down to the very core of their being makes them very human, even when what Iris shows us is the worst aspect of humanity. Everyone is their own demon and torturer. Yet there are moments of peace and even moments of grace. For all her intellect, Iris is not ice cold.

The novel opens us with a character Blaise. He seems like a likeable enough guy. His ideas seem fresh. How that is going to change! His wife Harriet is wonderfully portrayed right from the start. There is this warm feeling that accompanies journey into her soul.

That is actually something that is going to linger. For me she remained the person I liked the most. Not that Harriet is idolized! No, she has her flaws, multiple ones, but she stayed close to my heart for whatever reason. Anyway, the opening of the novel is interesting but all in all this seems like a normal family until you discover something about this guy Blaise that happens fairly quickly, Iris doesn't beat around bush in this one. Blaise has a mistress. In fact, he has a whole another family hidden from sight. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

For whom Blaise loves is a mystery! However, we are perhaps all more like Blaise than we would love to admit. Perhaps you will be sickened by him the time you finish this novel, but admit it, you would have also felt for him at least at some point in the narrative. Not just for him.

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Oddly enough , this emotionless writer is the one I most relate to. I really liked Harriet too, despite everything, but he is the probably the one I was the most curious about. For good reason it seems, because towards the end of the story, this novel suddenly becomes very much about him. It may not seem at first, but trust me, these kind of characters joined together in this kind of story…It is something that is hard to find. It felt bloody amazing to me! The story itself has an astonishing amount of twist and turns.

Everyone has a secret within a secret within a secret. Yet it is not about secrets. One moment of profound soul questioning gets followed by the most banal action on the part of the same character who a moment ago seemed on a verge of enlightment. Do you know what? It actuallly seems right. People act on all kinds of impulses, animalistic ones, emotive and intellectual ones and plain dump ones. At times it makes the charters look utterly crazy.

Which they kind of are. And perhaps we all are.

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

The question is only who is the craziest one? Yet they all keep on, boats against current. What is the conclusion? Life is madness but human are strong and will survive all? This is not a heart- warming exploration of humanity. No, this is exploration of worst and best in ourselves. Let's say it like this. This novel is not here to give you answers about life. It will give you so much answers you won't know how to find heads or tail but that is because it recongnized that life isn't simple.

They act in all kind of ways resulting in all kind of events. Now, you know what is a great thing about life? At times, there comes a great writer into your life. She or he well in this case she gives us the opportunity to laugh at it all. She sets us free. Thank you for that Iris. This novel is delicious. It is intelligent without being pretentious, crazy without being over the top and with just the right amount of irony that is an absolute joy to read. View all 3 comments. Dec 09, Rose Boehm rated it it was amazing. I just looked it up in our wonderful Wikipaedia and found that Iris Murdoch wrote 27 novels, the rest of her writings philosophy, plays and poetry.

I haven't read them all, but by comparison The Sacred and Profane Love Machine stands out from the rest which is also excellent, of course. Well, what can I say about Iris Murdoch that hasn't been said before - and better. What is so very enjoyable in any book by Iris Murdoch is how she uses her vast knowledge, studies, readings - in short her knowle I just looked it up in our wonderful Wikipaedia and found that Iris Murdoch wrote 27 novels, the rest of her writings philosophy, plays and poetry.

What is so very enjoyable in any book by Iris Murdoch is how she uses her vast knowledge, studies, readings - in short her knowledge and intelligence - to bring about a novel that very much reminds us of authors as, to name but two, Dostoevsky or George Elliot. She writes about flawed people, enters into their most secret thoughts and shares with the reader a collection of protagonists who make you by turn despair, embarrassed, angry or full of almost furtive empathy.

When you dare take a short breath you'll even be invited to giggle from time to time. It's a novel I read before, I now read for the second time after some years had passed, and I'll read it again, every time discovering more delicious nuances that may have escaped me before. It's like a good wine that grows even better with time.

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View all 10 comments. Feb 22, Tara rated it it was ok. I am very mad at this book right now. Even though I finished it six months ago. I think I should give it higher stars, because it was making me think and feel things in ways I don't usually do. I was getting kinda crazy. I wanted to hurl the book away from me, but it wasn't because it was bad.

She simply knows how much people and things suck sometimes, and how they suck in a lot of unique and terribly self-deceptive ways. So, while this book is brilliant about people and deserves w I am very mad at this book right now. So, while this book is brilliant about people and deserves way more stars, people are so bloody awful that I'm sticking with two. Feb 27, Esdaile rated it really liked it Shelves: What marks Irish Murdoch's novels is her benevolence. The main theme of the novels is love, love requited and unrequited, normal and abnormal.

Terrible things may occur in her novels or be related by one of her characters but there is no indulgence in evil no presentation of it with malicious intent using realism or plot as a pretext for something unwholesome. The driving ambition of her characters is often victory in love. Defeat is frequent and harrowing but ultimately her faith in love prevai What marks Irish Murdoch's novels is her benevolence. Defeat is frequent and harrowing but ultimately her faith in love prevails.

Her weakness can be that her characters are too obviously instruments of her telling, with little genuine life of their own,an impression which can be compounded by the domination of her intelligence.

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In this respect her novels are arguably unrealistic because the majority of characters in real life do not appear as interesting or as committed to love as characters in her novels. But is it not the role of the novelist to highlight character and make it interesting, perhaps even to inspire the reader or beholder to be if not a better character at least a more honest one and one more determined to live for what one loves?

Iris Murdoch's world is not a wide one, it is that of twentieth century British member so the upper middle class dealing with the entanglements of the human heart. In "The Sacred and Profane Love Machine" the story focuses on Montague Small a hugely successful writer of detective fiction mourning his late wife, and his neighbour, Blaise Gavender, who is the apex of an eternal triangle.

Irish Murdoch's depiction of the two women in Blaise's life, his wife and his mistress is sympathetic, acute, remorseless and very intelligent. Blaise is confronted with the choice between sacred and profane life and is too weak to make a decision; his hopes that he can "muddle through" and have the best of both worlds mean that he has to leave the fight for him to the two women whose love for him is bewildering to this reviewer but no more bewildering than affections in real life.

Only a deus ex machina solution to Blaise's dilemma jarred for me in this otherwise believable and compelling tale. There is "nowt queerer than folk" and nothing more strange than the heart's affections. This is a moving, sad yet finally happy book which succeeds because of the writer's immense sympathy and psychological discernment. Oct 21, Ugh rated it really liked it. I don't think I've ever read another book with quite such a convincingly fully-fleshed cast of characters. This is my first Murdoch, but I assume this ensemble psychological interplay stuff was her thing, seeing as she did it so well here.

This is one of those books that makes you realise you could never be a writer, because some people really are just so damned good at it It was engrossing as I was reading it, but whenever I put it down I felt disinclined to p I don't think I've ever read another book with quite such a convincingly fully-fleshed cast of characters.

It was engrossing as I was reading it, but whenever I put it down I felt disinclined to pick it back up again. It's written in sections of around 5 pages at a time, and each starts with a page or two of updating the reader on the current state of mind of whichever character's turn it is before the next bit of drama unfolds, and this is too often rather tedious, especially on the not infrequent occasions when a dream sequence is shoehorned in. On the other hand, whatever personal growth there is to be gleaned from reading the book comes from this psychoanalysis of the characters, which ought at least make you think more about the inner lives of others, even if it doesn't make you think more about your own motives and traits, which it probably will.

It's also surprisingly chaste when it comes down to it, and I'm not sure whether that was through authorial preference or peccadillo. I will however read more of Murdoch's - Iris's somehow saying Murdoch just feels wrong - work in the not-too-distant future. It's almost soap opera, but soap opera-plus. And I like a bit of that from time to time. Child or adult, gullible or cynicle, characters choose to lie or to accept lies in order to maintain an ordinary life; until the unconceivable happens and the war between sacred and profane love starts.

Dec 18, Courtney rated it it was amazing Shelves: Sacred and profane love. A man with 2 families - his "sacred", or legitimate family comprised of his wife and son David, and his "profane" comprised of his mistress and son Luca. These families slowly start to unravel and take the participants down with them. Exploration of the meaning of love and neverending quest for the heart's satisfaction.

Jan 02, Emmett rated it it was amazing Shelves: I loved how Murdoch probes into the thoughts and emotions of each character, her astounding clarity of writing be it in dealing with their emotions or mapping out the escalation of situations. Her analyses of relationships are sharp and incisive -- sometimes too much so, I feel, but it never feels contrived, rather as if these characters of hers had spent far too much time thinking about themselves and the state they are in than seems possible for such ordinary people. She writes sentiment and e I loved how Murdoch probes into the thoughts and emotions of each character, her astounding clarity of writing be it in dealing with their emotions or mapping out the escalation of situations.

She writes sentiment and emotion so beautifully that in this tragicomedy at times I find myself on the verge of tears, sharing in Harriet's anguish, Blaise's, well, blase attitudes and his desperation, sometimes despising Emily myself for throwing a spanner in the works of Harriet's blissful marriage. Murdoch explores the states of not just the central character but gives a part to the trio's friends and children, and through this realises a fuller, more descriptive and complete picture of the chaos and its effects on everyone involved.

The Sacred And Profane Love Machine

I daresay I would never forget the gradual tender closeness of Harriet and Luca: Sometimes I think I can write, and then I read works like this one and I give up that thought entirely. Apr 28, Jon rated it liked it. I have tried Iris Murdoch's work several times and have always bogged down and given up. This one tempted me to do the same, since it's not the kind of novel that appeals to me--it has hardly any plot: One Goodreads reviewer com I have tried Iris Murdoch's work several times and have always bogged down and given up.

One Goodreads reviewer commented that she really put her characters through the wringer in this one, and that is certainly true. Some of the scenes were quite funny, many too dark to be funny at all. Exactly what the machine was, and exactly which loves were sacred and which were profane were for me, anyway tantalizingly ambiguous.

But there were far too many pages repetitively describing the characters' self-justifications and self-serving analyses of what was going on. Actual dialogue and confrontation, when it occurred, was vivid and memorable; I think the reader could have deduced from these scenes much of what Murdoch went to great lengths to explain in exposition. But finally, not a lot of plot, and very few, if any, admirable characters. Aug 12, Jeffrey rated it it was amazing.

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