The Good Apprentice

Edward Baltram is looking for redemption. After a practical joke on his best friend goes horribly awry causing the friend’s suicide, Edward seeks refuge in the dilapidated country mansion of the father who’d abandoned him, the famous painter Jesse Baltram. Among extended family within the cloister-like confines of his father’s house, Edward is determined to pare his life down to a monkish simplicity.

Although the plot of Iris Murdoch’s 22nd novel, The Good Apprentice, sounds straightforward enough, be prepared for a complex and compelling ride across 1980’s upper-crust England.

Edward’s step-brother Stuart is seeking a turn-around of his own. Leaving his university studies, Stuart decides to pursue a life of the mind and a shocking affair with the son of his father’s mistress, Midge.

And what of Midge? She falls unexpectedly in love with Stuart and turns to Edward for support. Getting a little complicated, isn’t it?

Like all of Murdoch’s 20-plus novels, The Good Apprentice is filled with witty, overly-educated characters spending the weekends getting into all sorts of mischief at friends' country houses. Her books are densely plotted and deceptively philosophical for all their sensual shenanigans. There was a time when I eagerly awaited her next book. Alas, her death in 1999 from Alzheimers at the age of 79 left me bereft. And so? I may just start reading them all over again.

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