The Sea, The Sea

The Sea, The Sea is Iris Murdoch’s 1978 novel, winner of that year’s Booker Prize. A retired London theatre director, Charles Arrowby, narrates his retreat to a remote coastal house where he intends to renounce the world; the sea is the constant presence around which his obsessions and self-deceptions unfold. Murdoch (1919 to 1999) uses the title, an echo of the Greek thalatta, to set a philosophical meditation on power and illusion against the literal sea. It is among the best-known modern literary novels with a maritime setting.