The Mystic Novels

In the next six novels, from The Sea, The Sea (1978) to The Message to the Planet (1989), Murdoch appears to have moved on to a different plane of thought. These novels are deeply philosophical, deeply religious, full of mysticism and imbued with the mystery of personality to a much greater extent than earlier novels. Intrigue, treachery, death are still present but the degree of physical violence is less obtrusive; psychological domination is, however, very apparent. All the books are long, as though their author’s thoughts cannot easily be contained but must spill over into greater and greater length. All, too, are concerned to some extent with God or with religion, not necessarily with the questions of Good without God or of reconciliation and forgiveness without God which vexed earlier novels but, following on from the discussion of Christianity in Henry and Cato, with explicit discussion of religious thought and ideas.