Book Review: "The Red and the Green" by Iris Murdoch

I have read a few books by Iris Murdoch over the last few years and for me, her books are really a hit or a miss. For example: I loved her books, The Sea, The Sea and The Book and the Brotherhood. I also liked her novels Under the Net and The Severed Head. But there are other books that I felt like I couldn't become fully invested in. I have to say I was half in and half out when it came to The Red and the Green. Apart from being set during a time in which I have no real interest in, each of the characters seemed to have a lot of self-loathing to some degree and in the end, I didn't think I liked the way certain characters treated other characters, especially when Millie was asked to marry and Christopher was basically thinking about the way she might say yes, but not mean it. That had to be one of the weirdest paragraphs in the whole text.

The book is set on the cusp of the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin. Now, I don't know a lot about the Easter Rising, I know what happened (roughly) but that is about it. So, let us move on. It opens with a really interesting character named Andrew Chase-White who is a part of a family of people from different places, but all Irish in the end. Andrew himself grew up in England and then, goes back to Ireland before choosing to enlist in the British Army and go to France.

There is then a weird side story whilst Andrew and his relatives are still in Ireland, in which Andrew's step-uncle has a strange conundrum (the family is strange and complicated, there seems to be some intermarrying going on but I'm not sure if it counts as intermarrying and I can't tell you because it'll spoil the story). Christopher seems to be in love with a woman he has been financially helping for years named Millie. He has this big contemplation over what would happen if she were to say no and if she were to say yes out of the 'right thing to do' and didn't really want to, would it be worth it or not - basically, this guy spends far too long thinking about it.

Basically, as the book goes on, the one thing you begin to realise is that all the problems in the book are somewhat caused by Millie and her weird sense of self-righteousness. There are obviously two sides in this book, one for both 'sides' of the same family, even though they are only related by one common relative. I think that this book would have been more of a success if there was less of the family-tree like telling at the beginning and instead, some sort of diagram that let you know who was were. It was difficult to keep up with the background of the context and war whilst also trying to keep up with who was marrying or not marrying who and why whilst then again, also trying to keep up with why we never actually see Andrew go to France even though he seems to want to fight in the British Army.

In conclusion, this hasn't been my favourite Iris Murdoch book but it also definitely is not the worst I have seen of her. I just think that for me, it was a little bit much and the story didn't really come together like I think it should have - there was no great climactic moment except for that one between Frances and Andrew, but that was overshadowed by Millie and Christopher yet again.