Book 639: Elegy for Iris

Elegy for Iris, by John Bayley, St. Martin's Press, 1999.

This was a hard book to read, but not for the reason I thought it would be.  It wasn't Iris Murdoch Alzheimer's disease that was so hard to read about.  It was John Murdoch's response to it that was hard.  My father died of Alzheimer's disease last June; he had been an aerospace engineer, and had had a sharp, quick sense of humor.  It was very hard to see my father regress into himself, but my interaction with my father wasn't about me.  It wasn't about trying to make my father understand who I was, or to make him give me a smile, or to force him to confront a semblance of reality.  My relationship with my father in his final days was about him.  Although John Murdoch can disguise his selfishness with beautifully crafted language, his relationship with Iris in her final days was all about him.