My fourth Iris Murdoch.
The prose, the descriptions of the physical setting, primarily seascape, is extraordinary. The protagonist frightened me severely, and some of the plot patterns hang unfinished, not clumsily but deliberately to unsettle. I didn't get all the symbolism the book is supposedly packed with, and certain events were unbelievable. Yet I loved it. Murdoch's expression of personality and interplay and history propelled me along.
I could tell its writing was better but I didn't like it as well as The Green Knight, whose characters resonated with me. Then A Severed Head, then this, and far, far below, Under the Net.