*** DEBUG START ***
*** DEBUG END ***

Book Club Podcast: The Bell by Iris Murdoch

by
04 October 2024

0:00 / 0:00
Daniel Greenhouse/Alamy

The author Dame Iris Murdoch, in the portrait by Tom Phillips on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The artist described Murdoch as “a luminous presence . . . an electric light-bulb in that gloomy corner, glowing, casting out darkness”

The author Dame Iris Murdoch, in the portrait by Tom Phillips on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The artist described Murdoch as “a luminous...

The Bell by Iris Murdoch is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, the Revd Jeremy Davies, retired Canon Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral, who has a long and abiding interest in the works of Iris Murdoch, discusses the book with Francis Martin, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times.

Published in 1958, The Bell is hailed as a great work of philosophical and psychological fiction. The story centres on a group of characters, all with complex problems, who seek refuge in a lay religious community in rural Gloucestershire. Their community sits alongside a medieval abbey inhabited by Benedictine nuns. As the two neighbouring communities await the arrival of a new replacement bell for the medieval bell tower, the story takes an unexpected turn when the missing bell is found and retrieved from the lake near by.

The Bell is published by Vintage Classics at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89); 978-0-09-947048-9.

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature

Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup

Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

Click the play button above to listen to this podcast. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPadSoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

Browse Church and Charity jobs on the Church Times jobsite

Welcome to the Church Times

 

To explore the Church Times website fully, please sign in or subscribe.

Non-subscribers can read four articles for free each month. (You will need to register.)