"When Marian Taylor takes a post as a governess at Gaze Castle, a remote house upon a beautiful but desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with a number of wierd mysteries and involved in a drama she only partly understands.

Some crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house like a castle of the Sleeping Beauty, under a spell, whose magic also touches the neighbouring house of Riders, inhabited by a scholarly recluse."


strange and beautiful   March 11, 2004
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

The Unicorn is seen by some as Iris Murdoch's most perfect novel - for the first half at least. Some favourite Iris Murdochian elements reoccur - an isolated house by the sea, a dangerous and unswimmable ocean, unrequited and obsessive lovers - and there are some lasting descriptions of the Irish coast. This book sits with those books of hers which seem more 'felt': sometimes the games she plays with her characters can seem intellectual but here this is not the case. The mixture of mythological and fairy tale touches in this setting fox any attempt to put the novel into a simple category, and if you enjoy that sense of mystification which arises from her books then experiment with this, one of her lesser known but utterly wonderful works.


A good opener for a new recruit   September 5, 2002
 11 out of 13 found this review helpful

Okay, I'll admit it. I was influenced by all the hype about the film (something i'm not usually guilty of). What's the harm in giving a new author a go I said to myself. So I chose a short one to see what all the fuss was about. The Unicorn caught my eye because I like all things gothic, and I wasn't disappointed here. Murdoch's description in this book is excellent, but what really caught my attention was the pastiche of gothicism that she presents. At times the action is very over the top and difficult to take seriously making the whole book a very enjoyable romp through the cliches of the genre. I have to say I loved this book and would read Murdoch again if this is anything to go by!