A Month of Novellas, Book 6: Something Special - Iris Murdoch (1957)

making friends with my library squirrel

I chose Iris Murdoch’s ‘Something Special’ because I’d never read anything by her and was eager to have a chance to read a ‘lighter’ work of hers. This definitely was the ‘lightest’ one of the novellas I’ve read so far, at least as far as page count is concerned, as it was only 41 pages long, once one subtracts the bespoken illustrations.

I have to actually question whether this (and Yoshimoto’s Hard Luck before it) is actually a (long) short story rather than a novella. It felt a little too slight to be a short novel. Not quite enough development I thought, to be a short novel…but then again, one woman’s novella and all that…

But back to the story.

It concerns Yvonne, who at 24-years-old, is already considered a bit long in the tooth as well as a burden on her mother and uncle with whom she lives with. They both think she should marry Sam, a nice Jewish man who comes to see her and whom she goes out with. But Yvonne doesn’t see Sam in that way, and thinks him instead ‘Nothing Special’.

Her life revolves around the excitement derived from the Christmas card salesman coming by on his yearly visit to her mother’s store and the possibility of an outing with Sam. But she’s not excited about seeing Sam – she just sees Sam as the way to get out of the house for a night’s outing, nothing less. Sam meanwhile seems to be very much interested in her and tries to be acquiescent of her whims and desires, even when they severely contradict what he feels comfortable with. He wants a sweet, romantic walk by the river, while Yvonne wants a proper night’s out, to visit a pub. When the pub visit turns sour, she becomes angry with Sam, as if he was the one to drag her kicking and screaming into the basement bar, instead of admitting her own lack of common sense.

Later, when he tries to show her something special, she lashes out at him…which is why the actual ending seemed baffling to me.

I know people are complex and the reasons behind why someone falls in love or doesn’t can be many and varied, but I didn’t really believe the ending. It seemed to me almost like it was a ‘surprise!’ ending, which didn’t really fit in with the rest of Yvonne’s characterization.