A Good Apprentice (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) - Softcover

Murdoch, Iris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141186682 ISBN 13: 9780141186689

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2001

Synopsis

Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: He has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Edward searches for redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram. Funny and compelling, The Good Apprentice is at once a supremely sophisticated entertainment and an inquiry into the spiritual crises that afflict the modern world.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

Review:

"Iris Murdoch at her most artful, juggling philosophy and farce with knowledge and ease." --"Economist"

From the Back Cover:

'She is as elusive as quicksilver, as brilliant as sunlight on water. England's finest female writer' Atlantic Journal

Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives.

Stuart's stepbrother, Edward Baltram, is tormented by guilt, believing that he has killed his best friend. He dreams of both redemption and suicide. He is sent on a 'journey to the underworld' to find his natural father, the painter Jesse Baltram, whom he has not seen since childhood. He discovers a father strangely different from his expectations, full of the magic of forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Stuart's moral apprenticeship is causing nothing but trouble. Coming to rescue Edward, Stuart provokes a final catastrophic clash of forces.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0141186682
• ISBN 13: 9780141186689
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320