Philosophy is even scarier than I anticipated and every page of the this very short book made my head hurt. I never read any philosophy before, and decided to read this to better understand the philosophical underpinning of Murdoch's novels. Her theories are extremely interesting, but I couldn't follow much of the philosophical discussions either because I lack the knowledge of theories and specific vocabulary, or am too stupid, or both. However, the parts that I did understand were very profound and beautiful. She really isn't afraid of getting accused of being 'old-fashioned' and advocates turning away from more modern and radical ideas to older ones, backing them up with new and strong arguments for the modern world. I also really loved her emphasis on literature as an important tool in morality and its role in representing the world. She uses Plato's metaphor of looking at the sun to describe the indefineability of the Good, and I would definitely say that reading this book was quite a bit like trying to look at the sun; dazzlingly, painfully intelligent.
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