Rating: 
Summary: Haunting, but uplifting
Review: John Bayley and Iris Murdoch had a rare relationship, the kind most of us dream of having. Two writers, working side by side, living their lives to the fullest, John Bayley and Iris Murdoch weren't so much a marriage as a team. Their support for each other's craft is laudable, and Bayley's reaction to losing his wife while she was still alive is heartbreaking and at times oddly humourous. You feel what Bayley must have felt, looking at the shell of the woman he'd spent most of his life with and hoping there was still some of her inside somewhere, and you laugh and cry right along with him. This book is a loving tribute to one of the greatest modern novelists and philosophers who ever lived, and I felt greatly enriched after reading this book. It has stayed with me ever since.
Rating: 
Summary: A very literate, personal account of Alzheimer's by husband
Review: John Bayley was married to the famous writer, Iris Murdoch, for over 40 years. Sadly she developed Alzheimer's disease late in life and Mr. Bayley's book recounts how he dealt with this sad fact. It is a very intimate portrait of a famous writer, and, includes their many wonderful times together during their marriage. One learns, for example, that Mr. Bayley did most of the cooking, that they both like to go skinny dipping in favorite rivers nearby, that Iris was not a pretentious person, and how some of their experiences translated into Iris's wonderful novels. Mr. Bayley is a learned man in his own right and his allusions to art and literature add much to his narrative. While the author shows few signs of self-pity in this memoir, some of the persona foibles of Iris as a result of her illness are not very flattering and can't help but diminish her stature in the eyes of the reader. Maybe it would have been better to not have known some of these intimate details. Nevertheless, Mr Bayley's regard and love for Iris shines through as does his respect for her creative powers. In all, this is a very readable, erudite, and personable story of a marriage between two well-known writers.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and moving.
Review: John Bayley's elegy for his wife, novelist Iris Murdoch, who suffers from Alzheimer's, is magnificent. His devotion to her is in every passage of this eloquent, honest account of their more than 45 years together. As her sole caretaker now during her disease's progression, he is kind, gentle, patient, and loving, despite mistakes and moments of intense frustration and sadness. His insights into the [probable] feelings of Alzheimer's victims are perceptive and keenly felt as well, and promote a greater understanding of this insidious disease. If only everyone had a John Bayley to care for them in times of illness and distress.
Rating:
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY LOVE STORY
Review: John Bayley's elegy to the late author Iris Murdoch ranks as one of the most genuine, vivid, heart-felt, readable, humorous and self-deprecating love stories told in many years. The movie was pretty good. This book is awesome in ways large and small, full of insight, inspiration and wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY LOVE STORY
Review: John Bayley's elegy to the late author Iris Murdoch ranks as one of the most genuine, vivid, heart-felt, readable, humorous and self-deprecating love stories told in many years. The movie was pretty good. This book is awesome in ways large and small, full of insight, inspiration and wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: Now this is a love story...
Review: No, it's not a bodice-ripper with impossibly beautiful women and two-dimensional men. It's about caritas, the love that surpasses eros. These people loved each other, and the words of John Bayley (who died just this last winter) are a testament to lasting love, the opposite of the prevalent "let's chuck her in a nursing home now that she's a hassle" attitude. This is a tender book. Not the greatest writing in the world, but certainly well-crafted.I gave it to my mother-in-law after she took care of my father-in-law for five years, at home, as he was slowly dying of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. She read a little, said "Yes, this is a true story," and put it down. She didn't need to finish it, or she couldn't, I don't know, but it's true.
Rating:
Summary: Now this is a love story...
Review: No, it's not a bodice-ripper with impossibly beautiful women and two-dimensional men. It's about caritas, the love that surpasses eros. These people loved each other, and the words of John Bayley (who died just this last winter) are a testament to lasting love, the opposite of the prevalent "let's chuck her in a nursing home now that she's a hassle" attitude. This is a tender book. Not the greatest writing in the world, but certainly well-crafted. I gave it to my mother-in-law after she took care of my father-in-law for five years, at home, as he was slowly dying of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. She read a little, said "Yes, this is a true story," and put it down. She didn't need to finish it, or she couldn't, I don't know, but it's true.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book... Sad Ending
Review: Not in gods green earth's reaches has a book ever touched me in a way.. I was deeply moved by the portrayal of Maggie , the younger sister, who helped her sister find the strength. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy strikes a couple of Oxford dons
Review: Professor Bayley's memoir of his life with novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch left me with far more questions than answers. He writes movingly of her deterioration from Alzheimer's type dementia, yet illuminates little regarding her pre-senile life. He lists various anectdotes and memories of their courtship and marriage, but provides the barest sketch of an intriguing writer and eccentic personality. They appear to have lived more in parallel than together. The very fact that the author never read Murdoch's works in progress is puzzling, and a bit sad. The reader is left with the impression that Bayley has not read much of Dame Murdoch's prodigious literary output. All marriages are a mystery to outside observers, but this one remains completely so, despite the "elegy." Perhaps Professor Bayley wished to vouchsafe his departed wife's privacy, and his own. But this leaves the reader hungering for a fuller portrait of a literary life, and an unusual academic marriage.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been a New Yorker short story
Review: The biography describes a miserable one sided marriage where Bayley allows himself to be abused by Iris from the earliest days of their relationship to its very sad ending. If the male/female roles were reversed , Bayley would be pitied as the battered wife. Yet this intelligent man allows himself to be kicked and ignored by an incredibly self centered spouse. All this role reversal could make for an interesting read but the body of the book is laden with mundane details and flashbacks. These scenes are so adoring of Murdoch, they seem to be written by a star struck adolescent blinded to the terrible weakness of his subject. My compassion for the generous spirit of the author made it difficult to give this biography such a poor rating. The beginning and ending chapters give a good feel for the story and leave the reader with a few good kernels of thought on the mystery of relationships. Although it's not a biography, Stegner's Crossing to Safety leaves a much sweeter feeling and somehow seems closer to reality.
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