Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relations dash his hopes of a peaceful retirement. He is tormented by his melancholic sister, who has decided to come live with him; his ex-wife, who has infuriating hopes of redeeming the past; her delinquent brother, who wants money and emotional confrontations; and Bradley's friend and rival, Arnold Baffin, a younger, deplorably more successful author of commercial fiction. The ever-mounting action includes marital cross-purposes, seduction, suicide, abduction, romantic idylls, murder, and due process of law. Bradley tries to escape from it all but fails, leading to a violent climax and a coda that casts shifting perspectives on all that has preceded. "Fertile invention is put to the service of an expansive sense of character; and since the book also has Miss Murdoch's usual narrative energy and intellectual weight, it is the best novel she has written in years." ("The New York Times Book Review")

艾麗絲•默多剋（Iris Murdoch，1919—1999）是英國二十世紀最著名的小說傢之一, 同時也是位貨真價實的哲學傢，被譽為 “全英國最聰明的女人”。她的哲學思想深受剋爾愷郭爾和薩特的存在主義影響，哲學寫作又深受西濛娜•韋伊與柏拉圖的影響，其小說創作緻力於探討善與惡、性關係、道德睏境與無意識的力量，以其對於個體內心生活的關注和深入探討，延續瞭托爾斯泰、陀思妥耶夫斯基、喬治•愛略特與普魯斯特等小說大師的偉大傳統。默多剋共六次進入布剋奬短名單，為該奬曆史上獲得提名最多的作傢，並以《大海，大海》奪魁。