Bruno's Dream

Bruno's Dream is a 1969 novel by Iris Murdoch. Set in London it tells the story of a dying man called Bruno and his family. Narrated in the third person that allows for multiple character perspectives it follows Bruno, Bruno's son Miles, Miles' wife Diana and her sister Lisa, Bruno's son in law Danby, Bruno's nurse Adelaide, Nigel (the messianic figure consistently found in Murdoch's novels) and Nigel's twin brother, Will. The novel ends with all the different people coupling up in ways you would not expect.

Couples: Miles and Parvati (1st wife), Miles and Diana (2nd wife), Miles and Lisa (Diana's sister) they love each other but never get together. Danby and Gwen (1st wife and Bruno's daughter), Danby and Adelaide (his maid/mistress), Danby and Diana- they go dancing once and he proposes an affair, but it doesn't come to fruition. Danby and Lisa (they end up together at the end of the novel. Bruno and Janie (his wife), Bruno and Maureen (his mistress). Will and Adelaide (cousins) In the end the couples are Miles and Diana, Danby and Lisa, Bruno and Diana, and Will and Adelaide.

Works by Iris Murdoch
Novels
  • Under the Net (1954)
  • The Flight from the Enchanter (1956)
  • The Sandcastle (1957)
  • The Bell (1958)
  • A Severed Head (1961)
  • An Unofficial Rose (1962)
  • The Unicorn (1963)
  • The Italian Girl (1964)
  • The Red and the Green (1965)
  • The Time of the Angels (1966)
  • The Nice and the Good (1968)
  • Bruno's Dream (1969)
  • A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970)
  • An Accidental Man (1971)
  • The Black Prince (1973)
  • The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974)
  • A Word Child (1975)
  • Henry and Cato (1976)
  • The Sea, the Sea (1978)
  • Nuns and Soldiers (1980)
  • The Philosopher's Pupil (1983)
  • The Good Apprentice (1985)
  • The Book and the Brotherhood (1987)
  • The Message to the Planet (1989)
  • The Green Knight (1993)
  • Jackson's Dilemma (1995)
Short stories
  • "Something Special" (1957)
Plays
  • A Severed Head (with J. B. Priestley, 1964)
  • The Italian Girl (with James Saunders, 1969)
  • The Three Arrows & the Servants and the Snow (1973)
  • The Servants (1980)
  • Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986)
  • The Black Prince (1987)
Poetry
  • A Year of Birds (1978, rev. 1984)
  • Poems by Iris Murdoch (1997)
Philosophy
  • Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953)
  • The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
  • The Fire and the Sun (1977)
  • Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)
  • Existentialists and Mystics (1997)


Famous quotes containing the words bruno and/or dream:

    “The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrarity is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.”
    —Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)

    “Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time.”
    —George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)