The Bell Author:Iris Murdoch In this compassionate and fearless novel the author of "Under the Net" arrives at a new maturity of understanding. Taking for her theme the events within a lay community leading up to the installation of a new bell in the Abbey convent across the lake, she presents the philosophic standpoint of the various members -- the erring but human wife, h... more »er cold and cruel husband, the reformed homosexual who leads the brotherhood, the schizophrenic novice, the innocent youth, and the drunken pervert. Implicit in the story is the dark struggle between sex and religion, and the action mounts to a climax which is at once absurd and terrible.« less