Why Iris Murdoch's style recalls that of Henry James

At about the half-way point in Iris Murdoch's The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (titles were not her forte) the philandering husband, Blaise, has confessed to his wife (Harriet) that he has been having an affiar for 9 or so years with a young woman (Emily) in a nearby community and in fact has an 8-year-old son (Luca) by this woman. Contra all his fears, Harriet has great sympathy for Blaise, ensures him that nothing is more important to her than their marriage, wants to meet Emily and Luca, and in fact is taken w/ Luca and hopes to help raise him and to improve his life (he is clearly a disturbed young child with perhaps severe autism) and send him to a better school etc., like their son in wedlock, David. Blaise goes around in shock and glee, as if he's won the lottery or something: He can keep both relationships going, and his world has not fallen apart! His wife still loves him and will put up w/ him. Great for him - but we're only halfway through the novel, as noted, and readers can discern the dark clouds on the horizon. For ex.: Emily maintains her jealousy of the legal wife, who is living in much greater comfort Emily, who's in some sort of "council" (i.e., public) housing; Davide pretty much refuses to have anything to do w/ Luca and is gradually shutting himself off from the family altogether; Emily's (only) friend, Pinn, for some reason is making veiled threats against Blaise - is there something about which she could blackmail him? That's not clear at this point - ; and Blaise still hasn't quite leveled w/ Harriet: He still maintains the fiction that of a client who needs counseling at home, which was his cover for seeing Emily on the sly - but if Harriet cracks that secret, and how could she not? how blind is she?, she'll realize that Blaise was involved much more deeply, extensively, and recently w/ Emily than she'd imagined. Throughout, this is a novel built on back story and on long stretches of dialogue - and not on action or narrative voice. In fact, Murdoch's style reminds me a lot of Henry James (at his best, not the unreadable late novels), w/ so much attention paid to psychological insight and nuances of feeling and behavior - a style not for everyone, but one of supreme confidence: We feel that she knows these characters as well as, or better than, she knows herself.
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