Murdoch's intellident novel that's more about character than plot - at least initially

At suggestion of old friend DJC w/ whom I share many obscure tastes in literature and music have begun reading Iris Murdoch, the late British writer and one whom I'd never read - one of the many prolific Brits who stay under the radar in the U.S., never really having a break-through novel (one Man Booker Prize or a NYer nod is enough to change that for any Brit., however - see Ishigura, Hedley, even Brookner). Reading her 1974 novel w/ the oddly off-putting title The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (huh?), and finding it unusual, demanding, and at least so far, about 1/3 through, very good. She's the ultimate among the psychological novelists I think, and few if any novels I've read before have put such an emphasis on character (as opposed to plot or narrative). The first 50 pp or so are devoted entirely the back stories of the central characters, with barely an "action" taking place at all: Father B., a 40-something lay analyst (he sees patients but doesn't have a medical degree - not sure this would fly in the U.S.) who's thinking about going to medical school but rightly worried about the cost to his family; wife overly devoted to their son, David, a lonesome teenager who's pushing away from seemingly tight-knit family, neighbor a prominent mystery writer mourning death of his wife and disappearing into an alcoholic funk, a friend of neighbor's who informs the mourning husband that he's carried on years of correspondence w/ the late wife. All very dense and absorbing, but we start to wonder at some point whether this is going to become a novel at all - and then a shift of gears (not exactly a spoiler here, as we're still at the beginning of the novel, but be forewarned): we learn that the husband B has had an affair of 15 or so years w/ a woman whom he "keeps" in a small flat in London/Putney and they have a son of about 10 who has some kind of retardation or mental disorder. Aha - so when and how will these opposing forces collide and w/ what damage and to whom? At last we do understand the image of a boy standing in the garden in the moonlight that several characters witness: Must be the son who maybe has trailed his father home to the other family. Yes, you have to suspend disbelief to imagine that such an affair could be maintained for so long, undetected - but the dad's a wily sort (and aided in his subterfuge, we learn, by the mystery writer - who helped him fashion a fake patient who requires home visits). I'm in, though, fascinated by Murdoch's insights and intelligence.

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