Murdoch and philosophy in her first novel

It helps to know that Iris Murdoch was a philosopher before she started writing novels as this prepares as to see the context in which she wrote her first novel, Under the Net (1954). On the surface  level, that of plot, this novel, at about 100 pp in, is a meandering, peripatetic story told by a narrator who's a hack writer (as described on the jacket) and translator, living off the welfare of friends, who's kicked out of his rent-free digs and pays a series of unannounced visits to various friends, male and female, looking for a place to live. It's not exactly Joyce, but the plot is amusing enough to draw us along. What makes this novel a marker for a career about to begin are the philosophical passages - and in particular this aspect of the novel is sharpened by what we know of IM's philosophical thinking - and for this I thank a recent article I read on this topic. She apparently was of that quaint philosophical school, somewhat out of fashion esp in England at the time, who believed that the purpose of philosophy is to help us make the write moral and ethical decisions in life - not to ponder the nature of existence and being. The narrator of this novel, Jake, gets into a long dialogue w/ his best fiend, Hugo, about the nature of being, which at a later point Jake publishes as a book of philosophy based entirely on his discussions w/ Hugo - the book seems to be modeled on Plato, using the Socratic method for elucidation. The problem is that he never tell Hugo about the book, and its publication destroys their relationship. So in effect he has mis-used his knowledge and failed to make a good ethical decision and share his thoughts and intentions w/ his best friend. At the time of the narrative, some years post-publication (the book was a flop) he tries to reconcile w/ Hugo, now a wealthy film producer, and is rebuffed, which leads to further philosophical discussions, notably w/ a Communist/Socialist, using the moniker Lefty, whom Jake encounters in a bar: They discuss the conundrum of though and belief vs. action. I feel in reading this novel that I'm just too ignorant about the philosophical issues of its time (or of any time for that matter) to get everything or even most of the things that IM is discussing; clearly, the perfect readership for this novel is a minuscule cohort. Is there enough, then, in the narrator's dilemma, the various predicaments, unlikely though they be, in which he finds himself as he seeks food and shelter (and drink)? So far, I'm in, and the novel isn't that long, but it's starting to slip through my fingers.