A review by blueyorkie
A máquina do amor: sagrado e profano by Iris Murdoch

4.0

The title comes from Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, a notoriously ambiguous painting about which of the clothed or naked women depicts which type of love. In the novel, Murdoch also repeatedly unsettles the reader whether Harriet and Blaise Gavander’s 19-year marriage or Blaise’s nine-year clandestine affair with Emily is a sacred relationship. Before the novel opens, their neighbour, crime writer Monty Small, who has conspired with Blaise, has already loved, hated and been widowed by his possibly adulterous actress wife, Sophie. Was his love sacred or profane?