Bruno's Dream by Iris Murdoch (Viking Press, 1969)

 

Bruno's Dream is one of the less interesting and satisfying Murdoch novels that I have read.  This may be because it's rather brief and  episodic; it doesn't have much depth or texture, and the characters are all rather vague and underdeveloped, palely colored.  What drives what little plot there is, is love -- or rather, the fickleness and instability of love.  The tensions mount but are are resolved not by any development of character, but by a natural disaster -- a terrible rainfall and flood.  Because it's Murdoch it's engaging to read -- she seems to know and tell the truth about her characters, it's just that in this case their truths are not very complex or interesting.