Charles Arrowby retires from a lifetime in the London theatre to a cottage by the sea, intending to write a memoir undisturbed by all the reprobates he once associated with, but has now come to disdain. Who would think such a thoroughly detestable man could be so compelling? The book’s early section—Arrowby’s “Prehistory”—is full of the joys of retirement: his delight in food, his little cottage, and the ever-changing sea, all told in his arch voice. But an unexpected encounter in the village upends his plans for happy solitude, and reawakens an obsession that changes his plans in late life. Murdoch’s writing, in the first person, put the reader behind the eyes of this narcissist—a “tartar,” as he calls himself, used to manipulating everyone around him. He finds, however, that in old age his old tricks don’t work as well and he’s in for a reckoning. ‘The Sea, The Sea’ affirms the human ability to change and learn and the strength of friendship, even if its first person narrative sometimes fails to truly bring to life the suffering Arrowby causes to those around him.