ABSTRACT
Kingsley Amis once compared James’ 1975 The Black Tower with Iris Murdoch (Brockes, 2001). Although it is true that similarities exist in the way they approach narrative technique, and possibly also in their broad conception of what writing fiction is, we can also find many deep differences in most other aspects. The differences undoubtedly affect the two authors’ frequent choice of genre as well as their conception of the function of literature, at least, and are possibly not worth studying in depth, as they seem to be too evident. As for the similarities, which seem to be harder to detect, these include the fact that they are both women novelists born in the British Isles within a time span of practically one year, therefore having gone through similar living experiences. Beyond this historical background, however, these two novelists seem to have little in common and utterly different identities as writers. Both Hawkins (2019) and Shell (2019) suggest that one of these coincidences is of a religious kind, at least in some of their novels. This is the case with Murdoch’s The Bell (1958) and James’ The Black Tower, which both take place in a narrow setting inhabited by a lay religious community. Beyond that, in this text I would like to approach these similarities also from the sense of isolation and mystery present in Murdoch’s The Unicorn (1963), something that is definitely present in James’ novel too. Additionally, some other common features can be seen in both authors’ view on literary discourse, which concern their attention to detail and their use of cultural codes that, surprisingly in the case of James, do not seem to be intended for a wide readership and which may go unnoticed to most readers, unless they share these codes or decide to pursue further research into them.
