Further information on my Iris Murdoch and Book Groups project
Please note,the research is still ongoing. If you would like to take part, it’s fine for your group to read the book at any time up to December 2011. If you know anyone in a book group, please pass them a link to this page – I need as many book groups involved as possible! And if you’d like to take part but we haven’t been in touch yet, please contact me via email for a copy of the questionnaire – I need to keep records about who I send the questionnaires out to, so drop me a line and I’ll send you out the questions and instructions!
For the book group leader
Thank you for volunteering your group to read Iris Murdoch’s The Bell. There are four parts to the enclosed documentation:
1. An ethical statement about anonymity and an introduction to the project, for the group.
2. A few questions for you to complete in your own time.
3. A set of questions for you to submit to the individual members of the group. Depending on the group, you might like to print these out on slips, give the members slips of paper and ask them to write down the answers, or circulate a list. Please don’t give me anyone’s names. Please let me know if there were more members present than chose to fill in the details.
4. A set of questions for you to ask the group in the meeting in which you discuss The Bell. These are vague on purpose. Please give as much or as little information as you want to.
Once you’ve gathered this information, please return it to me in whatever format is easiest for you – you could type up a report, scan in your handwritten notes and email them to me, or ask for my address and post them to me.
Thank you once again for agreeing to take part in this study, and particularly for helping pilot the research and questionnaire!
For the book group members
Thank you for agreeing to take part in my Iris Murdoch project by reading The Bell and filling in my questionnaire. All of the answers you provide will be either anonymous in the first place (in the case of the individual profiling questions) or made anonymous (your group will be identified only by a code). I’m doing this research privately, without the backing of an academic institution, but the Iris Murdoch Society is interested in seeing the results of this research project, and I may be able to try to publish a summary in their newsletter or present the results at their Conference in due course.
Background to the project
Reading about book groups and belonging to a few myself, I noticed that the books chosen tend to be either very recently published, especially when they’re recommended by media outlets such as the Richard & Judy Book Club and various shop promotions, or classics, (e.g. Jane Austen and the like) or books that have been approved as classics by winning prizes (Booker winners, etc.). Some friends and I have recently been reading Iris Murdoch’s fiction, and it struck me that one of her books might be a good book club read.
I’ve done some background research on book groups and how they choose what to read, and this bears out my original thoughts. I think there are many more mid-20th-century books that would be good book group reads, and have chosen a book by Iris Murdoch as an example, to see if this is so.
I’m now going to ask some groups of questions. One set will go to your book group leader(s) – that’s to gather information about how your group formed, where it meets and what you’ve read in the past. Then there are some private questions, for each of you on your own (and completely anonymous) which will hopefully help me draw some conclusions if there are differences between groups and their thoughts on the book. Then there is a set of questions for you to discuss in the group. I want to stress here that there are no right or wrong answers, and you don’t need to answer all the questions if you don’t want to, although it would be great to have something down for all of them.
By the way, you can also contact me via email or via my contact form.
I’ll spread it around as much as I can to my own book-reading contacts and will post about it on my blog, once I’ve finished my own Mystery Challenge.
Good luck!!
Christine
Thanks Christine – much appreciated!
I’ll have a look at The Bell as it’s my turn to choose for our next book group meeting in April.
Thanks Corinne, much appreciated too!
[...] There’s more information here: http://libroediting.wordpress.com/irismurdochproject/ [...]
I’ve got agreement to participate from two book groups I’m in and will contact you separately.
Wonderful news, Jan. I’m so pleased at how many people are willing and eager to take part!
[...] The Iris Murdoch and Book Groups project [...]
I am not a reading group memeber but I’m working, at the moment, on the Bell as part of a PHD in France. I’d very much interested in taking part in your project if it was possible.
All the best,
Catherine Guionnet
Thanks for your response, Catherine. I’ll email you later on – I’d be interested in what you’re doing with the PhD and if you know of any resources I might find useful. In particular, I’m looking at critical vs popular responses to the novel – so I need to collect examples of both as well as the book group questionnaire material. I’ll also share whatever you might find useful from my research, of course!
I have not tried “The Bell” with book groups but I belong to one and that might be a fun novel to try. I have taught it in an English major senior seminar (future book group participants) and they quite liked it although thought the judgments against homosexuals were a little harsh. Several even decided to do their term papers on Murdoch and read other novels by her. In an interview published in “Modern Fiction Studies”,( let me know it anyone needs the full citation,) Murdoch did say that she thought it was the most successful of all her earlier novels.
Thanks for your response, Christine. It would be fabulous if you could get your book group to agree to read the book and do my questionnaire – as should be clear, you have a year to do this in, which should hopefully fit in with your schedule. Let me know if you decide to do that; drop me a line with a note of when you’re reading it and I’ll send you out the stuff. Hopefully your students who thought the treatment of homosexual characters was harsh read “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” with the lovely Axel and Simon! I’d appreciate the reference for the interview, by the way – thank you.
[...] my Iris Murdoch project is going apace, but I still have room for some book groups to join it. Select “Iris [...]
If I ever get around to starting my book club (fingers crossed that will be soon), I’ll definitely participate!
Wonderful, Colleen – please do and get in touch when you know when you’re reading it!
[...] Take a look at the project blog: http://libroediting.wordpress.com/irismurdochproject/ [...]
[...] The Iris Murdoch and Book Groups project [...]
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My two groups have read The Bell and we have had our discussions answering all your questions. I did send you an email asking whether you would like them posted or sent as attachment to an email but perhaps my email did not reach you.
I had so much fun comparing the differences between the two groups so I imagine you are really going to enjoy collating all the responses.
Will be looking forward to what ever resulting paper you prepare after it is all over.
I’m sure it is not writing a spoiler to say that it met with universal approval.
Thanks for your comment Jan and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed recording your groups’ responses. I have now replied to your email explaining how to send them in (sorry for the delay) and yes, I’m really enjoying reading all the responses and starting to compare them. And it’s not a spoiler to say you enjoyed the book – I’m glad you did! Not all of my readers have enjoyed the actual book, but most seem to have enjoyed the discussion!
[...] I really need to do once I’m full-time with Libro is give some time to my research project (this is what it’s all about) and I hadn’t really found time to get this [...]