Jackson's Dilemma

Book by Iris Murdoch

0-7011-6511-1

Jackson's Dilemma is a novel by Iris Murdoch, published in 1995. It was Murdoch's last novel; she died four years later, on 8 February 1999.

In her final years, Murdoch was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, one of the symptoms of which is a reduced vocabulary and decreased word fluency. Researchers at University College London found in 2004 that the language used in Jackson's Dilemma is noticeably simpler than in her earlier works. They suggested that the novel - written in longhand, with few revisions and little room for editorial interference - offers a "unique opportunity" to study the effects of Alzheimer's on spontaneous writing, and hoped that their research could help to develop better diagnostic tests, capable of picking up on these subtle changes in cognitive ability.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Jackson's Dilemma". Liz Cooke. Archived from the original on 19 February 2015. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  2. ^ "Murdoch novel reveals Alzheimer's". BBC News. 1 December 2004. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  • v
  • t
  • e
Works by Iris Murdoch
Novels
Short stories
  • "Something Special" (1957)
Plays
  • A Severed Head (with J. B. Priestley, 1964)
  • The Italian Girl (with James Saunders, 1969)
  • The Three Arrows & the Servants and the Snow (1973)
  • The Servants (1980)
  • Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986)
  • The Black Prince (1987)
Poetry
  • A Year of Birds (1978, rev. 1984)
  • Poems by Iris Murdoch (1997)
Philosophy
  • Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953)
  • The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
  • The Fire and the Sun (1977)
  • Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)
  • Existentialists and Mystics (1997)


Stub icon

This article about a 1990s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

  • v
  • t
  • e