Weird literary comparisons, department of

Were I thinking of three female writers of (roughly speaking) the mid-C20th to group together, would I align

Dame Iris Murdoch*

with Elizabeth Bowen** and Penelope Fitzgerald***?

I think not, somehow.

Found this odd comparison in a review of a collection of Dame I's wartime diaries and letters, plus memoir of her by one of the many young men in whom she took an interest, in a rather elderly copy of the London Review of Books. (Between the time it takes the work copies to circulate to me, and my finding time to glance through them, many moons can wax and wane, srsly.)

*Apparently there is a whole centre for Iris Murdoch Studies at Kingston University.

**The Anglo-Irish thing, perhaps?

***I don't even.

Consumerism gone mad, or legitimate reason to replace?

Discover this evening that a substantial portion of seam in my coat (at the side and under one of the sleeves) has come unstitched. There also appears to be a certain degree of lining fraying in the area.

This coat has done me good service for 5 years.

Would it be reckless extravagance to buy a new one, or should I sit down with needle and thread and patch it up?

Okay, I wouldn't deliberately choose to go in for a new coat round about the same time as new glasses and the doing-up-the-bathroom enterprise, but I could manage.

And am not sure how long stitchery and repairs would actually last.