Bibliofemme News
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05/12/2004
Alzheimer's clue in Murdoch books
Researchers at University College London claim to have found clues to Iris Murdoch's Alzheimer's in her last book.
The research team believes that by examining various books by the Irish writer, they may be able to help early diagnosis in patients.
Murdoch's last book, Jackson's Dilemma, reveals early signs of the disease and under the test, it was compared to her first book Under The Net and her Booker prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea.
Researchers converted her work digitally and assessed the frequency of word occurrence using special software, which can measure the range of a writer's vocabulary.
The doctors dubbed her word usage in Jackson's Dilemma "commonplace" but in The Sea, The Sea it is termed "unusual".
Iris Murdoch died from the Alzheimer's in 1999 after a prolific career as a writer of novels, plays, poetry and philosophy.
Read what the femmes had to say about The Sea, The Sea.
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