I was sure I'd read this in my late teenage Iris Murdoch phase, but now I'm sure I didn't because this story, these people, this book would be utterly unforgettable. It's weird, odd, almost spooky at times (that bead curtain made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up every time it was mentioned), and the narrator Charles Arrowby talks at length about himself and his various romances, often repeating himself, sometimes being thoroughly irritating, but by the end I adored him. Murdoch breaks quite a few writerly rules in The Sea, The Sea - several coincidences happen for example (which is supposedly a golden rule), but it works in the whole crazy story.
And the description of the sea - oh, so wonderful.