My only complaint is I read it too quickly. Damn. Needs time, hurt, etc.

Samuel Beckett is the literary equivalent of an Olympic gymnast. His words and sentences flip, roll, and jump about constantly. While this may leave you dazed and confused at first, the technicality and proficiency with which he carries out his exercise leaves you dumbfounded and amazed. This level of ingenuity is best experienced in his novels, the second of which is Murphy. It is Beckett’s most “conventional” novel till date, though you shouldn’t hold that against this brilliant piece of work.

Murphy is a difficult book to describe. It is full of obscure, referential language, and the vocabulary will leave you gasping for a dictionary. Existentialist horror is here in full swing; there is also a feeling of utter dread and a sense of “life’s fragility.” The off-kilter narrative also raises questions about mortality and human purpose, both of which ultimately lead to nothingness, or so it seems. Heavy-handed cryptic remarks are aplenty, and, as you can imagine by now, the book demands your whole attention and concentration lest you miss something.

So, why do I love it so much?

The first reason is its exploration of dissociation. It is clear in this work that Beckett was discovering his mastery over the disunion between two polar absolutes. He celebrates dementia and craziness, consecrating “outer reality” and “personal reality” to the point where both are subjective and are lost in the ravines of memory where they are distorted and no longer matter. There is a marked distinction between the body and the mind. This is explored in detail in the titular character’s “unredeemed split self” throughout the book. Beckett, quite brilliantly, dedicates a specific chapter analyzing this feature, thus breaking the fourth wall, which is quite a regular, yet subtle, phenomenon within the confines of the text.

Another reason I love this book is that it invokes both terror and humor at the same time, pushing the reader into deep existentialist dread while making fun of the situation simultaneously. Enlightenment is near and yet so far—sweet unachievable enlightenment. This is what the book explores thoroughly, and it is exactly what the reader feels while enjoying the clear lucidity of the text. Murphy is a hollowed-out character who is simply going nowhere and has given up in the face of life’s doggedness. I feel that Beckett plays on this lack of motivation as a commentary on the unchanging and indifferent nature of life and the universe. In fact, the opening line encapsulates this idea and sets the tone for the text: “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”

The characters are drawn out yet incomplete. They certainly feel fleshed out by the end of the novel, yet they lack true depth to their actions and motivations. That may have been intentional, though, as I believe it reflects on the fragmentary nature of our reception of the world. Certain aspects of these characters are terrifying and, at the same time, humorous. Take for example the following lines in which Murphy discovers the pleasure (and subsequent bitter letdown) of sitting down:

“The sensation of the seat of a chair coming together with his drooping posteriors at last was so delicious that he rose at once and repeated the sit, lingeringly and with intense concentration. Murphy did not so often meet with these tendernesses that he could afford to treat them casually. The second sit, however, was a great disappointment.”

The humor, as you can see, is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. It is designed to fit the contrast between the characters’ inabilities to avoid complications against the inflexible nature of the world that they inhabit. If dry, ironic, black humor is your thing, Murphy is right up your alley.

You should have noticed by now that I haven’t written anything about the plot or the story. As I mentioned before, Murphy is difficult to describe since it’s a rather surreal and cerebral novel in terms of content. However, it’s still grounded in reality thanks to the physical and absolute settings and locations Beckett masterfully uses as backdrops against the characters’ perceptions of reality. All these are bolstered by the language that has multiple layers of meaning. The novel clocks in at less than 200 pages (Faber edition), but they are dense and rife with meaning that you will want to explore again and again. Paragraphs will delight you with their wit and charm, make you laugh at their absurdity, and fill you with dread and trepidation in the face of dispassionate life and perpetual rigidity of the world.

Murphy is not an easy read. Nevertheless, if you can stick through and embrace the language, it is one of the best novels you will possibly come across in the brief period of sentience you have. ( )

Vrolijk absurdistisch verhaal ( )

strange tale of misfit man and his friends in Dublin

Found this book hard to follow. Might have just been my mood. I would read and reread sections and they always were better the second time, and yet...meh. ( )