Murphy (novel)

Murphy

1957 Grove Press edition cover of Murphy.
Author	Samuel Beckett
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Published	1938
Publisher	Routledge

Murphy, first published in 1938, is an avant-garde novel as well as the third work of prose fiction by the Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett. The book was Beckett's second published prose work after the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (published in 1934) and his unpublished first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women (published posthumously in 1992). It was written in English, rather than the French of much of Beckett's later writing. After many rejections, it was published by Routledge on the recommendation of Beckett's painter friend Jack Butler Yeats.

The plot of Murphy follows an eponymous "seedy solipsist" who lives in a soon-to-be-condemned apartment in West Brompton. The novel opens with the protagonist having tied himself naked to a rocking chair in his apartment, rocking back and forth in the dark. This seems to be a habit for Murphy, who in carrying out the ritual attempts to enter a near-if-not-totally-nonexistent state of being (possibly something akin to sensory deprivation), which he finds pleasurable.

Later on, Murphy's "meditation" is juxtaposed with conversations he has with his friend and mentor Neary, an eccentric from Cork who has the ability to stop his heart—an ability or condition which Neary calls the "Apmonia" (a play on the Greek word for "harmony"), sometimes referred to as "Isonomy" or the "Attunement". The book states that this is a "mediation between... extremes" of heart attack and heart failure, allowing Neary to enter a state of survivable cardiac arrest at will. An early conversation between Neary and Murphy is spurred by some type of revelation Neary receives during one of these routine heart-stopping sessions, and the two are prompted to discuss their respective romantic lives. At this point the story diverges to Celia Kelly, Murphy's lover, a prostitute and concerned friend.

Murphy is urged by Celia to find a job, and begins work as a nurse at the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat in north London, finding the insanity of the patients an appealing alternative to conscious existence.