waiting for godot (detail) by cian mcloughlin
i first read beckett's first novel murphy in high school. i was mesmerized. i remember the cover of the edition i had was white, with a column of three indigo squares depicting refractions of light, complete with dust motes, like sun slanting through a small turret window into a shadowy room. i spent hours looking at those squares, imagining they were views into the tiny tenement room murphy lived in, loafing, avoiding work, thinking, all he wanted was time to think. and having a job took him away from that time. but all for the love of a girl, guilted into becoming respectable and making her an 'honest woman', murphy started looking for a job. or, well, at least going through the motions of looking like he was looking for a job, wearing a suit, and leaving every morning and coming back every night when all he would really do was drink tea and sit in the park and think.
even though i wonder now how much i truly understood of it at the time, it has become one of my fondest books. beckett can be maddening, indeed, he probably intended to be, but he can also distill the clutter into so much truth that it takes a moment (or many) to sink in. by the time beckett wrote endgame and waiting for godot, he wanted nothing to do with domesticity, with something that made you feel at home; he was out to unsettle you. murphy wasn't like that. it was funny, it was hilarious, it was harrowing, and it was sad in that way that only truly human pathos can be. and for all of its frustration with ireland (and that murphy leaves it to move to london), it's first book that made me long to see ireland, to taste the streets and rhythms of dublin.
and although there's lots of beer in the novel, none of it is green.
- two beckett centenary festivals starting in April
