Murphy
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the grey, tragicomic world of Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy chronicles the misadventures of an idle, pleasure-seeking Irishman in London who dreams of achieving a state of perfect mental freedom — naked, rocking in his chair, bound by seven scarves, utterly detached from the demands of the physical world. When his devoted lover Celia forces him to seek employment, Murphy reluctantly takes a job as an attendant in a psychiatric ward, only to find that he envies the patients their withdrawal from reality, setting in motion a darkly absurd sequence of events that builds toward a devastating and bleakly comic conclusion. Murphy stands as a vital early document in the literary career of one of the 20th century's most towering figures, anticipating the existential despair, philosophical wit, and radical minimalism that would define Waiting for Godot and the Trilogy. Beckett's prose is at once rigorous and playful, saturated with sardonic humour and a penetrating intelligence that dissects the absurdity of human desire and the impossibility of true transcendence. Written in 1938, the novel draws on Beckett's deep engagement with Descartes, Schopenhauer, and the nature of the self, presenting a protagonist whose war against embodiment is both utterly comic and quietly heartbreaking — leaving the reader to wonder whether Murphy ever truly escapes, and whether escape was ever really the point.
Author: Samuel Beckett
Format: Paperback
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the grey, tragicomic world of Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy chronicles the misadventures of an idle, pleasure-seeking Irishman in London who dreams of achieving a state of perfect mental freedom — naked, rocking in his chair, bound by seven scarves, utterly detached from the demands of the physical world. When his devoted lover Celia forces him to seek employment, Murphy reluctantly takes a job as an attendant in a psychiatric ward, only to find that he envies the patients their withdrawal from reality, setting in motion a darkly absurd sequence of events that builds toward a devastating and bleakly comic conclusion. Murphy stands as a vital early document in the literary career of one of the 20th century's most towering figures, anticipating the existential despair, philosophical wit, and radical minimalism that would define Waiting for Godot and the Trilogy. Beckett's prose is at once rigorous and playful, saturated with sardonic humour and a penetrating intelligence that dissects the absurdity of human desire and the impossibility of true transcendence. Written in 1938, the novel draws on Beckett's deep engagement with Descartes, Schopenhauer, and the nature of the self, presenting a protagonist whose war against embodiment is both utterly comic and quietly heartbreaking — leaving the reader to wonder whether Murphy ever truly escapes, and whether escape was ever really the point.