Thomas Murphy: A Novel
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The acclaimed, award-winning essayist and memoirist returns to fiction with this reflective, bittersweet tale that introduces the irrepressible aging poet Thomas Murphy—a paean to the mystery, tragedy and wonder of life.
Trying his best to weasel out of an appointment with the neurologist his only child, Máire, has cornered him into, the poet Thomas Murphy—singer of the oldies, friend of the down-and-out, card sharp, raconteur, piano bar player, bon vivant, tough and honest and all-around good guy—contemplates his sunset years. Máire worries that Murph is losing his memory. Murph wonders what to do with the rest of his life. The older mind is at issue, and Murph’s jumps from fact to memory to fancy, conjuring the islands that have shaped him—Inishmaan, a rocky gumdrop off the Irish coast where he was born, and New York, his longtime home. He muses on the living, his daughter and precocious grandson William, and on the dead, his dear wife Oona, and Greenberg, his best friend. Now, into Murphy’s world comes the lovely Sarah, a blind woman less than half his age, who sees into his heart, as he sees into hers. Brought together under the most unlikely circumstance, Murph and Sarah begin in friendship and wind up in impossible possible love.
An Irishman, a dreamer, a poet, Murph, like Whitman, sings lustily of himself and of everyone. Through his often-extravagant behavior and observations, both hilarious and profound, we see the world in all its strange glory, equally beautiful and ridiculous. With memory at the center of his thoughts, he contemplates its power and accuracy and meaning. Our life begins in dreams, but does not stay with them, Murph reminds us. What use shall we make of the past? Ultimately, he asks, are relationships our noblest reason for living?
Behold the charming, wistful, vibrant, aging Thomas Murphy, whose story celebrates the ageless confusion that is this dreadful, gorgeous life.
Roger Rosenblatt
Roger Rosenblatt is the author of six off-Broadway plays and eighteen books, including Lapham Rising, Making Toast, Kayak Morning and The Boy Detective. He is the recipient of the 2015 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.
Read more from Roger Rosenblatt
Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lapham Rising: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Anything Can Happen: Notes on My Inadequate Life and Yours Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swimming to Cambodia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Love: Improvisations on a Crazy Little Thing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhere We Stand: 30 Reasons for Loving Our Country Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beet: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Story I Am: Mad About the Writing Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Thomas Murphy
Related ebooks
When I Think of My Body as a Horse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaliva, Sunburn, and the Scum of the Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lavender Lemonade Is Back: Poems and Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRattlesnake Allegory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Brilliant Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Honey of Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Mind the Quantocks: How Country Walking Can Change Your Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Feel-Good Movie of the Year Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinter by Winter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Heel of Bernadette Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beamish Boy (I Am Not My Story): A Memoir of Recovery & Awakening Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5on dreams, no compromises Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCloudstreet: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLifescapes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnglepoised With Aura Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFunkhaus Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill the Witch! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKissing the Long Face of the Greyhound Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobbery under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Australian Goldfields Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Plan in Case of Morning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Book of Bob eBook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPruforker's Way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAshland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last to Leave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreekling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Visitations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeteorites: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Oracle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood for Blood (The Uncertain Journey): Captain Mary, the Queen's Privateer, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Fiction For You
The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nigerwife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Thomas Murphy
24 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Have I told you about this? I read it quickly and enjoyed it but not sure how much of it will remain with me. We'll see.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Murphy has thoughts and opinions on many things, many, many things. Though he has lived in Manhattan for a long time he is originally from Ireland. He thinks of himself as a sentimental Irishman turned old frat as he is now seventy. His best friend is his young grandson William and he mourns the death of his wife and best friend. He is a poet, a singer and a teller of some awesome stories.Quiet, introspective, tender and funny, Murphy's thoughts, meanderings and opinions are a wonder to behold. When he misses his wife the most, he talks and tells stories about the furniture they had bought together. He is quite a character and his only child, daughter Marai thinks he might be in the beginning stages of Alzheimer disease. Some of the funniest parts are when she gets him to go to the doctor and he is given a take home test. His answers are brilliant and spot on, many times wished I had the nerve to answer my doctors questions in this way. Also loved how the novel begins and ends with the question, "Have I told you this before?"ARC from publisher.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roger Rosenblatt authored one of my favorite “academic setting” novels, Beet. His latest novel, Thomas Murphy, is an entirely different sort of story. Roger was born in 1940. He was a long-time essayist for Time and the PBS News Hour. He has held several teaching positions at Harvard, but he is currently the Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University. He has also received seven honorary doctorates.Thomas Murphy is the story of a respected but aging poet dealing with a cancer diagnosis. He also recently suffered the loss of his wife, Oona. Murphy was born in Ireland, and lived mostly in a seaside town of Inishmaan. He now lives in the US. His daughter Máire believes he is losing his memory. This fear of the loss of memory is the thread that runs through the novel. Ironically, the cancer diagnosis is mentioned early on, and forgotten until near the end of the novel. But the really interesting parts focus on his poetry.Rosenblatt writes, “They really aren’t difficult, my poems, no matter what the good Dr. Spector says. Greenberg got ‘em readily enough. Oh, I’ll toss in a wild word from time to time, to keep the reader on his toes, the way Heaney does, and Paul Muldoon. But neither of those great fellas is hard to understand, and I’m not either. Most of the poets of my race are not hard to understand. We just play hard to get” (37). Spector is his surgeon and Greenberg is an old friend. These patches of memory are sprinkled throughout the novel, and make me wonder about the loss of memory. When given a quiz by the doctor, he makes every answer a barb with his caustic wit.Murphy also writes about writing poetry. “The whole process of writing a poem is mystical, to me at least, mystical and beyond my reach. Have I told you about this? I begin a poem with an image out of nowhere (where did that come from?), and at once suspect I am part of a plan, and the poem I’ve begun is part of a plan. The process of writing then, is the progression toward someone else’s design” (156). This closely parallels what happens to me when I have a spark of inspiration.An interesting episode occurs when Thomas is alone in a bar. A stranger recognizes him, and they strike up a conversation. Eventually, the stranger admits he wants Thomas to tell his wife he is dying. He reluctantly agrees, and the results are comedy and tragedy mixed together. Thomas befriends the man’s wife, and when her husband leaves her, Thomas begins to date her.The story itself is rather poetic. Thomas recalls an event in his childhood, “How slick the petals of the ocean as they bloom again. How fierce, how businesslike the term in its hieroglyphics. The Earth grinds on its axis, the strident wind goes slack, and the stars are steady as my gaze. I would travel now if I could. I would walk across the ocean, past the startled fish and dreaming whales until I reached some shore of thought and language. Not this night, though. On this night I am content with a ripple of warm air and the horizon’s ambiguity” (155).I found myself a bit confused at first. The writing seemed something akin to stream of consciousness, but I think Murphy was obsessing over his loss of memory, which loss is never apparent in the story. But, overall, Thomas Murphy is a pleasant little novel of a shade over 200 pages, which satisfied me well enough. 5 stars--Chiron, 3/10/16
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I picked this book up at Carmichael Books in Louisville Kentucky. It was on the front impulse purchase table, and this was exactly why I bought it. I was aware of Roger Rosenblatt's reputation as a writer but I hadn't read his work, so I decided to give it a try.As I started the book, I was not at all impressed. It is kind of a different book, more of an extended short story, a novella rather than a novel. The book is an extended conversation that Thomas Murphy, an older and famous poet, has with himself. He recounts his life in a way that he wanted to recount, he describes the people in his life the same way. We get some details about his present as well. The stories and poems are interesting but not spellbinding, and that is exactly its charm: this is not a pulse raising action novel, it is not a hot and steamy romance. It is a slow and gentle walk through Thomas Murphy's head as he walks through, slowly, and gently, his memories of his life.It isn't for everyone, but it became quite charming and relaxing once I got off the roller coaster of modern life and decided to read it in my small and relaxed moments. I had to work to get relaxed before I read it, it won't relax you. But once I was able to slow myself down it was wonderful.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Despite confusing opening which I finally sorted out after three readings, THOMAS MURPHY quietly soared and only rarely dived.It offers a great, funny, and cathartic exploration of "Murph's" character as he gradually declines into mild dementia "in the final stages of ambling."There are many indelible images, from the initial dropping of the turf through counting with the brain scan doctor to Arthur the Bear.Over the top parts also are frequent, from REGRETS to "Souls" and the ingratiating Sarah, who both Murphy and readerscould have done without. Her betrayal is the only place, along with his daughter deserting him, where the plot falters and feels forced.(The by now requisite animal cruelty is a page I folded over - why does nearly every modern novelist feel compelled to include another horrifying incident, along with clapboard houses and First Light...? Enough.)It will be a rare reader who does not head to the computer to peruse "cathaoir SYNGE."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While this book is not typical of what I would normally read, I'm glad I picked it up. It's quite beautiful, and also strange at times, when you're reading about imaginary musings. Enjoyable and peaceful.