Some thoughts on Jim Murdoch’s Living With the Truth
If you approach the novel with the idea that it’s going to be some kind of serious psycho-philosophical study into existence and the human mind then you could be forgiven for being disappointed when you begin to read the book though by the end of it that’s exactly what the novel has become.
The basic plot is that the protagonist, a lonely oldish man called Jonathan, gets a visit from Truth personified who resides with him for a couple of days and the novel is about this visit.
I’m not going to review the storyline as such as there are already several reviews of this book here. Instead I’m going to pick out some strands of thought I’d like to explore.
In all honesty, I found Truth to be super-annoying much of the time. What did I find annoying? Well his inability to be serious for any real length of time is the main culprit. What can be more serious than the truth – the truth about life, existence, knowledge, morality, afterlife etc. It’s all a big game to him. But it turns out that truth personified is not alone, there’s a whole pantheon of personified abstracts which are, to me, indicative of the Homeric Gods. Though Murdoch goes to lengths in the novel to insure that they are not quite the same thoughtless puppeteers, their essence is the same – existence is a big joke to them because they’re not weighed down with the worries / burdens of life and death.
With this characterisation of Truth, Murdoch immediately subverts the expectations of the reader and yet, as it turns out, manages to explore deep philosophical issues in an accessible manner through the use of comedy.
The parts of the book I enjoyed the most were the interactions between Jonathan and the women in his life. I really loved the scene in Jonathan’s flat when his sister, Mary, comes to visit. Truth convinces Mary to act out a scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The ridiculousness, the absurdity of the scene and the ambivalence of the characters towards one another reminded me of Harold Pinter-style scenarios. Murdoch’s excellent characterisation made this one of the best parts of the book for me.
Jonathan is alienated from life around him, he watches from the outside looking in. This is exemplified in his profession as the owner of second-hand bookshop. Life is to be experienced second-hand, not directly; the role of a book is to mediate life to its reader. Which brings us to Jonathan's curious attitude towards others, particularly women.
He had never married and, despite being lonely, had no desire to. Women are reduced to their physical being yet Jonathan is not misogynistic in the usual sense. Even when listing his sexual encounters, he never really enjoyed the actual act of sex in itself, seeming to prefer self-love. What he does desire is the physical closeness which, we are led to believe, is due to the lack of overt parental physical affection throughout his childhood. In particular the Freudian memory of eight-year-old Jonathan being harshly told off when, watching his mother breastfeed his baby sister, he also expressed a wish to be breastfed. This is then the explanation of his particular obsession with breasts throughout his adulthood, yet it is no ordinary sexual desire. Rather, the sense of not being allowed to simply touch another woman’s breasts is viewed as an injustice harking back to the unfairness that his sister should have been the recipient of the tender affection he was denied.
I genuinely enjoyed this novel. Murdoch’s strengths are in characterisation, humour and the complex interaction between strained relationships.
I’ve only scratched the surface of a couple of the themes running through the book. I haven’t even mentioned the many, many humorous exchanges or the existentialism integral to Jonathan’s perception of life.
And, of course, this is only my reading of the book which may or may not be accurate as close reading of novels are not possible in my household at the moment!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Philip Gross. Heard of him? He's just won the T.S. Eliot Prize, how shameful of me, never read any of his work!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I've been such a rubbish blogger.
So I decided to write a random update post!
I'm not allowed to tap my feet in my house because my three year-old son shouts "mummy, don't sing with your feet"!
I normally read Plath's diaries over Christmastime every year but haven't managed to this year, I aim to read them this month though. Talking of Plath I read an interesting article in the Guardian the other day linked from Peter Steinberg's Sylvia Plath info blog: Nick Laird's Poems for a Baby. Laird states -
"I've been struck by how often, for male poets, having children roots itself in linear imagery, bloodlines, inheritance; whereas for female poets, the process is a form of replacement, of disappearing."
I was surprised to read this in relation to my recent baby poem which has the line about the trees and I becoming white shadows of ourselves. My primary thought was about post-pregnancy body shape, of me becoming a shadow of my former pregnant self. Now I wonder if there is an unconscious replacement thing going on here. One example Laird uses to support his theory (?) is from Plath's Morning Song -
"I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand"
Laird picks out Plath's use of the word effacement, "the act of one thing erasing another" as the key thing. But what he doesn't mention is that effacement is exactly the word every full-term pregnant woman wants to hear as it refers to the thinning of the cervix, one of the indications of the body preparing itself for labour.
But I loved Laird's comment at the end in reference to his newborn baby: "I find myself holding the wee dote on my knee thinking, now surely to God I can get a poem out of you . . ."!
On another note, I've been reading in various blogs and things about the lack of lit crit written by women, one of the usual explanations is that we are too caring and nurturous by nature to step easily into the big bad world of literary criticism. Personally I think this is nonsense, women in academia are able to scrutinise just as thoroughly and mercilessly (if need be) as the next bloke.
I got my Edinburgh Review in last week, really enjoyed reading it - it was a Czech themed issue and I did Slavonic studies for a year at uni and loved it, in fact one of my old lecturers has an article in it! Anyway there was an interesting essay by the poet John Hartely Williams titled 'Speaking of You' in which he certainly doesn't set out to pull any punches. He writes -
"Nowadays those who consider themselves to be poets think they should write poetry, but this is quite wrong. The last thing one should want to do while writing a poem is write poetry. The whole project of writing a poem ought to be to dodge the image of itself that confronts it in the mirror. (not sure what he means here) Writing poetry...involves you in questions of vocabularly. One might give up on vocabulary altogether and stop thinking. That way you might arrive at a poem".
Williams describes himself as a warty poet who has eschewed vocabularly and stopped thinking and this enables him to write poems as opposed to poetry.
Although I get the point about poetry as opposed to poems, I love language, I love words. I love playing around with images, sounds and language but I also know that that amounts to very little if there isn't a poem in amongst those words, sounds and images, if there isn't that unknown thing that makes itself know to me (at least partially) by the end of the poem, of what the poem is actually about. I'm strongly in favour of the stop thinking part (not easy to do) but giving up on vocabularly and sticking with plain language, I don't think so.
So I decided to write a random update post!
I'm not allowed to tap my feet in my house because my three year-old son shouts "mummy, don't sing with your feet"!
I normally read Plath's diaries over Christmastime every year but haven't managed to this year, I aim to read them this month though. Talking of Plath I read an interesting article in the Guardian the other day linked from Peter Steinberg's Sylvia Plath info blog: Nick Laird's Poems for a Baby. Laird states -
"I've been struck by how often, for male poets, having children roots itself in linear imagery, bloodlines, inheritance; whereas for female poets, the process is a form of replacement, of disappearing."
I was surprised to read this in relation to my recent baby poem which has the line about the trees and I becoming white shadows of ourselves. My primary thought was about post-pregnancy body shape, of me becoming a shadow of my former pregnant self. Now I wonder if there is an unconscious replacement thing going on here. One example Laird uses to support his theory (?) is from Plath's Morning Song -
"I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand"
Laird picks out Plath's use of the word effacement, "the act of one thing erasing another" as the key thing. But what he doesn't mention is that effacement is exactly the word every full-term pregnant woman wants to hear as it refers to the thinning of the cervix, one of the indications of the body preparing itself for labour.
But I loved Laird's comment at the end in reference to his newborn baby: "I find myself holding the wee dote on my knee thinking, now surely to God I can get a poem out of you . . ."!
On another note, I've been reading in various blogs and things about the lack of lit crit written by women, one of the usual explanations is that we are too caring and nurturous by nature to step easily into the big bad world of literary criticism. Personally I think this is nonsense, women in academia are able to scrutinise just as thoroughly and mercilessly (if need be) as the next bloke.
I got my Edinburgh Review in last week, really enjoyed reading it - it was a Czech themed issue and I did Slavonic studies for a year at uni and loved it, in fact one of my old lecturers has an article in it! Anyway there was an interesting essay by the poet John Hartely Williams titled 'Speaking of You' in which he certainly doesn't set out to pull any punches. He writes -
"Nowadays those who consider themselves to be poets think they should write poetry, but this is quite wrong. The last thing one should want to do while writing a poem is write poetry. The whole project of writing a poem ought to be to dodge the image of itself that confronts it in the mirror. (not sure what he means here) Writing poetry...involves you in questions of vocabularly. One might give up on vocabulary altogether and stop thinking. That way you might arrive at a poem".
Williams describes himself as a warty poet who has eschewed vocabularly and stopped thinking and this enables him to write poems as opposed to poetry.
Although I get the point about poetry as opposed to poems, I love language, I love words. I love playing around with images, sounds and language but I also know that that amounts to very little if there isn't a poem in amongst those words, sounds and images, if there isn't that unknown thing that makes itself know to me (at least partially) by the end of the poem, of what the poem is actually about. I'm strongly in favour of the stop thinking part (not easy to do) but giving up on vocabularly and sticking with plain language, I don't think so.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Well it's that time of the year again - time to stock up on poetry books.
With it being my birthday last week I bought the lovely big volume of the Collected Poems of George MacKay Brown which I've been keen to purchase since watching the GMB programme as part of The Poet's Guide to Britain series on the BBC a while back. I'm absolutely delighted with it.
I ordered Sarah Sloat's chapbook In the Voice of a Minor Saint which I'm really looking forward to coming in. If you haven't already, check out her blog - one of the funniest, original and constantly surreal writer I've come across.
I'm also waiting on Claire Crowther's The Clockwork Gift to come in. I bought this off the back of reading her poems in several magazines and thoroughly enjoying them.
And today I ordered several chapbooks from HappenStance. I cannot recommend enough Happenstance publishing. It's a fantastic, mainly pamphlet, publisher. Scottish poets such as Rob MacKenzie and Andrew Philips had their first publications with Happenstance. This year Alison Brackenbury joined the author list by publishing a chapbook with HappenStance.
A great range of high quality poetry at SUPER CHEAP prices, really!
For under £30 (including postage) I have just ordered -
A HappenStance Subscription (which includes a free chapbook of my choice and discount on all other chapbooks)
For my free chapbook I chose -
Slug Language by Anne Caldwell
Other chapbooks I ordered are -
The Body of the Green Girl by Paula Jennings
Embracing Water by Deborah Trayhurn
Shadow by Alison Brackenbury
a Three pamphlet lucky dip
and three issues of Sphinx magazine - 11, 8 and 7. Sphinx magazine has features about and interviews with independent poetry publishers, self-publishers and poets. Also it reviews pamphlet publications.
So all in all that's one subscription (which includes postal undates with sample extracts of new publications), seven chapbooks and three issues of Sphinx magazine all for less than thirty quid, how can you beat that? And they're all beautifully produced.
But it's not all poetry, I did buy a work of fiction - Jim Murdoch's first novel Living with the Truth. I've been following Jim's blog for quite a while now and he always surprises me with his very interesting and very well researched posts / essays. I've always enjoyed his writing so I thought it was about time I bought one of his books and this is what I'm currently reading.
With it being my birthday last week I bought the lovely big volume of the Collected Poems of George MacKay Brown which I've been keen to purchase since watching the GMB programme as part of The Poet's Guide to Britain series on the BBC a while back. I'm absolutely delighted with it.
I ordered Sarah Sloat's chapbook In the Voice of a Minor Saint which I'm really looking forward to coming in. If you haven't already, check out her blog - one of the funniest, original and constantly surreal writer I've come across.
I'm also waiting on Claire Crowther's The Clockwork Gift to come in. I bought this off the back of reading her poems in several magazines and thoroughly enjoying them.
And today I ordered several chapbooks from HappenStance. I cannot recommend enough Happenstance publishing. It's a fantastic, mainly pamphlet, publisher. Scottish poets such as Rob MacKenzie and Andrew Philips had their first publications with Happenstance. This year Alison Brackenbury joined the author list by publishing a chapbook with HappenStance.
A great range of high quality poetry at SUPER CHEAP prices, really!
For under £30 (including postage) I have just ordered -
A HappenStance Subscription (which includes a free chapbook of my choice and discount on all other chapbooks)
For my free chapbook I chose -
Slug Language by Anne Caldwell
Other chapbooks I ordered are -
The Body of the Green Girl by Paula Jennings
Embracing Water by Deborah Trayhurn
Shadow by Alison Brackenbury
a Three pamphlet lucky dip
and three issues of Sphinx magazine - 11, 8 and 7. Sphinx magazine has features about and interviews with independent poetry publishers, self-publishers and poets. Also it reviews pamphlet publications.
So all in all that's one subscription (which includes postal undates with sample extracts of new publications), seven chapbooks and three issues of Sphinx magazine all for less than thirty quid, how can you beat that? And they're all beautifully produced.
But it's not all poetry, I did buy a work of fiction - Jim Murdoch's first novel Living with the Truth. I've been following Jim's blog for quite a while now and he always surprises me with his very interesting and very well researched posts / essays. I've always enjoyed his writing so I thought it was about time I bought one of his books and this is what I'm currently reading.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
So it's not been a great year for poetry writing - pregnancy and babies and toddlers haven't helped at all!
However this month is pretty good for me - I've got the three poems coming up in the Edinburgh Review plus three poems in the next Poetry Scotland, due out very soon.
Also Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust are publishing a ‘Carry a Poem’ anthology to be distributed free throughout Edinburgh next February which I have contributed to. Here's a quote from the website of what the anthology is about:
"As part of our ‘Carry a Poem’ campaign, we’re collecting people’s tales about poems that matter to them. We’re encouraging everyone to think about their vital poems and the stories that lie behind them, and we’re keen to learn about the poem choices of people all over Scotland, from all walks of life."
A fun idea! I wrote about WCW's To A Poor Old Woman which I memorised during my pregnancy (as challenged by Rachel!).
However this month is pretty good for me - I've got the three poems coming up in the Edinburgh Review plus three poems in the next Poetry Scotland, due out very soon.
Also Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust are publishing a ‘Carry a Poem’ anthology to be distributed free throughout Edinburgh next February which I have contributed to. Here's a quote from the website of what the anthology is about:
"As part of our ‘Carry a Poem’ campaign, we’re collecting people’s tales about poems that matter to them. We’re encouraging everyone to think about their vital poems and the stories that lie behind them, and we’re keen to learn about the poem choices of people all over Scotland, from all walks of life."
A fun idea! I wrote about WCW's To A Poor Old Woman which I memorised during my pregnancy (as challenged by Rachel!).
Monday, November 30, 2009
Looking for recommendations for poetry collections to read??
Michelle McGrane on her blog Peony Moon has asked a number of poets to list their favourite collections of 2009, it's great for suggestions if you're stuck on what to read next.
The one's that I'm particularly interested in and just haven't got around to purchasing yet are -
The Clockwork Gift by Claire Crowther
Weeds and Wild Flowers by Alice Oswald
In the Voice of a Minor Saint by Sarah J. Sloat
The Missing by Siân Hughes
Michelle McGrane on her blog Peony Moon has asked a number of poets to list their favourite collections of 2009, it's great for suggestions if you're stuck on what to read next.
The one's that I'm particularly interested in and just haven't got around to purchasing yet are -
The Clockwork Gift by Claire Crowther
Weeds and Wild Flowers by Alice Oswald
In the Voice of a Minor Saint by Sarah J. Sloat
The Missing by Siân Hughes
Friday, November 13, 2009
A quick post to say that StAnza's Virtual Poetry Festival - Distant Voices - is taking place tomorrow from 1pm. Poets will be reading live from all around the world and this will be broadcast online available for everyone and anyone to listen into. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Andrew Philip read from 2.30pm (his collection The Ambulance Box is an excellent read) and Meg Bateman read her work in Gaelic and English from 6.30pm.
Life is pretty much baby and toddler chaos at the moment hence the lack of poetry.
Life is pretty much baby and toddler chaos at the moment hence the lack of poetry.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Issue 3 of Horizon Review is now available online here.
As usual it contains a great range of poetry, interviews and essays which I hope to get stuck into over the next few days. I'm particularly pleased to see there's an interview with poet Pascale Petit whose work I discovered recently and very much liked what I read.
As usual it contains a great range of poetry, interviews and essays which I hope to get stuck into over the next few days. I'm particularly pleased to see there's an interview with poet Pascale Petit whose work I discovered recently and very much liked what I read.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Had the baby and glad to be back!
Baby Ruby arrived on her due date (26th Sep) and my wee boy broke our computer the day after. Just had it fixed and this is my first time online since. It's great to be back online and even better to have the birth over and done with!!
The baby is doing really well and I'm looking forward to catching up with all of your blogs and poetry news and maybe get a bit of writing done also!
The baby is doing really well and I'm looking forward to catching up with all of your blogs and poetry news and maybe get a bit of writing done also!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 07, 2009
Really missing keeping up with my blog and with all you bloggers out there, it's very awkward for me to sit the 'computer room' (i.e the hall cupboard!)at the moment - to write at the computer requires sitting at a funny angle which makes my ankles swell up like balloons!
However soon it will all be over and then the question will be: 'will I be able to fit and feed a baby in here and type at the same time' - ooh to own a laptop!
Anyway, just realised that the lovely Titus tagged me ages ago to: "Collect the book that you have most handy, turn to page 161, find the 5th complete sentence, and cite the sentence on your blog."
So here it is:
"The Palace's little windows glow,
remote in the stillness."
'
From Anna Akhmatova's poem 'Verses About Petersburg' which is in the fantastically wonderful Complete poems of Anna Akhmatova translated by Judith Hemschemeyer - one of my desert island books.
Just in case I was supposed to pick a prose book:
"One of her most instinctive compulsions was to make patterns - vivid, bold, symmetrical patterns."
Ted Hughes' essay 'Sylvia Plath: Ariel' in his book Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose, the nearest prose book to hand.
Works out nicely - two main poetry obsessions of mine, Plath and Akhmatova!
However soon it will all be over and then the question will be: 'will I be able to fit and feed a baby in here and type at the same time' - ooh to own a laptop!
Anyway, just realised that the lovely Titus tagged me ages ago to: "Collect the book that you have most handy, turn to page 161, find the 5th complete sentence, and cite the sentence on your blog."
So here it is:
"The Palace's little windows glow,
remote in the stillness."
'
From Anna Akhmatova's poem 'Verses About Petersburg' which is in the fantastically wonderful Complete poems of Anna Akhmatova translated by Judith Hemschemeyer - one of my desert island books.
Just in case I was supposed to pick a prose book:
"One of her most instinctive compulsions was to make patterns - vivid, bold, symmetrical patterns."
Ted Hughes' essay 'Sylvia Plath: Ariel' in his book Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose, the nearest prose book to hand.
Works out nicely - two main poetry obsessions of mine, Plath and Akhmatova!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Good news in this dry spell - I've had three poems accepted by Edinburgh Review...and they pay!!! My first paid acceptance, I'm very excited!
Six weeks until the baby's here and I've started reading poetry again after literally going off it over the last few months. Started a poem last night about slugs of all things, scrapped most of what I wrote but there's the odd line worth keeping that I'm sure will spur me into more writing - it's good just to be writing again, even if it is mostly mince, feeling rather rusty but you have to start somewhere!
Six weeks until the baby's here and I've started reading poetry again after literally going off it over the last few months. Started a poem last night about slugs of all things, scrapped most of what I wrote but there's the odd line worth keeping that I'm sure will spur me into more writing - it's good just to be writing again, even if it is mostly mince, feeling rather rusty but you have to start somewhere!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Just a wee note to say to any Sylvia Plath fans or anyone with a general interest in Plath that issue 2 of the academic journal 'Plath Profiles' is now available on-line and can be found here. It contains a fantastic range of essays, poems, art, reviews etc.
Still no poetry going on here I'm afraid, I'm hoping I'll get back to writing soon after the baby's born otherwise if anyone's on facebook drop by and say hello, it's about the most I can manage these days!
I did send off a submission to the Tall-lighthouse pamphlet competition, the closing date is the end of this month in case anyone is interested in submitting.
Still no poetry going on here I'm afraid, I'm hoping I'll get back to writing soon after the baby's born otherwise if anyone's on facebook drop by and say hello, it's about the most I can manage these days!
I did send off a submission to the Tall-lighthouse pamphlet competition, the closing date is the end of this month in case anyone is interested in submitting.
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