When I was an undergraduate I loved this book. I was a bit upset to read a review of it by Dylan Thomas who, among other criticisms, considered it "intellectually wrong." About a decade later I re-read Murphy and thought that Dylan Thomas was right. ( )

Murphy is not my favorite book by Samuel Beckett, but it does contain some unforgettable scenes—like the opening one, in which Murphy has strapped himself to his rocking chair and sets to disappearing into his mind and leaving his body and the outside world behind.
I couldn’t escape the feeling as I read this book that it is an elaborate and subtle satire of intellectualism. The opening scene is simultaneously hilarious and compelling. Murphy’s desire for escape is genuine and important while his methods and his convoluted thinking about it (as about everything) frequently seems downright silly. This silliness, though, as in many of Beckett’s other writings, is full of dark irony. Very serious things (like existential despair) are driving people like Murphy to silliness, but the people who mock them only increase the horribleness of the world.

This--Beckett's first novel to be published in 1938 follows the wanderings of one 'Murphy' a solipsist in the finest sense. Murphy born and raised in Dublin and living in London cannot see a meaning beyond his own meaning and is not even sure about that. What other people might do with their time and their lives striking him as senseless--he is one day picked up by Celia Kelly--a prostitute and another Irish emigre. Celia would push him out into the flotsam and mainstream of life--something that Murphy objects to--but eventually reluctantly gives in on. As many other of Murphy's friends from Ireland are trying to reconnect with him he is wandering the streets of London--almost a lost puppy until a former acquaintance of his bumps into him and hooks him up at his workplace--a lunatic asylum out in the suburbs. Almost immediately upon beginning his first job ever he finds an affinity for the inmates of this institution that he doesn't feel from the world outside. His connection and love affair with Celia ends abruptly and shortly thereafter as Celia and his other friends finally track him down--they find only his burnt corpse--a victim of accident or suicide--a do-it yourself gas line to his room having exploded. All ends with Celia wheeling her wheelchair bound kite-obsessed grandfather out of a London park at closing time.

The prose here is definitely indebted in part to his friendship with James Joyce. In some ways it is more conventional--not nearly stripped as bare as much of his later work will be--which is not to say it is not experimental--because it definitely is. In another respect one can see a connection of Beckett to his main character--musing about the meaning(lessness) of existence. It definitely belongs on a short list of most important existential works. Anyway like all of Beckett's work--at least for this reader you can't go wrong and this is an important one since it was his first published novel and it is highly recommended from this source. ( )