Murther and Walking Spirits

An interesting book, I really enjoyed it. Who else but R. Davies could kill off his main character in the first sentence, and then chronicle the experiences of the disembodied ghost for over three and a half hundred pages... and yet keep it increasingly interesting? He does it. Incidentally, Davies believed that physical death would not spell the annihilation of the animating spirit of man (a belief to which I am in full agreement). He once speculated about his own afterlife by saying: "I haven't any notion of what I might be or whether I'll be capable of recognizing what I've been, or perhaps even what I am, but I expect that I shall be something." Murther is a really interesting fictional account of what that "something" might be like.The moment that Connor Gilmartin is struck dead in his own bedroom by his wife's lover, he finds that he is still alive! Perhaps even more alive than he has ever been; he is in a state that the opening chapter calls "roughly translated". He's a ghost; a walking spirit. This new state is fraught with all manner of possibilities and limitations. For one thing, his powers of awareness and observation are heightened, but he is unable to communicate with any of the living, no matter how he jumps up and down or shouts in their ear. And for that typically Robertsonian twist, the great author borrows an idea from the Bhagavad Gita which states that after death one maintains a connection with what one was thinking about at the moment of death. (It behoved a man to be concerned with what he was thinking of as he died)! So... what was Connor Gilmartin thinking of at that moment? Well, he was processing the fact that he had just caught his wife involved with a man (a co-worker) whom he particularly despised for many reasons, and secondly, he was thinking of a particular work-related problem concerning an upcoming Film Festival in Toronto to which this man (his murderer) was vying with him for position as lead writer. Now Connor is dead, aware of his wife's duplicity in covering up the murder but unable to vindicate himself in any way, and furthermore he is bound inextricably to his own murderer who attends the Film Festval as lead writer in his place. In a surreal twist, at the Film Festival, what Connor views on the screen is not what the others are seeing, but rather it is a documentary of his own ancestry... (one's life flashes before one's eyes??) He is seeing something wholly personal. After the festival he is instantly translated back to see how his wife is winding up her affairs... he sees that she has actually found a way to profit from his untimely demise. This story was great right to the end... with the disclaimer that in my opinion it is important to remember it as a fanciful rather than a literal view of what happens after your last breath. He raises a lot of interesting things to think about though. Not the best example of Davies' work, but still worthy of four and a half stars to the best Canadian writer ever.

Let me tell you, Davies wrote one helluva book here, and I absolutely adore Murther and Walking Spirits. It's very rooted in Eastern philosophy and is in many ways opposed to the western views on death. Westerners tend to view death as a failure or an embarassment and not as the natural course of things, like the Easterners do. This novel parodies the insincere, uncomprehending views on death that many of us hold. Davies also brings things into perspective on a larger scale by tracing Gilmartin's (the dead protagonist) ancestors, from his great-great-great grandparents up to his parents through a film festival of sorts, helping his spirit to realize what death, life, and the 'hero-struggle' really means in the long run, or the never-ending now. If anyone found this book underwhelming, it may be because Davies did not explain the character's development for the reader in clear terms, assuming perhaps they were bright enough to catch it on their own. It takes more than a little bit of thinking to get this book, and I've been doing a lot of that since I finished reading it. Davies has taught me a lot, and I highly recommend his fictions to any and everyone.

"Murther and Walking Spirits" is not part of any Davies trilogy, so Davies had one book to develop some interesting chracters, not an easy task. I think Davies did a great job in this book of presenting the struggle of more than the ghost, but of the every day person through the flashbacks/films. The ending is just what one would expect from Davies and the plot follows a simple but effective model. It starts in the real world, then moves to the "film festival", then back to the real world. The plot is like a circle, much like life. There is also plenty of wit and charm in this book just like anything Davies writes. The down side to this book is that from the start you know the major chracter is dead, so there's no hope for him. However, some how Davies manages to show that although he is dead, he isn't without hope. The "films" he watches in the book just help him realize that he's a link in a very important chain that is his family. The hope comes from the fact that he knows he lived his life the best way he could, like all his relatives in the "films." Character development could had been better, but a writer can only do so much in one novel. Davies was a bit too ambitious introducing all the characters he did in such a small book. However, the characters are still interesting none the less. This novel is a entertaining read and it makes you think at times. I recommend this book to anyone who read anything else by Davies and liked it, or just to someone who wants something interesting to read.

This book was a pleasure to read. Though not a favourite of mine, it is more tender in a way than any of Davies' novels. It is slower than some of his earlier work and deals more intimately and thoroughly with the family history of the (ghost-)narrator. It may seem odd to say so but it's as if Davies is reviewing his own life, or aspects of it. A recommended read to the old man's fans.