Review: Living with the Truth by Jim Murdoch
7 out of 10
It’s taken me quite a while to get round to this review, I know. The main reason is that I didn’t want to read Living with the Truth twice in quick succession; I wanted to give myself some time to absorb my first reading. Additionally, the author of Living with the Truth, Jim Murdoch, is someone whose blog I read very regularly, and who is a visitor here too. And for me, that’s changed the attitude with which I’ve approached this review – not for better or worse, just for different.
Living with the Truth is Jim’s first published novel, and as we briefly discussed on his blog a couple of weeks ago, it doesn’t really fit into any particular genre of writing. It nudges on magic realism, it’s definitely literary fiction to my mind (as in it explores interesting and philosophical themes without having a particularly grandiose plot), and it could also be called as contemporary fiction (actually, that’s probably the easiest label to stick on it).
It’s a simple enough story. Its protagonist is Jonathan Payne, a fifty-ish, unmarried bookseller, living in a nondescript seaside town somewhere in England. One Tuesday morning a man knocks on his door, claims to be the personification of Truth, and spends the next two days with Jonathan. The things that happen over those two days seem mundane enough – selling books, eating takeaways, a trip on a train, a few hours spent fishing, encounters with Jonathan’s family and acquaintances – but they do have an effect on Jonathan and how he sees his own life.
In Jonathan Payne, Jim has created a character who could be an everyman, but seems to have missed the boat somewhere. He’s both distastefully pathetic and oddly sympathetic. A passive character, he seems content to have gone through his life without experiencing either great joy or great despair. He has some possibly unsavoury habits, and to be frank, few redeeming qualities as far as I’m concerned. So it’s a testament to Jim’s skills as a writer that I found Jonathan’s story to be very readable.
Truth personified is a likeable character. He knows everything that has happened, but we find out in the course of the story that he doesn’t know what is going to happen; that’s the job of Fate aka Destiny. As a result, Truth’s habit of telling truths to people can occasionally backfire… He shares quite a lot of truths with Jonathan, not just about Jonathan himself – he’s fairly indiscriminate about them too. A big truth is as relevant as a small one, as far as he’s concerned. All truths are equal. Truth doesn’t tell anyone else very much though, and certainly doesn’t tell anyone else who he is. That truth is for Jonathan alone, and Jonathan adjusts to it quite well.
But having someone just turn up and start telling you some of the truths about your life – not just the facts, but also truths about how you have lived your life – would certainly be disconcerting, and Jonathan has plenty of moments of wondering just what is going on. He veers between wanting and not wanting to ask Truth questions about things; one of his thoughts is “It felt decidedly unnatural having the sum total of all human knowledge at your fingertips.” (Clearly not a Wikipedia user, then!)
The story is really about how Jonathan comes to know (and/or be told) certain truths about himself, and how he learns to deal with those. And that’s a story that everyone should be able to relate to.
I feel Jim reached what he set out to achieve (or at least, what I think he set out to achieve); namely a thoughtful novel with flashes of humour and a lot of warmth. The writing is descriptive and gives a very good sense of the smallness of Jonathan’s life, as we’re taken back into his reminiscences of the past. I had a few issues with some of the idiom (’nip’ for example, to mean ‘pinch’, whereas I read it at first to mean ‘bite’) and the large amount of cultural references (a lot of people might not know who Galton and Simpson are, for example), but on the whole I found it a very easy novel to read.
And for me, the proof that Jim had created a character with whom it’s possible to be in sympathy came when I shed tears towards the end. Both times I read it. That’s usually a good sign that I’ve become involved enough with the story and the characters to empathise and really care about what happens. (I do cry a lot at books, by the way.)
I’m not sure I can write a summary of this review except to say that Living with the Truth is an interesting piece of work, which defies categorisation and is worth a read for anyone with a philosophical turn of mind. Thanks for sharing it with me, Jim.
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on August 10th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Interesting premise! If Truth showed up at my door, I’d run screaming…for miles.
I’ll look out for it, as I like this sort of thing. And thanks for the link to Jim’s blog too.
Susan’s last post: Grant Applications for Writers (part 3)
on August 10th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
This is well done… well done!
My own attempt at this is going up shortly. I had to give it some time too.
Ken Armstrong’s last post: A Key To My Mindset
on August 11th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Great review. You convinced me that I should read it.
I think that most of us would not be terribly thrilled if Truth were to show up on our doorstep. But what a great learning experience………
Inspire Emotion’s last post: Personal Issues…..
on August 11th, 2008 at 3:14 am
I remember thinking that about the cultural references, there were a fair few, relevant perhaps only to people in the UK.
The potential appeal of Living with the Truth is far wider than the denizens of this little rock. I’m sure Jim has his reasons for leaving them in, I wonder what they are?
It looks like you have been Rhadamanthine in the score you awarded. I commend you for your fairness, and for providing me with an oppurtunity to use the word Rhadamanthine in a sentence.
Tam’s last post: Vocabulary Quiz 009
on August 11th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Tam, to be totally honest I couldn’t imagine the book without the cultural references. Jonathan is English – I wouldn’t even go so far as to call him British – and all the references reflect who he is, where he is and when he is. I’m sure you could take ‘Billy Liar’ and stick him in small town America and it would work for a new audience (because the themes in the book are universal) but to my mind neither Billy nor Jonathan would seem right anywhere other than the north of England.
Jim Murdoch’s last post: Poetry and art (part three)
on August 11th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Yes, why is he English and not Scottish Jim? When I read it I took it that he was kind of neither/nor…a kind of murky British (like on TV). You are Scottish (right?) – so why the Englishness? Interesting and unusual in these times of heightened Scottishness…
on August 11th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
‘Billy Liar’ – which is one of the inspirations for the book – is set in a fictitious north of England town – and once I’d decided on the name of the place, Rigby, it was obvious it had to be England. Jonathan is not passionate about anything. He’s English because that’s where he ended up being born. If it’s any help the hero of my third novel is a Scot and the heroes of the fourth are Irish. The girl I’m writing about at the moment isn’t Welsh though – sorry Wales.
Jim Murdoch’s last post: Poetry and art (part three)
on August 11th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Jonathan works as English for me (and I loved the anecdote about his one trip to Scotland) – and it’s not that I don’t like the cultural references (and I certainly got them all), I just feel that there are quite a few really obscure ones. But then, when I read American novels, there are always shedloads in them, so why not in British one….
Wales forgives you, Jim. For now.
on August 12th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Cool.
Tam’s last post: Vocabulary Quiz 009
on August 12th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I would really like to read Jim’s book, thanks for the nice review.
J.C.’s last post: The Snake Day
on August 14th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I’ve got it on my wish list at Amazon.com. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get here! Sounds like it will be a great read!
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Margaret’s last post: Dangerous Ground by Larry Bond
on August 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
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on September 22nd, 2008 at 6:41 am
I really enjoyed the article and comments. It was of particular interest to me, as I’ve recently posted an interview with Jim Murdoch on my own site.
What a character!!! A talented man.
Anthony James Barnett – author’s last post: An interview with author, Jim Murdoch
on December 23rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
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