Novels AMC Should Adapt Part 2: Samuel Beckett's Murphy

Samuel Beckett is perhaps most well-known to the general public as the author of a play about nothing.

'But nothing happens... in the end, no one turns up... nothing happens.'
 
We can argue over the merit of his theatrical work until the sun turns blue, but what is undoubted is his importance to 20th century literature.
Beckett's writing was a game changer, and according to the opinions of many, we're still struggling with how to respond to his output (Joshua Ferris believes that the novel as a form began with Cervantes' Don Quixote and ended with Beckett's 'Trilogy').
 
What is often overlooked is Samuel Beckett as a prose writer - Samuel Beckett the novelist.
And what gets buried even further from the greater public consciousness, is his earlier work, where his unique brand of comedy sprouted originally.

His scattershot, dry, Irish humour is seen on stages worldwide most nights, but we're lacking in screen adaptations. His work is intimidating - if novelists struggle in his shadow, how could one dare attempt to translate his prose to celluloid and digital...

Well I think we can go back to the beginning almost, and with his earlier fiction, create something with the character-comedy of Peep Show or Black Books, and the existential wonderings (with the occasional slapstick) of The Sopranos.

Samuel Beckett's 1938 novel - Murphy

Murphy was Beckett's second published work of fiction (following his hilarious collection of short stories, More Pricks Than Kicks) and first picked up novel. Unlike his later work, and his general shift towards a more minimalistic aesthetic, Murphy is audacious and expansive.

And at the centre of Murphy is, rather appropriately, Murphy - serial shirker and procrastinator, a 'hero' in the mould of Oblomov and Russian literature’s 'superfluous man'.
 
Murphy does not work, indeed, he has no desire to and considers employment as analogous to death: 'In the mercantile gehenna [...] to which your words invite me-' 

If, like most, you have no idea what is meant by 'mercantile gehenna' - Gehenna, in the Hebrew Bible, was a site where apostate Israelites and worshippers of pagan gods would sacrifice their children by fire.

Clearly, Murphy has a low opinion of the nine-to-five routine.

He would rather spend his days locked up in his London flat, strapped naked to a rocking-chair, rolling forwards and backwards in masturbatory fashion, hoping that he can somehow totally escape inwards, within himself, into the blissful ‘will-lessness’ of his own mind, away from REAL LIFE.

Murphy is in essence, the classic 'comedy-of-the-lowlife', and this is central to the novel's enduring appeal. It is quite possibly the closest piece of fiction there is to the bumbling nothingness of Withnail and I. 

The comedy is suitably hectic in parts, such as the Dublin sections - latterly in London - where Neary, his drunkard man-servant Cooper, Wylie and Murphy's spurned lover Miss Counihan, argue amongst eachother and plot the downfall of Murphy (if only they could find the bastard...).
 
But Beckett crafts a subtle warmth, core to the text, in the figure of Celia - an Irish prostitute-immigrant who wants to settle down with the feckless Murphy, and leave behind her less than desirable profession.
That she ultimately can't, due to Murphy's solipsistic battle with the question of whether there is any real greater meaning to anything, to living, delivers the tragedy in this farcical comedy.

Murphy's end (accidental self-immolation, yeah...) is as blackly grotesque as one would expect from Beckett, there is no heroic denouement for our protagonist.
 
But the final scene, where Celia takes her aged grandfather (who is also her pimp, it’s never black-and-white with Sam Beckett) kite flying at Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, would be a marvel of modern television - tragic, poignant and wonderful.

The relative brevity of the novel (just shy of 160 pages), would allow for it to be developed into a cracking three-part mini-series, in the manner of Hugo Blick's dramas on the BBC (such as his excellent, The Shadow Line).       
And with Irish actors being killed off quicker in Game of Thrones than ants in a garden, there would be no trouble in finding a suitable cast to gallivant around central Dublin and west London. Just imagine if they could coax Jack Gleeson from his bizarre retirement to take on Murphy...

Basically, it'd be a great BBC Two thing at 11pm on a few Sundays in a row; in association with Canal Plus or HBO or some other foreign risk taker. I'm sure it would be heralded loudly, but watched by few - as the best shows always happen to be.