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Murdo: The Life and Works
The bizarre and surreal figure of Murdo is one of the funniest creations in Scottish literature created by one of Scotland's most distinguished writers of both prose and poetry.
212 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1993
About the author
Iain Crichton Smith
141 books16 followersIain Crichton Smith (Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn) was a Scottish man of letters, writing in both English and Gaelic, and a prolific author in both languages. He is known for poetry, short stories and novels.
He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick S. Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after serving in the National Service Army Education Corps, went on to become a teacher.
He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published. He was awarded an OBE in 1980.
He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick S. Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after serving in the National Service Army Education Corps, went on to become a teacher.
He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published. He was awarded an OBE in 1980.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 9, 2020
Note: this appears on Goodreads (under the same ISBN) as "Thoughts of Murdo." My edition was titled "Murdo, The Life and Works."
In my review of his collection After the Dance I mentioned Smith’s very-unScottish deployment of humour. This is most evident in the pieces presented by his Murdo persona, which is, as the book’s title implies, very much to the fore here.
Murdo, the Life and Works is divided into three sections Murdo, Thoughts of Murdo and Life of Murdo.
In the first, Murdo has given up his job at a bank in order to write a novel about a man who has given up his job at a bank in order to write a novel. Every morning he stares at the blank piece of paper in front of him and out of the window to look at the White Mountain (which he tells himself one day he must climb,) throughout the day he fortifies himself with cups of tea and every evening the sheet of paper is still blank. When he ventures outside the house his encounters with others tend to the bizarre, his behaviour beyond eccentric. His wife’s parents think she should leave him, while she herself thought she had understood him when they married but is now not so sure. At one point Murdo ruminates that, “Those who approach most closely to the condition of the animal are the ones most likely to survive. And Woolworths. Woolworths will live forever.” How wrong he was in that last assumption.
The second contains a multitude of diverse snippets of Murdo’s thoughts and writings - notes, letters, manifestos, poetry and observations - replete with wordplay and allusion and including some of his tales of Free Church adherent and private detective Sam Spaid who strides down the mean streets of Portree (and sometimes travels as far as Inverness.) Some of these animadversions appeared in After the Dance. There is also an account by Murdo he gave of a talk on the humanity of Robert Burns as revealed by the text of To a Mouse.
A preface to the third section says that Smith used the word Murdo instead of I in the autobiography which follows to distance himself from his memories as outlined there – including some of Dumbarton. Of course Murdo must contain aspects of Smith himself but as Murdo these are undoubtedly exaggerated. Many of Murdo’s opinions have certainly been adopted by Smith for comedic or satiric purposes. This section also contains Murdo’s reminiscences of the Scottish literary scene and its characters.
In contrast to his days staying there Dumbarton, says Murdo, is “much improved” principally because it now has a Sue Ryder shop (plus other charity shops.) Murdo scours the shelves of these, as of those elsewhere, in search of books.
As an illustration of a certain kind of Scottish discourse at one point one of his interlocutors, when asked about availability for some project or other, says, “‘I don’t know about Tuesday. That’s my Hate the Catholics night.’”
Note for the sensitive; this contains the word ‘dagoes.’
In my review of his collection After the Dance I mentioned Smith’s very-unScottish deployment of humour. This is most evident in the pieces presented by his Murdo persona, which is, as the book’s title implies, very much to the fore here.
Murdo, the Life and Works is divided into three sections Murdo, Thoughts of Murdo and Life of Murdo.
In the first, Murdo has given up his job at a bank in order to write a novel about a man who has given up his job at a bank in order to write a novel. Every morning he stares at the blank piece of paper in front of him and out of the window to look at the White Mountain (which he tells himself one day he must climb,) throughout the day he fortifies himself with cups of tea and every evening the sheet of paper is still blank. When he ventures outside the house his encounters with others tend to the bizarre, his behaviour beyond eccentric. His wife’s parents think she should leave him, while she herself thought she had understood him when they married but is now not so sure. At one point Murdo ruminates that, “Those who approach most closely to the condition of the animal are the ones most likely to survive. And Woolworths. Woolworths will live forever.” How wrong he was in that last assumption.
The second contains a multitude of diverse snippets of Murdo’s thoughts and writings - notes, letters, manifestos, poetry and observations - replete with wordplay and allusion and including some of his tales of Free Church adherent and private detective Sam Spaid who strides down the mean streets of Portree (and sometimes travels as far as Inverness.) Some of these animadversions appeared in After the Dance. There is also an account by Murdo he gave of a talk on the humanity of Robert Burns as revealed by the text of To a Mouse.
A preface to the third section says that Smith used the word Murdo instead of I in the autobiography which follows to distance himself from his memories as outlined there – including some of Dumbarton. Of course Murdo must contain aspects of Smith himself but as Murdo these are undoubtedly exaggerated. Many of Murdo’s opinions have certainly been adopted by Smith for comedic or satiric purposes. This section also contains Murdo’s reminiscences of the Scottish literary scene and its characters.
In contrast to his days staying there Dumbarton, says Murdo, is “much improved” principally because it now has a Sue Ryder shop (plus other charity shops.) Murdo scours the shelves of these, as of those elsewhere, in search of books.
As an illustration of a certain kind of Scottish discourse at one point one of his interlocutors, when asked about availability for some project or other, says, “‘I don’t know about Tuesday. That’s my Hate the Catholics night.’”
Note for the sensitive; this contains the word ‘dagoes.’
March 1, 2024
Murdo wasn’t so much the alter-ego of Hebridean poet and novelist Iain Crichton Smith, but a convenient repository for his literary trimmings. The novella ‘Murdo’ is a character study of a constipated poet manqué, a droll and mild-mannered variation on Burgess’s Enderby. The fragments in ‘Thoughts of Murdo’ are essentially leftover poems, parodies, and squibs from Smith at his most playful, the strongest bringing to mind the acidic whimsy of Myles’s Cruiskeen Lawn. ‘Life of Murdo’ is a memoir of Smith’s flourishing as an artist, with the ‘I’ substituted for ‘Murdo’ for the sake of plausible deniability. A breezy and evocative chronicle of the poet’s ordinary, semi-charmed life, the MS is sadly incomplete and ends abruptly after a sentimental trip to Canada.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews