Making Sense

by Jim Murdoch

How do you make sense out of life? Some say that you can't and you shouldn't bother to try. Still, most of us try to impose a sense of sense onto it. We dream up reasons, justifications or excuses to give our lives meaning. In this collection of short stories from Scottish writer Jim Murdoch we meet twenty people who have nothing in common apart from this need to make sense out of their lives: a murderer, a gambler, an adoptee, a stand-up comic, a teacher; men, women, parents and children, all doing their best to answer the self-same questions, and where their five senses fall short they have to rely on their other senses: those of humour, of justice, of right and wrong, of decency...

156 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2013

About the author

I was born in Glasgow in 1959 and although throughout my life I have lived in most parts of Scotland I have found myself continually drawn back to the "friendly city" where I now live quietly on the outskirts with my wife.

My writing career began at school and I continue to write and publish poetry to this day. During the nineties I experienced a lengthy period of writer's block - it lasted two years - then one day I sat down and started writing. Twenty-one pages left I had the bare bones of a novel, Living with the Truth.

Since then I've started to broaden my horizons completing two plays and a decent body of short stories. I am currently trying to decide if I'm writing my sixth novel or just kidding myself.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are people who say that’s it’s a no-no writing a review of your own book here on Goodreads. I can see their point of view but I like to start the ball rolling and it’s not as if anyone is going to take me seriously. The thing is I’ve read this book more times than anyone—easily twenty times from cover to cover—and you’d think after that amount of time the book would have started to become a chore. And yet there were lines I found myself coming across that still delighted me even after twenty reads and knowing what was coming, lines like: “What good’s a friend when you're starving to death unless you decide to eat him?” Never ceases to make me smile that one. Is the book perfect? No. Very few books are. I think short story collections start off handicapped because they are usually an assemblage of standalone pieces that were never intended to be grouped together. This is less true in this case because the stories were all written within a few months of each other and have a unifying theme. The bottom line is that as a reader I enjoyed reading this book. I’m its ideal reader of course but that doesn’t mean I still can’t get bored reading my own stuff. I don’t give many 5-star reviews. I don’t think many books are that outstanding and there are few (even of the four star reviews) that I’d want to read more than once. Considering what I had to work with—I had some forty-odd stories to choose from and arrange—I think this collection works well. I think it deserves the four stars I’m awarding it. I hope others think so too.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making Sense: James Murdoch

Within the pages of this book you will meet many different people whose voices you will hear, listen to and try and understand as their stories unravel, they bear their souls to readers and try and explain why life has dealt them difficult hands that forced them to do the things that they did which impacted the lives of others. Within the first story we meet Thomas whose life seems quite sheltered, organized and structured. Promptness is equal to godliness, lateness is unforgiveable and dealing in numbers, their meanings and values helps him to stay on task and point. As you hear him speak with the man he refers to as Doctor, and listens to his words you realize that Thomas has his own single thoughts, his visions, and voices that instruct him as to where to go, how to deal with his daily life and when he is supposed to be at a specific place. Living his life according to numbers, which never fail you and you, can trust, he works himself up into frenzy and winds up having a nervous breakdown in public. Going to the same place for lunch each day, equating what to say to the waitress and living his life with structure and rigidity, Thomas finds himself within a shell that only contains numbers, figures and 2+2 is an act of faith according to Thomas. It is not so until you believe it to be so! Interesting thought if you think about it. He believes what he wants and he is settling for a world that makes sense to him. The next story is about a woman who becomes fixated on another woman that she sees on the bus. Her mind wanders as to her appearance, her clothes, her face and the thrust of her private conversation within herself is that this woman could never be a model. Yet, she takes her apart piece by piece and creates a life within her own thoughts that she thinks she might be living. Riding on the bus this woman does not take notice of our narrator yet she thinks that perhaps she might be wondering why she chose her of all people. Thinking that maybe she might notice of talk to her but not today: maybe tomorrow. Within both stories both narrators seem to live within their own insulated worlds that they have created as we come to another story where the characters might remind you of someone you know: Coping. What would you do if you realized your husband was having an affair with your sister? What would you do if he had many other indiscretions? How would be deal with it? Within this story our narrator relates how she watches her mother deal with the world and life “ With the sound off.” In other words she sees, but does not compute. She makes excuses for the foibles or mistakes of others but none are due. What exactly is selective hearing? Well in this case the mother hears and sees what she wants as the narrator relates that she feels she does not let her brain register or understand what is really happening in her life or because of those around her.
Questions that were left unasked are now being asked as the narrator’s father passes away and she finds the need to bring to light the truth about her father. Her mother she states hears what she feels is “safe to hear.” So, like a sculptor or create painter she created her own masterpiece of life that she could live with and not worry about any flaws. When answering her daughter’s question you will be amazed at her response and wonder: Just whose world had the sound off and why the pain was able to go away with 8 simple words that she spoke. Happiness is whatever we want it be read the story and find out why.

Within each of the stories the main narrator or person they are describing has is trying to deal with and make sense of their lives in many different ways. As you read each story and learn more about their problems, feelings and issues, you the reader might find it plausible to reassess your own life and try to make sense out of some of your difficult situations too. As we come to another story that I would like to spotlight: Stray. One man who can’t seem to find a place that he can call home. One man who seems to live on the edge of nowhere and wonders where his life is going as he finally moves from his home, one that he considers a mere shell that protected him and his family but no longer exists. Leaving home he describes his feelings, ambitions and why he wound up on the wrong side of many things. Burying himself in his work and never really relating to anyone or anything special. As he travels through life he is no different than the man in the first story he needs numbers to have equalize him, the woman who buries her head you might say in the sand and this man who runs or roams from place to place trying to find something he can call home. He like many that fined them alone in the world and with no place to call their own often define himself or herself as a dog or cat might without an owner as a stray. They really do not belong to anything or anyone and are just floundering until maybe they will stop, look, and listen and turn up the sound. There are many stories that I could spotlight but I will focus on two more.

Life: is an interesting story about a man who loves his wife yet wants more. Meeting an old girlfriend he decides to test the waters and see what happens if two old friends decide to hook up. Flashing back to his family, his grandfather and then focusing on Helen, he puts his wife Mary, in the back of his mind and forges ahead to see what happens. But, incidents arise and he begins to think about Helen when he is intimate with his wife and you wonder whether she, Mary and the woman in the story Coping, are enjoying life with the sound turned off in order cope with what is happening in the present. Does he realize that he made a mistake? What happens when he returns home? What will his Life be like? Will Mary let on that she knows? Will he just resume as if nothing happens? Read the ending and you decide for yourself where Mary and Stephen are going.

Two short stories one dealing with a young girl who finds out she was adopted and the next one about a young boy who is having relations for the first time. In Katherine and Juliet we hear the narrator’s voice as she learns she is adopted, what she does to find out who she really is and the final outcome that will surprise you. The next is about a young man who describes his first time and then well I guess he’s on a roll ready to tell about the second. What he telling you about will surprise you and the end result spills over to another story titled Objects of Affection and Intention where this same character returns. Finally, the last story that I want to spotlight is called Jewelweed. Vivienne is an old fashioned school teacher you might say as we hear the narrator describe her as if she is a piece of bread with no butter, cream cheese or anything to make it special. She lives her life in a vacuum, tending to everything but herself. Her appearance is not remarkable, the classroom she taught in remained unchanged and she compares her students to flowers that she cares for but not as people. She was left a conservatory and took care the flowers stating when asked her favorite: Jewelweed. Explaining the history or the derivation of this flower you can learn on pages 117-118 and more about Vivienne to follow. She is quite religious, her home is filled with religious items but according to the narrator they are of poor quality. How they met and their relationship is discussed but mainly the narrator allows the reader to learn that when looking and judging this woman in a sense she is judging himself too. A story quite telling and an ending quite remarkable as something about her shines through letting you know that she just might be human and have feelings that she keeps hidden within the flowers of her conservatory.
Making sense out of life: read the stories, hear the many voices and you decide where you might fit in and how you still might need to Make Sense out of yours. Very different and unique stories that deal with real life issues in unique and different way. Every story has its own unique voice and characters which sometimes reappear in another story as we realize that the man who left the office before Thomas in story one is the jeweler in the story titled Sub Rosa and then our Thomas is the one that lends the girl in Coping a pen so she is able to write a note and to put in with her child she abandons. There are many stories, which have different dialects such as Disintegration, Zeitgeist and Monsters, which each reader might want to read after referring to the glossary of terms at the end of the book.

“ Numbers come alive when they acquire meaning.” These stories come alive because each one is significant and will get you to thinking about your own life.
Fran Lewis: reviewer

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is there any socially redeeming value to “making stuff up” - in other words, writing fiction? And does fiction offer any benefit for a reader beyond entertainment?

Unlikely as it may seem in this clangorous world, there are scientists studying those quiet little questions, and the first, best answer is one word: Empathy.

To my mind, empathy is what Making Sense, Jim Murdoch’s fifth published book, is all about. This book is a showcase of the uniquely human ability to understand the interior life of another conscious being; to transcend the limits of the self.

Making Sense is a slender collection of 19 brief stories, each exploring a different character, who is also usually the narrator. These are not plotted stories, but character vignettes and voice-driven monologues. Nearly half the narrators are women, and the range of ages and types is wide; they are not just thinly disguised versions of the author. All but two of the stories are narrated in first person, but even the third-person omniscient narrator uses a very conversational, first-person-like voice and even addresses the second person (the reader) with lines like, “Do you see that man over there….”

The whole collection is full of a lively energy, like meeting real people. Murdoch has a gift for imagining himself into the minds of others and capturing their ways of speech. The differences in the subjects, in their voices and their lives, is what provides the empathic spine of this collection. All these engaging voices show us that the Other is really just like ourselves, and that is one of the most crucial messages for a divided, brutal world.

George Ovitt explored this subject rather brilliantly in his Atticus Review article “Fiction and Empathy,” which I highly recommend.

And to dig a little deeper (getting back to my earlier statement about scientists): a series of experiments support the fiction/empathy claims above, and show that the empathy effect is strongest with literary fiction as compared to genre fiction, factual non-fiction, or not reading at all. Perhaps the first empirical data on the subject, the studies were recently published in a top journal, Science, and subsequently well covered in Scientific American and the The New York Times. (Thanks to the On Fiction blog for bringing it to my attention.)

So it’s true: stories that delve deeply into characters’ internal worlds, depicting the complexity and unpredictability of real life, effectively teach us how to empathize. Our world leaders desperately need to read more literary fiction!

In the never-ending struggle between dark and light forces, Murdoch’s Making Sense adds to the positive side.

There is just one more aspect to the book I want to address. Murdoch uses a few of these stories to experiment with technique: how to create distinct regional dialects or accents on the page so that they will sound authentic in the reader’s inner ear. While his urge to capture a unique voice is admirable, I found these stories less successful. As I struggled through the altered spellings and syntax for Scots, Cockney, and New York accents, I lost the fluid rhythm of the speech and even the line of the story. A lighter touch, just hinting at the dialects, would have been more to my taste (especially for New York, where I’ve lived for 25 years without hearing an accent like the one depicted here).

In the end, this is a valuable investigation. I respect the care and thoughtfulness with which Murdoch approached his dialect stories, and perhaps the effort serves best to illustrate how thoroughly immersed each of us is in the speech we hear every day. Language is indistinguishable from thought; it’s like the air we breathe.

In other words, there are simple, universal human sensibilities under the complex exterior of such stories, like the root language of which the dialects are just surface variations. This entire book supports the idea that we are One.

[Sharlene Almond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh the irony. It would at first appear that the main character as had a nervous breakdown, some ramblings in the beginning are hard to ‘make sense’ of.
The start is a bit tedious talking about numbers, but I suppose it cements the perception of the person being slightly mentally unstable.
I got a real sense of the main character quickly, but a little too much information weighed it down. Maths has never been my strong suit, so when repetitive references to numbers kept cropping up it was hard to actually figure out if this novel was actually going to get anywhere.
One thing I believe all novels should have, and that is a start that gives a small inkling to where the story was going to take the reader. This start gave nothing away. I had no clue what the point of it was.
The dialogue in the novel really is only the main character directly addressing the reader, creating a sense that I was sitting on listening to an old man’s tale.
The next section made even less sense, the man speaking to a cherub. I was beginning to think the title was supposed to be ironic. I couldn’t ‘make sense’ of the novel.
Cliché wording and editing really needed to be looked at. It would appear that it jumps to other characters along the way, and other ways of presenting dialogue.
Quite a bizarre read as I got to the second character, her interest in another woman, but yet there is something about the way the author writes that made it a bit more interesting; unveiling the complexities of a person’s mind.
The ever-changing characters prevent the novel from being boring. The array of characters makes the novel unique. Some chapters are difficult to read because of how some of the characters speak in slang.
The ending certainly summed up the unusual novel, some elements good… some just didn’t Make Sense.
2 ½ /5 stars

[Jessica Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review at Vine Leaves Literary Journal. http://www.vineleavesliteraryjournal....