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Murther and Walking Spirits
by Robertson Davies - In the first sentence of this unusual book, the principle character and narrator is murdered. Connor Gilmartin has walked into his bedroom to find his wife and a colleague nicknamed the Sniffer together, and the Sniffer strikes Gil and kills him. What follows is partly farce and partly tragedy and Gil realizes that he is dead and wonders whether he is actually a ghost and what the afterlife will be like even as he is able to observe the actions of his wife and the Sniffer in the days that follow. Gil introduces these characters to the reader and tells a bit about his own background and the events that led up to his death. He and the Sniffer work for the newspaper, and it happens that the Sniffer is a film critic who must attend a film festival. Gil finds that he, as ghost or spirit, is attending the festival as well, but the films he sees are somehow meant only for him.The film festival that Gil watches - and describes for the reader - features his own ancestors, so the story is a sort of family history. We meet the resourceful Dutch Loyalist Anna, who escapes New York at the time of the American Revolution, taking her three children with her on a daring canoe trip to Ontario where they settle with the rest of the Vermuelen family. We also meet Wesley Gilmartin in Wales, and follow the rising and falling fortunes of the Gilmartin family as cloth merchants, tailors, politicians, and finally as they immigrate to Canada. The next generation's stories are also featured, until finally Gil is watching a film depicting his own father selling off the estate of his grandfather. Gil's thoughts and commentaries on these stories of his own forbears are given throughout, as well as his observations of what the Sniffer is doing during his film festival, and interspersed with his reflections on memories of his own.
The ending left me with mixed feelings - the end of the film festival portion had a touch of bittersweet, as Gil has learned so much more about his father and other members of his family tree, and understood them and loved them in a way that perhaps he hadn't really done while alive. The very last chapter, however, returns to Gil's observation of what Esme (his widow) and the Sniffer are doing. They have both gotten away with murder, to put it bluntly, at least so far as anyone else knows, but Gil is wanting justice. In a way, justice is certainly done and I found the wrap-up of that aspect of the story grimly appropriate. However, the final page of two of epilogue is the ghostly reflection or conversation of Gil, and I found that completely unsatisfying and just plain odd rather than philosophically insightful, as perhaps was intended. However, I should note that this novel is not written from a Christian worldview, so the views of the soul and spirit and afterlife do not coincide with my own beliefs. I enjoyed the story as it portrayed ordinary people in historic settings, and ordinary people dealing with guilt, pride, fear, loyalty, religion, ethics, and so much more; but I attached no particular import to the speculation and description of afterlife that is purely fictional.
This review is linked at The Book Mine Set for The 9th Canadian Book Challenge. (Robertson Davies is a Canadian author, and much of this particular story takes place in Ontario.)
