Will Eaves - Murmur

I came back from the station via the deep shelter, at the edge of the common’s south side, where I sometimes fancy the murmur has gone into hiding, along with the machines. They are down there, at the bottom of the spiral staircase, stuck in a loop, possessors of all the information they need to find out about the universe, but unable to sift any of it. Doubtless they find it unacceptable.

In the light of these winter afternoons, the eastern half of the entrance to the shelter stays white and frosty. The western section, caught by the sun, is like one of those bronze cauldrons the early Britons buried, not in fear of death, but to extend the feast of life. I had an impulse to go over and put my ear to the door.

There I stood, rattling the padlock like a madman. Stallbrook says that analysis is a little like the voyage of a shaman who goes down into middle earth to bring back the buried parts of a sick man’s soul, but I don’t know about that. One can have too much talk, which in any case tends to drive people away. It is better to listen. The machines are in council, down there, wherever they are, because they cannot decide on anything. That is why they suffer from a sense of persecution and abstraction. They need a connection to something beyond themselves, which it may not be easy for them to achieve, or admit, given their prowess, but I’ve decided I’m willing to lend an ear. Before speech there was listening, and the dead rise with the love of it.

I would like to thank the Bodleian Library in Oxford for a Sassoon Visiting Fellowship in 2016 that greatly assisted the completion of this book. I wish also to acknowledge the collegiate support of the universities of Melbourne and Warwick, the hospitality of Yale Review, Sonofabook , and Hotel magazines, the generosity of the Society of Authors, the encouragement of the BBC National Short Story Award 2017 (for which the opening chapter of this novel was shortlisted), the critical help of Anna Aslanyan, and the friendly guidance at all times of Dr. Hunaid Rashiq and family.

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Goldsmiths Prize Shortlist

BBC National Short Story Award Shortlist (for the novel’s opening chapter)

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Guardian * New Scientist * Times Literary Supplement * Australian Book Review

“An extraordinary exploration of dreams, consciousness, science and the future.”

“Exceptionally poised and elegant…. Murmur is a poignant meditation on the irrepressible complexity of human nature and sexuality, and a powerful indictment of the cowardice and groupthink that sustain state-sanctioned barbarism. It also poses timely questions about the digital world Turing’s pioneering work helped bring about.”

“Eaves has achieved one of the pinnacles of novelistic endeavour: he has given deep thought to human experience, and in doing so brought to life the ‘self-conscious wonder’ of thought itself.”

“There is science, there is art and there is Jungian symbolism.… For all its challenges, Murmur is also beautiful [in its] willingness to embrace opacity, its portrayal of the labyrinthine paths along which thought proceeds, and its exhilarating ambition to test Alec’s belief that ‘[a] mind can’t prove or step outside itself’ by inviting us to step out from ours, and into his.”

“No one can be sure of what went through Turing’s mind in the final months before his suicide, but Murmur —a weaving, witty text packed with insight about the future—feels entirely believable.”

“Ambitiously and brilliantly illustrates the relationships between fiction, consciousness, and artificial intelligence.”

“[ Murmur ] has achieved the holy grail of modern prose: conveying consciousness.… An exquisitely crafted novel.”

“Presented through journal entries, letters and a feverish dream chronicle, Murmur offers a poetically charged reading experience that is at once scientifically astute, philosophically engaging, and emotionally disturbing.… A bold, imaginative accomplishment.”

“It takes a certain literary brilliance to convey the conscious and unconscious mind of one of history’s greatest intellects. Will Eaves eloquently probes the boundaries between dreams, perception, and reality, prompting the reader to examine the recesses of their own labyrinthine psyche. A seamless dialogue between art and science, and fact and fiction.”

“ Murmur is a profound meditation on what machine consciousness might mean, the implications of AI, where it will all lead. It’s one of the big stories of our time, though no one else has treated it with such depth and originality.”

“Tender and funny, Murmur takes the tragic story of Turing’s life and punishment and ingeniously transforms it into something glittering, subversive, and even triumphant. Eaves has built a magnificently challenging memorial to one of the great twentieth-century martyrs.”

“ Murmur is Eaves’ best work to date, full of grace and kindness and big ideas. His prose attains a level of poetry that is simply wonderful.”

First published in the United States in 2019

by Bellevue Literary Press, New York

Originally published in Britain in 2018 by CB Editions

For information, contact:

Bellevue Literary Press

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New York, NY 10004

www.blpress.org

© 2018 by Will Eaves

This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, events, and places (even those that are actual) are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Eaves, Will, 1967- author.

Title: Murmur / Will Eaves.

Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018047605 (print) | LCCN 2018049911 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942658658 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942658641 (paperback)