Beckett, Samuel

Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

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Dumbest "classic" in 20th century literature
Waiting for the Point
A classic, but best for those who dig absurdism
Sleepy little classic
Powerfully Absurd

Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802130348

Book Description

A seminal work of twentieth century drama, Waiting for Godot was Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play. It opened in Paris in 1953 at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone, and has since become a cornerstone of twentieth-century theater. The story line revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone — or something — named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree on a barren stretch of road, inhabiting a drama spun from their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett's language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existentialism of post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Dumbest "classic" in 20th century literature.......2007-06-09

I first read this work as part of my Humanities class in high school. I reread again after college to see if several years of "higher education" would make my mind more receptive so great works of literature. Both times, I thoroughly hated this play and consider one of the dumbest pieces of literature commonly taught in schools. The plot is overly simple; two hobos (probably European) await someone (probably male) named Godot. Several others pass them by during their wait. Godot never comes, and the play ends right where it began. No introduction and no conclusion. However, there are supposed to be many meanings that can be had in this story. A common one is that Godot is God, and the hobos represent humans. This reviewer's opinion is that the plot is so simple, that one could draw whatever conclusions or meanings they wanted out of it. All in all, I did not gain anything from this work. Fortunately, it is short enough to get through quickly.

Waiting for the Point.......2007-03-17

Reader 1: It's going to come, I know it is.
Reader 2: Yes, I just know that it will come, and when it does, then we can move on.
R1: Yes.
R2: Right.
R1: I just wish the point would come.
R2: Maybe that is the point, that when it comes it will bring meaning to our lives.
R1: Perhaps.
R2: Yes, perhaps, but if there's no point, then why are we waiting?
R1: Maybe that's the point.
R2: It could be, but I still think we should just wait for the point. It definitely will come. I know it, I just feel it.
R1: But that, too, could be the whole meaning.
R2: Of the point?
R1: No, it's the waiting.
R2: Waiting for the point.
R1: What else could it be?
R2: But if the point has no meaning...
R1: Then maybe that's the point.
R1 & R2: Yes!
R2: But then, how can we be so sure?
R1: Maybe that's the point.
R2: Lots of other people think there's a point.
R1: True, but does that mean there's really a point?
R2: What other point could there be?
R1: Maybe that's the point, that people love things without a point.
R2: Could be.
R1: Is there any other possibility.
R2: No, but I still think that we should wait.
R1: Maybe that's the point.

A classic, but best for those who dig absurdism.......2007-02-05

Fifty years after its premiere, Samuel Beckett's play WAITING FOR GODOT has achieved classic status, yet it is a play more talked about than read or performed. Many people could tell the vague plot of two hobos waiting on a roadside for a man who never comes, a metaphor for the "waiting for God" that forms the duration of human existence, but much of the play remains unknown. Reading the play shows a different side of the play than popular imagination, though it will not be a rewarding activity for all.

The stage is simple. "A country road. A Tree". So is the casting. The repartee of hobos Vladimir and Estragon forms the bulk of the play's dialogue. Two other men, Pozzo and Lucky, twice stop by. Finally a Boy appears as a messenger from the mysterious Godot. Pozzo and Lucky are left out of most popular references to the play, but they form a vital part of its action. When we first meet Pozzo, he is a rich man, smoking a pipe, feasting on a whole chicken... and leading his servant Lucky around with a rope and barking orders at him. The choreographical duties imposed on Lucky are a tour de force of stage writing.

While drama is written to be performed, the text of WAITING FOR GODOT allows one to pick up on various subtleties missing from performance. One is amusing stage directions. When Vladimir says "I don't understand" and Estragon replies, "Use your intelligence, can't you?", there follows the direction "Vladimir uses his intelligence." In the theatre, many of the play's most profound comments come too quickly to be properly reflected upon and digested by the audience, but reading the play lets one proceed through Beckett's musings at one's own pace. Finally, reading the play lets one spot oddities about Beckett's own translation of the play from the original French, many slightly peculiar turns of phrase in English.

While the play's meagre plot of waiting for a God who never reveals himself is often seen as existentialist, reading the play reveals instead an absurdist perspective. Unlike those writers who felt that the absence of God forces Man to determine his purpose on his own, Beckett sees little possibility of purpose. Because of the lack of hope and the frustrations that fill the dialogue, WAITING FOR GODOT can be depressing and inexplicable to many. One's enjoyment from reading the play is dependent essentially on how comfortable one is with absurdism. Nonetheless, I'd recommend at least trying.

Sleepy little classic.......2006-12-17

This classic of the absurd tragicomedy must be given its due respect though I have to admit, I found it a bit of a sleep-inducer. The story follows a conversation about a character wasting his time awaiting the arrival of his friend. The friend, it seems, is never going to arrive and so the plot is really a roller-coaster ride of emotions from excited anticipation to boredom to utter hopelessness and dispair. But, sadly, its an anti-climactic end with nothing - which is, in essence, the message of the play. Read it for it's historical and social significance but do not expect more than what it can give. Risking negative votes on my review I have to add, at least it is short and Beckett does not make the mistake of attempting to belabor a very tired point.

Powerfully Absurd.......2006-12-04

This play is completely absurd and that is the powerful point that the writer is trying to make about existence and all that comes with it.

highly recommended for those who are interested in Philosophy, theater and the non traditional.

The Complete Short Prose of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1989

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Cure for insomnia
A tale of progression
Beckett: Still Relevant
Beckett's little-known nonfiction
BECKETT'S MAIN THEME AND SYMPTOM

The Complete Short Prose of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1989
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Watt

ASIN: 0802134904

Amazon.com

Although Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is best-known for his novels, such as the Molloy series, and his still frequently-performed plays like Waiting for Godot and Endgame, he is rarely thought of as a writer of short fiction and prose. Yet he wrote short works devotedly throughout his life; many critics count various Beckett short stories as masterpieces of the form, central to an appreciation of the writer's oeuvre. The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989, as the title suggests, collects all of the Nobel Prize-winner's shorter works, such as "First Love," and "The Lost Ones."

Customer Reviews:

Cure for insomnia.......2007-02-26

I love short stories, in fact I need think we need to read them more often in this harried society...but this collection...

Wow...it is my cure for insomnia. I have been trying to read finish this novel for 2 years now, and have finally come to the realization that I simply will never finish it because- it is my cure for insomnia.

A tale of progression.......2006-12-01

The great thing about this collection, aside from seeing Beckett work his wonders on the short form--something for which he is underappreciated--is seeing him evolve as a writer over the years. I loved the way you could trace his investment, or lack thereof, in plot and the standard niceties of "story" over the course of the book. He is a master, truly, and one should take time to appreciate his shorter and lesser known works. Much joy waits therein.

Beckett: Still Relevant.......2004-04-19

The Complete Short Prose 1929-1989 is one of the great books to appear in the last ten years. I grew up reading parts in anthology and thin Grove Press editions. At last many of these sparse texts parading around as novels have come together under one cover. Stories like "First Love" and "The End" are among Beckett's strongest works, and "Texts for Nothing" are extremely complex and perhaps the most moving monolgues I know, for they often bring tears to my eyes. Beautiful stuff! You need some sort of literary standard other than Dave Eggers or Cormac McCarthy: I'll take Beckett any day!

Beckett had a big influence on European writing, but his influence is almost invisible on American letters. Sometimes you hear about writers being influenced by Kundera, Borges, or Kafka, but Beckett has eluded the art of writing here, with the exception of play writing. That's unfortunate, because his trilogy of novels and much of his short texts are some of the most intense, beautiful writing in the past half-century. Edward Dahlberg often talked about this sort of great writing: "It was to take me many years to realize that one has to be very lucky to write one intelligence sentence."

After reading the definitive introduction by the writer S. E. Gontarski, I am convinced that Beckett is the creator of "Spoken Word." Take that to the bank! In works such as "Fizzles" and "The Lost Ones" Beckett modulates a disembodied voice that is stripped away of all mimesis, yet it is the same interior voice that permeates all his fiction. Haunting, profound, chilling. I can think of no equal to Beckett's prose writing, except maybe Dahlberg himself. Only if today's hack writing was half as good as Beckett and Dahlberg....

People should read The Complete Short Prose and Three Novels like they read the Bible. Do it now! I know why these books are worth reading! As Dahlberg once said, "What need had I of the sour pedants of humid syntax, or of courses in pedagogy, canonized illiteracy. I saw that anybody who had read twelve good books knew more than a doctor of philosophy." Nevermind these fads, these 20 under 40, and so on. Nevermind.

Beckett's little-known nonfiction.......1999-09-23

While Beckett's works certainly contain their share of angst, there is more to his work than that, as this collection reminds us. The last work in this collection is a nonfiction essay that Beckett wrote for Irish radio just after World War II called "The Capital of the Ruins." Beckett's subject was a field hospital in the French town of St. Lo that Irish citizens had helped to staff (and where he himself had worked as an interpreter). While the prose is unmistakably Beckett (particularly the self-deprecating humor--at one point he refers to the essay as a "circumlocution"), the optimism of trying to convince his people that they had helped their fellow human beings survive a terrible war more easily is not what we expect from him. Also typical is a wonderful Biblical allusion to the Book of Isaiah and its great swords-and-plowshares metaphor, which he cleverly adapts to modern times. There is a lot of wonderful fiction in this volume (my favorite is "The Cliff," a short meditation, possibly on a preserved skull), but the non-fiction is not to be neglected, and reveals a side of this writer not often seen or considered.

BECKETT'S MAIN THEME AND SYMPTOM.......1998-12-07

The Unnameable explains himself as aporetic [being unable to act] and ephectic [being unable to make a decision]. From 1929, in "Che Sciagura", to 1989 Beckett's prose becomes more and more aporetic. From "Lessness" in 1970 to Ill Seen Ill Said in 1981 to Worstword Ho in 1983, aporia dominates the prose style and the thematic content. All of Beckett's tiny, bizarre stories - "Imagination Dead Imagine" [one paragraph], "The Lost Ones", "Enough", "Ping", Fizzles [eight one-paragraph stories] - they all contain catatonic characters, paralyzed by mental ambivalence. See The Insanity of Samuel Beckett's Art on Amazon.com.

Stories and Texts for Nothing (Beckett, Samuel)

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"A monumental grain of sand."
..but no one really knows what an ostrich sees in the sand..
Not for Nothing

Stories and Texts for Nothing (Beckett, Samuel)
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

"A monumental grain of sand.".......2005-11-23

Please bear with me while I work my way up to what I believe is the importance of the great work of word-art called STORIES & TEXTS FOR NOTHING:
Between the publication of MURPHY (1938) and the early 1950's, when the heart of Beckett's genius erupted and birthed strange, monumental works of prose fiction and drama that changed the very definitions of those word-art forms, Beckett showed in his work such a remarkable facility for verbal juggling of heavy philosophical concepts, terminologies, implications, and suggestions that most of the criticism of his work that began to rise quickly and unabatedly in the late 1950's tended to focus on finding evidence of some sort of philosophical system behind and supporting the mystery of this startling new art. There were exceptions to this tendency, but not many. Most everyone wanted to explain Beckett philosophically. It took years for the critics to begin to back off from this misguided and cocksure obsession and begin to see that Beckett was more of an
anti-philosopher than a philosopher and more of an artist than either of those and that the very definition of `artist' and his work was in for a change. A radical change. Beckett was suddenly present as an undeniably great artist who denied even the possibility of a valid philosophical system within word-art. It turned out that all Beckett's earlier rich philosophical allusions in MURPHY and WATT (1945) were comical grotesqueries with a dark undercurrent of bitter satire or even agonized mockery. Beckett was an artist of extraordinary intellectual capacity who denied the validity of that capacity in terms of explaining or even describing reality. The basic premise and assumption of all philosophy is that the human intellect (at its best) has the capacity to formulate a systematic structure of verbally expressed thought that corresponds to some significant degree with reality itself. This Beckett denied. He denied not only that the human intellect had this capacity, he went beyond that and denied that there was any real evidence that reality itself even has a systematic nature. Reality is a mystery that human intellect cannot penetrate or elucidate. And this mystery tends toward the nightmarish, toward "a mess." Beckett reduces all the academic paraphernalia of philosophy to grotesque and comic pedantry, but does not stop there. He goes beyond the comic nightmare of WATT and follows its final "mirthless laugh" into THE UNNAMABLE, a hell of helpless but inescapable words reduced to bare fundamentals, shorn of philosophical-academic pretense, words simply struggling and failing to make some basic sense out of "issueless misery." This is not satire at this point, it is the artist (Beckett) struggling to survive as an artist with any sense of validity. The near chaos of THE UNNAMABLE left Beckett unsure if he could go on artistically. His artistically heroic effort to go on and not simply founder in the word-hell of THE UNNAMABLE resulted in STORIES & TEXTS FOR NOTHING. It must be seen that the success of this effort was not due to a turning back of any kind, it was a genuine movement forward artistically. This great work has deep similarities with MOLLOY ('51), MALONE DIES ('52), and THE UNNAMABLE ('53), but it has crucial new elements, especially in the TEXTS FOR NOTHING ('55), that give it a significance of its own. There is not space here to go into what all these new elements are (you can email me if you want to discuss this), but here, in these little word-structures arising in the ashes of THE UNNAMABLE, it becomes clear that at the heart of Beckett's work is not a philosophical system of any kind, but a conviction about the mysterious nature of a tormenting reality trying to express itself with some fundamental artistic validity. Failing again, but failing better. And here is the first `minimalizing' in Beckett's work that made it possible for him to go on to HOW IT IS (1960) and then into the final phase of his artistic life's work the `closed space' phase, that culminated in COMPANY, ILL SEEN ILL SAID, and WORSTWARD HO. Though these latter works seems so different in style from STORIES & TEXTS FOR NOTHING, they could not have been achieved without the prior achievement of that earlier work that appears so slight and yet is so crucial in the chain and so great in its own right. "A monumental grain of sand."
Finally, I would like to say that I have read STORIES & TEXTS FOR NOTHING in the original French and it is wonderful how vital and genuine the transformation into English is. Nothing is lost. Also: the original drawings by Avigdor Arikha accompanying this work are wonderful and essential. Each one is a drawing of something specific and yet is, amazingly, a drawing of nothing. They help make this volume a treasure. Highly recommended.

..but no one really knows what an ostrich sees in the sand.........2004-06-17

read. immediately. carry it with you everywhere. read. again. read. immediately carry it with you. everywhere read. again read immediately. carry. it. with you everywhere read again read. immediately carry it. with. you everywhere with. this. infinite. here. what is there but this this is this infinite here what is there but this infinite here

Not for Nothing.......2000-08-14

Bloody bleeding brilliant!

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Postmodern Garbage
Comic-tragic masterpiece
Odd.
the very best
Murphy

Murphy
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802150373

Book Description

A 6 CD (6 hr. 18 min.) recording of Samuel Beckett's first novel (his only prior to World War II), published in 1938, recounts the hilarous but tragic life of Murphy in London as he attempts to reconcile the life of the body with the life of the mind.

Customer Reviews:

Postmodern Garbage.......2005-12-13

I had to read this for class. The plot is all over the place and it is really boring. There is nothing memorable about this book and it is as mundane as watching a squirrel collect nuts for the winter...on second thought, watching a squirrel collect nuts for the winter is like going to Disney World when you are 4 years old compared to reading this book. I had to read this for English 196 and I can't wait to sell this back to the book store even though I got it on ebay...so in essence, selling it to the bookstore....good riddance!!!

Comic-tragic masterpiece.......2005-10-10

Murphy is a novel unlike any other. Quite deliberately, Beckett's characters are not portrayed with realistic fullness, and the plot is fragmented and incomplete. Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable read if conventional expectations are suspended. Beckett's early work is often compared to Joyce, but they are actually very different. Beckett's works are essentially tragic-comic. There is one passage that perfectly encapsulates the problem of desire:

"I greatly fear," said Wylie, "that the syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary."

Beckett considered this passage important enough to repeat twice in his novel. Murphy, the protagonist of this novel, realizes in effect that desire can never be satisfied, and so he simply withdraws from life, attempting to reach a state of catatonic stupor. His girlfriend tries with tragic pathos to draw him back into life, but her attempts are doomed to failure. Murphy's friends are all similar to himself, fragmented and incomplete. The novel's vision is absurdist, tragic, and existentialist--humans are "windowless monads," doomed to isolation and misunderstanding. Beckett's achievement consists primarily in the brilliantly original language used to communicate his vision. Like Shakespeare or any great poet, his work cannot be summarized but must be experienced.

Odd........2005-09-29

My account of reading 'Murphy,' expurgated, accelerated, improved and reduced, gives the following.

Page one: I grin, marvelling at Beckett's wit and his prehensile command of the English language. I pause, to scan a dictionary for some obscure little term (syzygy, anyone?). I pause again, to scan another dictionary for the same obscure little term. ('You cram these words into mine ears, against the stomach of my sense' -Shak.) I sigh, thoroughly vexed by the absurdities of the 'plot' and my complete reduction to an analphabetic lexicon-dependent cur. And then at last I grin, mollified again by Beckett's wit.... Onward, page two awaits!

Pages two through one-hundred and fifty-eight: same as above.

Hell roast this story, I don't know what to make of it.

the very best.......2005-02-23

the very best Beckett book, hands down. the funniest thing--along with Kinsley Amis' "Lucky Jim"--ever in English.
essential. sure it lives and moves under the spell of Joyce--who cares? can you name, other than Flaubert or James, a better master. masterly. so fun to re-read.

Murphy.......2003-06-01

_Murphy_ is dark, funny, and ponderous. While most Beckett fans know _Waiting for Godot_, this novella takes more of a Modernist bent that differs from the anticipatory post-Modernism of _Godot_. Beckett's black humor prevails, and the intellectual quest for love and its concrete definition develops; this idea carries over from the Joycean tradition begun in _Ulysses_.

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Review from a Beckett lover who was sadly disappointed
"Endgame" - Ghastly!
The bleakest of them all...
Surreal theatrical creations
WHO, WHAT IS THAT STRANGE FIGURE IN THE CHAIR?

Endgame and Act Without Words
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

Review from a Beckett lover who was sadly disappointed.......2005-03-09

Beckett's literature can so often be prided on portraying the struggle of the pointlessness of existence versus the hope that is created by the denial that all humans are immersed in. This play is a certain exception.

All hope in Beckett's theatre is ironic and only meant to be seen as a bi-product of human desperation, however this ironic hope is the element of his plays that make them relevant to the human condition. The lack of this hope in endgame is what means this play is simply unhuman.

In 'Waiting for Godot' the flimsy pathetic hope is generated by the idea that Godot will eventually turn up. In 'Endgame' there is no hope for the future of any kind seen in any of the characters. The only any way upbeat contributions come from Nagg and Nell's memories which are irrelevant to their current situation and even more irrelevant to their future (reinforced by the death of one of them).

This play is a pale shadow of 'Waiting for Godot' and it is 'Waiting for Godot' I would recommend as more relevant to what Beckett had to say as well as some other plays from his collected works such as 'Krapp's last tape' 'Ohio inpromptu' or 'Rockaby'

"Endgame" - Ghastly!.......2004-04-01

"Endgame" is a crude and despicable play. It's not a classic and a pitiable excuse of a play. Utterly useless and does not deserve our time. The characters are one dimensional, lacking, and unrealistic. The plot is morally confusing and worthless. I do not recommend.

The bleakest of them all..........2003-02-01

Totally bare in the conventional aspects of drama, Beckett's skewed humor depicts a meaningless world without hope or happiness. Taking the uncertainty of the human situation to the edge, Beckett summarized his views at his deathbed "What did you find to enjoy about life?"....."Very little." (approximately)
As such, Beckett's repitiveness shows the monotony and boredom of existence. Some people, who find his plays painful, would be in a state totally akin to Beckett himself. I get more enjoyment out of reading the plays than watching them performed. They are too slow and devoid of action to be filmable. The sense of humor is not redemptive to life, but merely shows the bleakness more sharply by contrast. I personally prefer Camus to Beckett, who at least has a slightly more balanced view of life, if not more meaningful.

Surreal theatrical creations.......2002-09-20

"Endgame and Act Without Words" brings together 2 theater pieces by Samuel Beckett. The book is translated from the French by the author.

"Endgame" is a strange, surreal play about the relationship between a chair-bound man and his caretaker. It has both humorous and sad aspects as these characters deal with their past history. Pain and physical decay are significant themes in this play. Storytelling is an important motif here: Beckett seems to be asking if stories liberate or enslave us.

"Act Without Words" is a one-person mime in which a performer interacts with various moving props onstage. Overall, these two pieces did not make that great an impact on me; I was really expecting more. I recommend the book if you're interested in theatrical surrealism.

WHO, WHAT IS THAT STRANGE FIGURE IN THE CHAIR?.......2002-06-02

There is a curious tendency in American 'culture' to think that the function of art is to entertain. Therefore if one is not entertained by a work of art then it can not possibly be good art. And along with being entertaining, the work of art must be agreeable. Therefore if one does not find the artist's apparent view of reality agreeable then the work in question can not possibly be good art. And of course all art must express a 'philosophy' and if one finds this 'philosophy' confusing or unappealing then the work in question can not possibly be good art.
In contrast to all this I would like to posit that Samuel Beckett
is a very great artist and he is not an entertainer. Art is one creature. Entertainment is another.
Also: Whether one finds Beckett's 'ideas', sensibilty, or tone agreeable is utterly irrelavant to whether or not he is a good artist. Art is not a popularity contest.
Finally, Samuel Beckett is not a PHILOSOPHER, he is an ARTIST. He is not an existentialist or any other sort of philosopher. Nowhere in his work does he present anything resembling a philosophy. This is difficult for some readers to comprehend because they think that everything that Beckett writes is an intellectual attempt to explain life; and it must express a philosophy because everyone has a philosophy and loves to expound on it.
None of these common assumptions applies to Samuel Beckett.
His work ENDGAME does not present us with a 'philosophy of life'.
It presents us with an ARTISTIC VISION that you are free to attempt to derive some philosophy from if you choose to, but Beckett doesn't have to answer for it.
All of the negative reviews of ENDGAME here give an 'explanation'
of what the play is 'about' then hold up this explanation as evidence of the fact that the play is not good. Well, all of the explanations given are mediocre intellectual interprtations that do not address ENDGAME as a work of art.
Let's start with a simple question: Why is it so often assumed by readers that Hamm is a man who is merely a reflection of
Beckett himself? Why?
And is Hamm really even a man, a human being? Do you actually know a man who sits constantly in a darkened room, wearing a toque and a gown, in a chair with castors, with blood-stained linen covering his face? I doubt it. Hamm is not a man. He is a fluid artistic image masterfully moved and sustained through the duration a theater drama. What is the meaning of this artistic image? Well, what is the meaning of an eclipse of the sun to a primitive or to you, for that matter. What is the meaning of the first nightmare you ever had? If you try to give a complete, conclusive, general sort of answer then can't you honestly feel that the answer is not quite true, that you are really only guessing about the meaning, at least in part. Aren't you really selling your experience a little short?
What makes Hamm (and everthing else in the play) a great creation is that 'he' has the power to reach so deeply into you without you really understanding what is happening. Beckett called this "the power of the text to claw." Then before you proceed to explain what is happening, please stop and give Beckett credit for creating something that could do that to you, because that is what ART is. Try actually experiencing ENDGAME before you explain it and judge it.

The Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett: Volume III of The Grove Centenary Editions (Works of Samuel Beckett the Grove Centenary Editions)

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A beautiful edition

The Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett: Volume III of The Grove Centenary Editions (Works of Samuel Beckett the Grove Centenary Editions)
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0802118194

Book Description

Edited by Paul Auster, this four–volume set of Beckett's canon has been designed by award winner Laura Lindgren. Available individually, as well as in a boxed set, the four hardcover volumes have been specially bound with covers featuring images central to Beckett's works. Typographical errors that remained uncorrected in the various prior editions have now been corrected in consultation with Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski.

"I am always deeply puzzled when people say of Beckett, 'Oh, he's so difficult!'–or avant garde, or complex, or . . . ambiguous. It is the profoundest nonsense, for Beckett is perhaps the most naturalistic playwright I know of, as well as the clearest and least obscure. The 'obscurity' resides in the assumption of obscurity. I know that if Beckett's outdoor plays were set on suburban terraces, and the indoor ones just inside those terraces, in suburban living rooms, everyone would be the wiser, certainly the less puzzled. We are most comfortable with the familiar." — Edward Albee, from his Introduction.

Customer Reviews:

A beautiful edition.......2006-04-18

Samuel Beckett's status as possibly the greatest dramatist of the twentieth century is unquestionable, and in this attractive volume, Grove Press has compiled all of his plays (with the exception of "Eleutheria," which Beckett suppressed and refused to translate), a complete collection previously available only in an expensive out-of-print Faber edition.

This is one in a series of four volumes publishing almost all of Beckett's oeuvre. The volume includes classics like "Waiting for Godot," "Happy Days," "Endgame" and "Krapp's Last Tape" in addition to classic shorter plays such as "Breath."

I was apprehensive about buying the Grove edition sight unseen: in the past, my copies of their paperbacks haven't held up so well (in particular my copy of Beckett's "Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnamable", which is not only printed in an unattractive font but the spine of which cracked on nearly my first reading). But this is a beautiful hardcover volume, matching the rest of the Beckett set, with cover art of the Godotian tree, and featuring Beckett's own translations of his French-language plays. Brief introductory notes by Paul Auster and Edward Albee (in the latter note, Albee comments - surprisingly - that his favorite Beckett work are the later plays rather than the standards such as "Godot"). These introductions are short, but the dramatic work of Beckett is so fantastic and varied that nothing could do it justice but simply to begin reading.

Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable

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The Third's the Finest
I can't go on, you must go on, I'll go on.
The Human Condition Exposed
A carcass in God's image and a contemporary skull
worth reading....if you like that sort of thing

Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Complete Short Prose of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1989
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ASIN: 0802150918

Amazon.com

Samuel Beckett's brilliance as a dramatist--as the creator of Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, and that despairing pas de deux Endgame--has tended to overshadow his gifts as a novelist. Yet he's unmistakably one of the great fiction writers of our century. As a young man he took dictation (literally) from James Joyce, and absorbed everything that myopic maestro had to offer when it came to Anglo-Irish prosody. Still, Beckett's instincts would ultimately steer him away from Joyce's delirious play with high and low diction, toward a more concentrated, even compulsive style. His earlier novels, like Murphy or Watt, give us a taste of what was to come. But Beckett truly hit his stride with a trilogy of early-1950s masterpieces: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. Here he dispenses with all the customary props of contemporary fiction--including exposition, plot, and increasingly, paragraphs--and turns his attention to consciousness itself. Nobody has ever evoked the pain of existence, or the steady slide toward nonexistence, with such poetic, garrulous accuracy. And once you've attuned yourself to the epistemological vaudeville of Beckett's prose, he turns out to be the funniest writer on the planet--ever.

None of the three entries in the trilogy is exactly amenable to summary. It's fair to say, though, that Molloy is the easiest to read, with at least a bare-bones narrative and an abundance of comical set pieces. In one famous episode, the narrator spends page after page figuring out how to vary the sucking stones he carries in his pockets: <blockquote> And while I gazed thus at my stones, revolving interminable martingales all equally defective, and crushing handfuls of sand, so that the sand ran through my fingers and fell back on the strand, yes, while thus I lulled my mind and part of my body, one day suddenly it dawned on the former, dimly, that I might perhaps achieve my purpose without increasing the number of my pockets, or reducing the number of my stones, but simply by sacrificing the principle of trim. The meaning of this illumination, which suddenly began to sing within me, like a verse of Isaiah, or of Jeremiah, I did not penetrate at once, and notably the word trim, which I had never met with, in this sense, long remained obscure. </blockquote> This nutty ratiocination goes on for much, much longer, until the narrator loses patience and throws the stones away. And that's a fair encapsulation of Beckett's philosophy: he argues for the essential pointlessness of life--the solitary, wretched splendor of human existence--but does so in a comic rather than a tragic register, which ends up softening or even overpowering the bleakness of his initial premise. So Malone Dies opens with a typically morbid mood-lifter ("I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of it all") and then makes endless comedic hay out of Malone's failure to keel over. And by the time we hit The Unnamable, we're forced to wonder whether the narrator actually exists: "I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on." Happily, Beckett worried these same questions and hypotheses to the end of his career, with increasingly minimalistic gusto. But he never topped the intensity or linguistic brilliance of this mind-bending three-part invention. --James Marcus

Customer Reviews:

The Third's the Finest.......2006-12-01

Three powerful novels, each unique and perhaps so like (and unlike) the others in style that they stand together as much as apart, and readily stand up to evaluation, even deconstruction. I found, having never read Beckett before, The Unnamable to be the finest of the three; each reader though takes a different view. I appreciated the total lack of concern with the modern conventions of the novel in the last work, and The Unnamable lives up to its title in many ways, but draws the reader in to a world of exquisite minimalism and modernity. If experimental work of a higher order is your goal, you can hardly do better than Beckett.

I can't go on, you must go on, I'll go on........2006-07-18

Sharply influenced by James Joyce, this trilogy by Samuel Beckett is a truly remarkable achievement. It is a poetic descent into complete obscurity, words removed from their subjects, relations with no establishments. The first novel, Molloy, at least bears the semblance of a plot, and is, in my opinion, the weakest of the three. It tells two seemingly unrelated stories through a strict stream of consciousness technique. The second novel, Malone Dies, is much more abstract, bearing only a touching relation with actuality, the decaying stories and thoughts of a man resolved to die, a man trying to find his epitaph, a man in fear of the void in which there is only silence. The third novel, The Unnamable, is a unique piece in world literature. It is a novel about words, words speaking about words, narrated by a voice whose existence is melts and transforms with his ideas, an entity whose being is confirmed only by his speech. It is, to my mind, the most extreme form of stream of consciousness writing, bearing no relation to actualities, to reality, only related to ideas. The story, if one can call it that, is simply the story of the voice that tells it, a voice that wishes for the silence, that wants to find an end, the perfect sentence, the perfect phrase, who wishes to be still but is afraid to be still, who speaks words of no meaning, speaks only to avoid the silence that lies beyond his reach. This last novel is truly astonishing. A warning though: do not look for any sense of plot, character, or even reality in these books, for they are thoughts removed from the objects of thought.

The Human Condition Exposed.......2006-07-03

(old review from April 2005, on "Malone Dies")

This is the story of Malone, an old man about to die who can't do much except breathing. He's in a hospital room, maybe, and he tries to write a story, or stories.

It's a major book and it's a classic. I really loved it. I like Beckett anyway, but this book is truly awesome. Reflections on writing, living, etc. It's very ironic at times and the stories Malone writes can be really twisted. Some of which is really icky ick but unless you mind things that go off the beaten path, you'll dig it.

What else to say... it's a first person narrative, except for the parts that actually are stories written by Malone. The figure of Malone, alone in this strange room, is reminiscent of that of a feotus; and indeed, Malone sucks the corner of his pillow like a baby, and is treated just like a baby, since he cannot live on his own due to his very old age. The walls are also described as bones at some point, like a skull, I think, it's a bit like Malone is trapped in a head, which is the usual condition of our consciousnesses (or souls). The narrative solely comes from malone's trapped consciousness, it's what Genette would call "focalisation zero", if i'm not mistaken, which I could very well be, having skipped that book at uni. Basically, the narrator is far from omniscient and only knows what the character knows; which is logical since the character, Malone, is also the narrator. You get tons of mise en abymes with the fact that Malone, a character-narrator, writes stories. Stories within the story.

Major book of the 20th Century, I totally recommend it for anyone who likes good literature. And anyone who breathes, yeah, if you breathe, you need to read "Malone Dies". By the way, if Malone sounds like Alone, it's not a coincidence. Malone is always alone and yes he does die too, alone. Deep book about the human condition.

A carcass in God's image and a contemporary skull.......2006-04-14

The trilogy is Beckett HQ. Step right up. When you come back down might I suggest a trip through the anterooms that are Texts for Nothing? Go on, restore yourself to the feasible. Number 7 in particular is certain to unbuckle your trunions. Seriously, it is here we are reminded that heads are only wound up once. And that, as Denis Johnson might say, is almost too beautiful to laugh about.

Has anyone ever had a really good look at the blank page facing Text Number 1? The page in the library copy is blank but for this message:

Translated by the author

I couldn't believe I missed this the first time and actually did gallop back to my hut to double check. It's there alright, franker than ever:

Translated from the French by the author

Still, it's an encouragement though, isn't it? Right there you know you're in good hands. You know another thing I couldn't believe I missed the first time? The name Knott in either Johnson or Beckett.

Reading these two writers puts me in mind of that stunning little poem Emily Dickinson wrote:

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
and then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

I've just remembered something and boy is my face red. The trilogy right? The Unnamable in particular.

"These few general remarks to begin with. What am I to do, what shall I do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed?"

Isn't that just as true a twang upon an ancient chord as you are ever likely to hear in print? How proceed indeed.

worth reading....if you like that sort of thing.......2006-01-10

It seems like most of the reviews for this book fall into one of two categories. Either the reviewer thinks these novels are exquisite for what they are to a literary movement, or else they don't like them because they're boring and nothing happens. It's true that these books stand up to thorough academic scrutiny, but I also think they're fun to read. They are by no means plot-driven novels. If you're looking for a good story, keep looking. But whether or not you're able to make it through all three of these novels probably has more to do with your taste in reading than your intellectual abilities. If you're a casual reader of popular fiction, you probably won't enjoy these novels much, but if you like Joyce, Kafka, and Eggers, you'll love Beckett.

Novels II of Samuel Beckett: Volume II of The Grove Centenary Editions (Works of Samuel Beckett the Grove Centenary Editions)

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Novels II of Samuel Beckett: Volume II of The Grove Centenary Editions (Works of Samuel Beckett the Grove Centenary Editions)
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought
Waiting for Godot: A Bilingual Edition: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

ASIN: 0802118186

Book Description

Edited by Paul Auster, this four–volume set of Beckett's canon has been designed by award-winner Laura Lindgren. Available individually, as well as in a boxed set, the four hardcover volumes have been specially bound with covers featuring images central to Beckett's works. Typographical errors that remained uncorrected in the various prior editions have now been corrected in consultation with Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski.

"A man speaking English beautifully chooses to speak in French, which he speaks with greater difficulty, so that he is obliged to choose his words carefully, forced to give up fluency and to find the hard words that come with difficulty, and then after all that finding he puts it all back into English, a new English containing all the difficulty of the French, of the coining of thought in a second language, a new English with the power to change English forever. This is Samuel Beckett. This is his great work. It is the thing that speaks. Surrender." — Salman Rushdie, from his Introduction

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WATT: Haunting Echoes Receding Infinitely In All Directions
Funny AND Avant-garde
After a lifetime of reading, one of my five favorites
Roller-coaster existentialism, and fun, too!
Essential Literature

Watt
Samuel Beckett
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

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Murphy
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ASIN: 080215140X

Customer Reviews:

WATT: Haunting Echoes Receding Infinitely In All Directions.......2005-11-19

There are so many aspects of this remarkable novel - one of the most important ever written - deserving exploration that it would be impossible to touch on them in this small space. So, I would like to focus on how Beckett approaches the fundamental problematic challenge of narrative technique and person in this novel.
Before turning directly to WATT, let us note that a given in Beckett's work is that the conventional approaches to this challenge are simply too lacking in reality to be acceptable. The `goal' of Beckett's art is to find the point at which all the divergent elements that make up a literary work become one and this goal is reflective of and inseparable from the search to find the point at which all the divergent elements that make up a human being are one. In MURPHY this is called the "search for home." For Beckett, art ( as he sees it ) is the closest thing known and available to an acceptable `religion', that is, a means of coming to some kind of meaningful terms with existence. But it is also a given in Beckett's work that this goal, both artistic and spiritual, is apparently impossible to attain. And yet it is the only thing worth seeking. This contradiction accounts for the tragicomic character of Beckett's work and Beckett's own mysterious and remarkable character accounts for the unique and profound pathos of his work. So, to WATT.
Before the novel deals directly with the character of Watt, there is an introductory setting created by way of an encounter between a Mr. Hackett and a Mr. and Mrs. Nixon. The atmosphere created around this encounter that leads us to the first appearance of Watt sets a tone of utter ambiguity. It is a reality where nothing is certain and our only weapon of defense is language. It is a formula for hilarious comedy and nightmare.
Then please note that once Watt appears on this scene there is a strangely and remarkably beautiful, pedantic (almost paranoid ) concern with exactitude and utter thoroughness in the narrative style that resonates so deeply, almost perfectly, in relation to the character of Watt himself. It is impossible to imagine Watt presented to the reader in any other way. The narrative technique (form) coincides with the content of Watt's character and world with rare and astonishing precision and yet this narrative is, as we later learn, the voice of another character in the novel called Sam (!) whereas Watt himself never addresses the reader directly. There is both first and third person narrative utilized in the novel, but they are both apparently the voice of Sam. We, of course, immediately relate this name to the author himself and are tempted to see this as merely an example of an author having found a felicitous solution to the problem of balancing form and content, that is, of finding a narrative technique that resonates deeply with the content that makes up his central character. But Beckett himself rejects this as a solution, as an attainment of the sought point of union, and to see it this way is to miss a crucial aspect of the novel. The character Sam both is and is not the literal author of WATT. In fact, in a profound sense, Sam can no more be identified precisely with Beckett than can Watt himself, though they can both be imprecisely identified with Beckett. The subtle issue here is that the author's attempt to set himself as a foundation in the novel merely results in another mere character in the novel. Beckett could have chosen to not give the narrative voice personification in the form of Sam and just presented the narrative as the true voice of the author himself, but Beckett is too aware ( painfully aware ) that reality ( simply ignored by conventional novel writing ) is not so simple as that. So what we have is that the author, Beckett ( whoever that is ) creates Sam and Sam's narrative creates Watt and Watt creates the sense in us of tragicomic wonder and the haunting echoes recede infinitely in all directions. The point here being that the deep and remarkable perception on the part of Beckett concerning narrative technique and person reveals a reality that is somehow both more understood and therefore unified and yet more fragmented than ever.
I know of no figure who has moved further into the distance of the artistic frontier than Beckett. WATT is a crucial work of word-art that any lover of that art must be familiar with.
And finally I would like to make an incidental note that the current Grove Press cover of Watt is very poor when contrasted with the cover of it's original 1959 issue of which I am very happy to still have a copy. Very small matter. Get this book.

Funny AND Avant-garde.......2005-10-25

This novel is SO funny! I know it's an avant-garde masterpiece and all, but it's also hilarious. I guess if we read it straight, we would have to conclude that the protagonist, Watt, is schizophrenic, along with the narrator also, probably. The characters are not realistic. Plot actions seem completely random and unmotivated. Watt's characteristic action is to consider every possibility in every situation, and every possible combination of possibilities. There's one part that had me laughing out loud. Watt is some kind of minor servant in a household, and his orders are to feed the leftovers to the dog. But there is no dog! So Watt dreams up all these far-fetched and absurd schemes for finding a dog to feed the leftovers to. I couldn't stop laughing, but my friends say I have a weird sense of humor.

After a lifetime of reading, one of my five favorites.......2003-10-01

This book is a joy! Beckett's wonderful English prose, his humanity and sense of humor, shine forth on every page. After forty years and many rereadings, it has only grown on me--the jokes still amuse, the writing is still glorious, the message still enigmatic and profound. This is one of those seminal books that sustain and hearten you, that reawaken your love for suffering humanity. There's no one like Beckett, and nothing (except the trilogy) like "Watt". Buy it. Verbum sat.

Roller-coaster existentialism, and fun, too!.......2002-12-18

"Watt" is the hilarious story of an itinerant character who walks one day from a train station, like a homing pigeon, straight to the home of a man whom he will serve. He enters the kitchen to take his spot, whereupon the present kitchen worker issues a rambling monologue of stunning length and baffling content, then leaves the household for Watt to stay behind. In the first few pages, we are already asking: Why did Watt just show up? Whose house is this? Who is this man in the kitchen already? Why is he delivering this major dissertation? What does it all mean?

The rest of the book concerns Watt's service to the master of the house, some of it conventionally narrated, much of it digressive and odd. To explain this book, however, is to sound ridiculous. A certain number of things happen to Watt, he takes a certain number of actions, he engages in a certain number of conversations, and he ends the story in the book in a certain meaningful fashion. The entire story is told in Beckett's trademark effusive style, a rollicking, bizzare, but highly entertaining profusion.

The meaning of the book is also classic Beckett: Don't wait for Higher Meaning, because there is none. All his books portray absurd characters doing absurd things, waiting for life to reveal itself, but ultimately realizing that life reveals itself through the living. To answer the questions posed above, the book is compsed like a circle, just like life. At the same time, it's also completely meaningless, just like life. We go to some place, we stand in some position, we engage with some people, we commit some acts, we turn and commit other acts, and we engage with some other people. Somehow, among all this ballet, the world still turns, and we still live upon it. For all their foolish sounding, Beckett's books do indeed have a meaning, that life is just the living of it.

Beckett is a psychological master. His prose style will never be repeated. I'd call him the Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan of literature, a crude analogy, for which we should apologize, but it is one that we hope reflects the major impact of his work on the art, and his primacy among its literary practitioners.

Beckett's work is random by no means. It is carefully crafted, and has an internal rhythm all its own. If a reader is willing to take off their shoes and run through the squishy mud of Beckett's life-swamp, so to speak, it is a joy to read and great fun to reflect upon. "Watt" is a good example of his work, relatively short, and relatively simple, but still likely to provoke great consternation among any who are not used to Beckett's gushing and admirable style, but great enjoyment among those who take it on its own life-affirming terms.

Beckett is a great writer for those readers who seek a literary puzzle, a semantic challenge, and a story with a surreal whiff, which tells us how wonderful it is just to be alive, enjoying our time on earth. "Watt" is one of Beckett's more accessible and fun works.

Essential Literature.......2001-11-17

Disregard what has been written, in other reviews, about Watt...simply read it, simply continue to read it.

Beckett is always and essentially unreadable. But that does not mean we must not read him, that we must not continue to read him.

Book Description

Edited by Paul Auster, this four–volume hardcover set of Beckett's canon has been designed by award-winner Laura Lindgren. Available individually, as well as in a boxed set, these books are specially bound with covers featuring images central to Beckett's works. Typographical errors that remained uncorrected in the various prior editions have now been corrected in consultation with Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski.

"[Beckett] settled on philosophical comedy as the medium for his uniquely anguished, arrogant, self-doubting, scrupulous temperament. In the popular mind his name is associated with the mysterious Godot who may or may not come but for whom we wait anyhow. In this he seemed to define the mood of an age. But his range is wider than that, and his achievement far greater. Beckett was an artist possessed by a vision of life without consolation or dignity or promise of grace, in the face of which our only duty is not to lie to ourselves. It was a vision to which he gave expression in language of a virile strength and intellectual subtlety that marks him as one of the great prose stylists of the twentieth century." — J. M. Coetzee, from his Introduction

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