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EXCELLENT COMPILATION BY OCTAVIO PAZ; DISMAL TRANSLATION BY THE YOUNG SAMUEL BECKETT
and an OK introduction by CM Bowra (I'd much rather read the French edition's intro by Paul Claudel!).

One of the greatest mysteries of modern literature (aside from the novel Ulysses) is how the young Samuel Beckett, fresh from the Protestant University in Dublin, who in the Sixties would receive the Nobel Prize for literature, could begin his career with such terrible translations funded by UNESCO and many times republished in the USA by Evergreen's Grove Press, our nation's owner of the Beckett franchise.

I am reading the 1985 Grove Press edition. The best that could happen would be a bilingual edition, in which one might gracefully and mercifully put aside the unreadable, terrible translations and read the originals as written, including the archaicisms of the Carmelite Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

The young Beckett also performed some unreadable translations from the French of the Bateaux Ivre, for example. This is odd as after the Second World War he became our greatest playwright in English by translating his plays (such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days, Ohio Impromptu, Come and Go, etc.) from his own original French into English. In order for this to occur of course, he needed to pass through service as secretary to the greatest writer of the Twentieth Cnetury, Mr. James Joyce, who tragically did not survive to observe his own recognition. Beckett's novels in the main grew more diffficult (his great trilogy, ending in the Unnameable, sometimes called the Unreadable); yet to him we owe such enormously entertaining earlier novels as Murphy and Mercier et Camier

In any case, the great Mexican poet Octavio Paz, through the encouragement of UNESCO of the United Nation (while still interested in the advancement of culture and education and health and the development of peoples, of international peace and of human rights, long before this promising international body was reduced to being a mercenary arm of other interests), compiled a representative sampling of poerty from throughout the history of his heroic nation between about 1600 until three centuries later, ending in 1910. Indeed for a flavor of the translation let us look at the opening sonnet by Don Francisco de Terrazas:

I dreamed that I was thrown from a crag
by one who held my will in servitude,
and all but fallen to the griping jaws
of a wild beast in wait for me below

In terror, gropingly, I cast around
for wherewith to uphold me with my hands,
and the ones closed about a trenchant sword,
and the other twined about a little herb.

Little and little the herb came swift away,
and the sword ever sorer vexed my hand
as I more fiercely clutched its cruel edges. . . . (sic)

Oh wretched me, and how from self estranged,
that I rejoice to see me mangled thus
for dread of ending, dying, my distress!

I do not rejoice to see this sonnet mangled thus, but would rejoice to see the original as written some four centuries ago. I would indeed rejoice to do my own translation, thank you, without a twining hand nor trenchant sword.

Certainly the most valuable element of this edition is the lengthy, comprehensive and profound introduction by Octavio Paz himself (translator unidentified) which retraces the entire history and development of his nation's poetic literature, and presents the criteria for his selections in this compilation, which he admits is lacking as there is no Nahuatl nor other pre-Columbian poetry, but for which he refers to the reader to other sources.

An excellent if troubled edition, handy anthology for students of this field. But find the originals; here as in other places, particularly in poetry we find true the ancient dictum: translation is treason (which sounds so much better in the original Latin, or French, or Spanish!). ... Read more

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Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape

Published: 1958

Premiere: 1958

By:Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)

There is a single character named Krapp.He is on stage with a tape recorder and old recordings of himself.The only lighting on stage illuminates Krapp (Crap?) and his table where the tape recorder rests.We don't see anything of the environment, only the center stage.We are expected to ask where the play is taking place.It could be an afterlife library where the story of our lives is kept in ledger books and on audio tapes.Krapp is forced to confront the details of his life as an atonement or penitence.

It could be Krapp's own library where he has kept a video/written record of his life.As Krapp faces the end of his life he chooses to relive his past before the last whimper of his extinction.Krapp is reading the ledger book of his life much as God and Saint Peter will read the ledger of our lives on judgment day.

Krapp gives a rambling and emotional monolog relating his life experiences and decisions.He speculates about things that might have been better.

At one point Krapp hears a noise from the shadows, outside where the stage directions indicate lighting.He either hears the rustling of the robes death or of the angel of death.He does not seem concerned that death is approaching implying that he is aware of his impending end.He gives a shrug and continues with his search of the ledgers.



Waiting for Godot

Endgame and Act Without Words


I completely enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape

Published: 1958

Premiere: 1958

By:Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)

There is a single character named Krapp.He is on stage with a tape recorder and old recordings of himself.The only lighting on stage illuminates Krapp (Crap?) and his table where the tape recorder rests.We don't see anything of the environment, only the center stage.We are expected to ask where the play is taking place.It could be an afterlife library where the story of our lives is kept in ledger books and on audio tapes.Krapp is forced to confront the details of his life as an atonement or penitence.

It could be Krapp's own library where he has kept a video/written record of his life.As Krapp faces the end of his life he chooses to relive his past before the last whimper of his extinction.Krapp is reading the ledger book of his life much as God and Saint Peter will read the ledger of our lives on judgment day.

Krapp gives a rambling and emotional monolog relating his life experiences and decisions.He speculates about things that might have been better.

At one point Krapp hears a noise from the shadows, outside where the stage directions indicate lighting.He either hears the rustling of the robes death or of the angel of death.He does not seem concerned that death is approaching implying that he is aware of his impending end.He gives a shrug and continues with his search of the ledgers.



Waiting for Godot

Endgame and Act Without Words




I completely enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape

Published: 1958

Premiere: 1958

By:Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)

There is a single character named Krapp.He is on stage with a tape recorder and old recordings of himself.The only lighting on stage illuminates Krapp (Crap?) and his table where the tape recorder rests.We don't see anything of the environment, only the center stage.We are expected to ask where the play is taking place.It could be an afterlife library where the story of our lives is kept in ledger books and on audio tapes.Krapp is forced to confront the details of his life as an atonement or penitence.

It could be Krapp's own library where he has kept a video/written record of his life.As Krapp faces the end of his life he chooses to relive his past before the last whimper of his extinction.Krapp is reading the ledger book of his life much as God and Saint Peter will read the ledger of our lives on judgment day.

Krapp gives a rambling and emotional monolog relating his life experiences and decisions.He speculates about things that might have been better.

At one point Krapp hears a noise from the shadows, outside where the stage directions indicate lighting.He either hears the rustling of the robes death or of the angel of death.He does not seem concerned that death is approaching implying that he is aware of his impending end.He gives a shrug and continues with his search of the ledgers.



Waiting for Godot

Krapp's Last Tape

Endgame and Act Without Words




I completely enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

Life as a verb
Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves from drama critics because it is always set up against his other works. It lacks the tremendous absurdity of "Waiting for Godot" or "Endgame" but it has its fair share. In some respects "Krapp's LastTape" has much more of a human face than the others: we can understand Krapp much more than Gogo or Didi. And this serves to make him someone with whom we can more easily identify and, therefore, makes him more tragic.

The essential question that this play raises is "Who is Krapp?" Is it the old man we can see on stage? Is it his voice from decades earlier? Or was he the Krapp on the one tape he returns to again and again? Was that Krapp real and then killed and consummed by the bitter man shoving bananas down his throat? Consequently, we discover he is all and none of these. A life is not a static thing; it constantly changes. And, like Krapp, we will either embrace or resent what we do with our lives. This is a terrific play, and, in my humble (and I mean humble) opinion, Samuel Beckett's best.

Beauty by the master
This play represents Beckett at what is without doubt his most accessible and possibly his most beautiful. Beckett adores using human memory and the pain of nostalgia in his works, and both of these themes are put to astonishing use in this play.

In 'Krapp's Last Tape', our protagonist Krapp, now in his late 60s, plays back tapes that he has recorded on previous birthdays. Every year this task becomes a more and more onerous one, and every year he is more and more embarassed by "that stupid b**tard I took myself for thirty years ago". The pain of reconstructing the past is a pain that Beckett uses to dolourous effect throughout his prose and dramatic works and its use is particularly powerful here.

Although this play is in fact a monologue, it would appear to take the form of a conversation between a past and present Krapp. This allows the spectator to witness a striking decline in the morale and optimism of the play's protagonist in the intervening thirty years. One is left to assume that the mental attitude of the character will continue to rot over the miserable years that are left to him.

This beautiful rendering of sadness and human pain, is typical of one of the most astonishing and talented writers of the modern era. ... Read more

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Reservations
Even though Beckett is my favorite writer, I do not think that poetry was his best medium, and I think that this volume shows it all too well.Also, on a more technical note, this book does not include translations of allthe French works into English (which bothers me) or, for all that matter,all the English works into French.That said, there are great moments herethat poetry fans who are not necessarily also Beckett fans may enjoy. Beckett's first published work, an odd dissertation on Descartes called"Whoroscope," has a wonderfully Bohemian presence.I was mostimpressed, however, with the translations, which truly roar and pitch!Thebest are those of Apollinaire's "Zone," Rimbaud's "DrunkenBoat" (which Rimbaud himself would have loved, I think), and severalmaxims by the little-known French Revolutionary writer Sebastien Chamfort. When one reads of Rimbaud "foul(ing) unutterable Floridas," oneis inclined to think, "What about the utterable Floridas?"Thisis one of the reasons poetry is so much fun.

More for enthusiasts of French poetry than of modern theater
I beg to differ with the previous reviewer.The greatness of this collection has to do with its connection to French poetry, and not to any connection to Beckett's stage work.The aphorisms are of minor interest,for example, and appeal to those seeking the expository.Rather, thevolume's center of gravity is the translations of Eluard, which comprisemany pages.These poems and their translations are breathtakinglybeautiful, combining the intuitive and delicate play of sound and languageof a Hart Crane (or a Dylan Thomas) with the experimentation (anoccasionaly touch of Dada) and yet directness of a Rene Char.The fewpoems of Beckett himself are clearly following this lead -- if not directlyemulating-- and are themselves beautiful and experimental more than theyare meaningful.Witness the singsonginess of "Roundelay," or,for those who want something more comprehensible, the mixture of experimentand directness in "Mort de A.D." here a selection from theauthor's own translation from the French:

"je suis ce cours de sablequi glisse
entre le galet et la dune...

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on mylife
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to itsend

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease fromtreading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of adoor
that opens and shuts

what would I do without this worldfaceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where everyinstant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
withoutthis wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantingsthe frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky thatsoars
above its ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterdayand the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsivespace
amoing the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness

Iwould like my love to die
and the rain to be raining on thegraveyard
and on me walking the streets
mourning her who thoughtshe loved me"

I have never found a volume of poetry moreaccessible to people, other than poems of Rilke and of Rumi.Beckettmanages to combine a musicality of language with the communication ofcomplex and gentle heart-messages.Other poets could take a lesson fromBeckett:less is more.Not everything you commit to paper must find itsway to the marketplace; having one great book of poetry makes you no less aformidable poet than one with a dozen.Quite the contrary.

Wonderful transaltions and modernist experiments
These poems are not as intersting or important as his dramatic and prose works, but this volume has a few very good poems("Echo's Bones", "sanies I", "Saint Lo", "Whoroscope") andinteresting trasnaltions of Apolloinaire & Rimbaud.But it is hisadaptaions of the maxims of Sebastien Chamfort(called "Long afterChamfort") that give that characteristic mix of humor, despair,intimacy, isolation, confession and soul-searing. To wit, a few choicemaxims:

"Better on your arse than on your feet, Flat on your backthan either, dead than the lot.

Ask of all-healing, all-consoling thoughtSalve and solace for the woe it wrought.

sleep till death healeth comeease this life disease" ... Read more

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Beckett's first stage play portrays two tramps, trapped in an endless waiting for the arrival of a mysterious personage named Godot, while disputing the appointed place and hour of his coming. They amuse themselves with various bouts of repartee and word-play. ... Read more

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A strangely engrossing nothingness
While I'd heard of this play before, this was my first experience reading it. A play wherein nothing really happens; however, I was totally absorbed.For its lack of "happenings" there is great dialogue between Estragon and Vladimir.Layers upon layers of symbolism, and symbolism that about any reader could construe differently depending on the mindset, experience and perception of each respective reader.Worthy of its acclaim, I think.

Reading Waiting for Godot After Seeing the Play Again
The recent Roundabout Theater production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" -- with Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman...-- was a once in a lifetime experience. If "...Godot" is not the best play ever written, then it is certainly one of the top ten. A recently viewed video production (from Netflix) showed that the play can be produced to yield a range between its comic and tragic tendencies, when compared to the Roundabout version. This is not surprising, but it created a need to read the text, which is a translation from the original French. For me, the Roundabout production was the most illuminating, but the text of the play yielded insights that can come only from seeing words arranged on a page. Read the play and see it in many productions (live and video), in any order, and allow yourself to laugh out loud as your heart breaks.

"I can't go on... End it, please!"
I can't think of a better way to spend a few hours than to read this play!It is the PROTOTYPE -- the APOTHEOSIS -- the ACME -- the NO MORE DRAMA EVER NEED BE WRITTEN of all GREAT plays since the beginning of theatrical history!This is entertainment of the highest value, and of course a PROFOUND THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE!Check out the excerpt below if you don't believe me!

Estragon: I can't go on...

Vladimir: You must...

Estragon: Why?

Vladimir: I don't know... Because...

Estragon: Cause why?

Vladimir: Beats me... Because... Hold on, here comes Lucky! Maybe he has an answer!

Lucky: Hi ho! My cheerios are soggy!Walk the walk and talk the talk.Flames on horizon burn holes in socks...

Vladimir: See?What did I tell you?There's your answer!

Estragon: I can go on now!Thanks, Lucky!

Lucky: No problem, sport!

Estragon: Are you sure though?

I have but one thing to say: WOW!Sometimes, when I read this play or see it on the stage (which never fails to marvel me with its endlessly profound wit), I think how shallow my mind is when compared to the GREAT Samuel Beckett's.Do yourself a favor and buy this play, or at least go see a performance.If the above passage has failed to hook you in, then I would seriously question your LITERARY discernment.

Probably the worst peace of literature ever written
This is the most stupid thing i have ever read! Nothing happens except for two idiots wait around for a person who is never coming (godot). Its supposed to be about existentialism or what not for those artsy people who want to find some deep inner meaning. I could care less. I would have rather read about paint drying!! Did you know the author won a Nobel Prize for this! What a load of crap! Its like those artists who literally throw paint onto a canvass, make up some stupid story about how man is evil and destroying the earth or something, and then get it put up in an art museum. The back says it is the "cornerstone of twentieth century theater". I don't think so. This just shows that people are stupid enough to like it because they are supposed to because some artsy critic said how it changed his life. Well I don't think so. I have gained absolutely nothing by reading this and gone one step closer to hating modern "art" (if you can call it that!)! So don't waste your money on this. Read something worth your while like harry potter or lord of the rings, (or if you really agree with me and want to read something that liberal politicians just loathe, you should read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton)

Beckett's portrayal of modern life
Samuel Beckett's classic play, Waiting for Godot explores many deep philosophical topics including the purpose of life and life without the existence of God. This exploration in existentialism, a philosophical view that life is complicated and without a predetermined objective, is a great example of how an author can do more with less--that is, use simplicity to create complex themes and meanings. One of the main reasons I like this play is because of how Beckett uses a simple setting, simple dialogue, and simple stage direction to create a deeper meaning and view of life.
Some argue that the play becomes monotonous and repetitive, which it does, but I argue that Beckett does successfully create monotony in a way that does not bore the reader or theatergoer. Another reason I like the play is because Beckett uses comedy to engage the reader and keep audience interested in the little action that is happening onstage.
Finally I like the reality of the play. Like Estragon and Vladimir, everyone has something they are waiting for or something they are questioning. Whether that is the meaning of life or the questionability of an existence of a God, this play can be applied to almost anyone's life. Beckett captures a view of life that does not omit the mankind's deep spiritual search or life's unanswerable questions.
I would recommend this play to anyone who is interested a piece of theater that effectively captures mankind's need to find answers to the unanswerable questions.
... Read more

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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
These are not easy works. That said, they are perhaps more honest, profound, and original that the many other, more accessible works you could be reading otherwise. Each is certainly a more than a bit tiring, and, like so many other works by Beckett, you'll find yourself frustrated if you breeze through a single paragraph without nearly committing it to memory. So, if they are as worthwhile as I previously suggested, what might justify all the trouble? The one or two passages that will strike you - and perhaps only you - on each reading. The title of my review is one you'll know if you enjoy reading Beckett, but also take a peek at this one that I've never seen singled out or particularly commended:

The words too whosesoever. What room for worse! How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! Say the night is young alas and take heart. Or better worse say still a watch of night alas to come. A rest of last watch to come. And take heart. (99)

Like Joyce, Beckett seems to reward the reader in almost direct proportion to how much effort they might invest in any given work. If a work proves difficult, it remains so for a reason - no writer, contrary to reputation, ever seeks the label of "inaccessible" or "esoteric." Beckett, like all great writers, moves in a realm beyond paraphrase, and no readers should beat themselves up for failing to catch every nuance and every meaning at a first go or a single reading. Or multiple readings. All that remains for someone dedicated to reading the work is to trust in it and - perhaps most importantly - enjoy it. Even if that may mean only catching a single passage, one passage at a time.

"And you, as you always were.......Alone"
This trilogy, written towards the end of Beckett's illustrious career, shows Beckett at his darkest, densest and most inspired.

In the opening novella entitled 'Company' we are presented with a man lying on his back in the dark, receiving what he supposes are memories from his youth. Memories are a toy that Beckett loves to play with due to their fickle and fallible nature. They are, for Beckett, symptomatic of the human need to reach into the past to find something worthwhile in life. The need to reach back to find something better than what life currently offers. Ultimately what Beckett offers with 'Company' is a demonstration of the futility of such efforts.

A quite similar tone is set in the second part of the trilogy 'Ill Seen Ill Said', yet somehow the solitude of the central character is even more pronounced. In a situation reminiscent of his earlier dramaticule 'Rockaby', Beckett shows us the meagre existence of an old and solitary woman, and how she tries to while away her sad few remaining days. In this text Beckett makes beautiful use of one of his favourite muses, the miserable solitude of old age.

Although Beckett's prose work can always be said to be dense, nowhere is this more true than in the third part of this trilogy 'Worstward Ho'. Despite (or perhaps because of) its inaccessability, it represents Beckett's most clinical and concise criticism of the human condition. Here is where he most starkly portrays the human inability to accept the central void.

For any lover of Beckett or fine literature in general, this trilogy is an absolute necessity. These are three of the best works from one of the world's most exceptional writers.

Unbelievable
These three novels represent Samuel Beckett's greatest accomplishment.What are they about you might ask?Let's just say that they're about everything and nothing.They are profound commentaries on the universal existential crises plaguing all of mankind, and an utterly fascinating reduction of what it means to be a human. Be forewarned: these novels are extremely modern, abstract works of art, and for many will be very difficult reading.The final installment, _Worstword Ho_is officially the greatest work of fiction, page for page, that I have ever read.It is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.These novels are not to be taken lightly and it should be noted that Samuel Beckett put the "high" in highway.This is abstract literary thought at its far-seeing outer limit.

The Master's Masterpiece
Beckett was uncomfortable with comparisons to Joyce - which is understandable both in light of their relationship and of the difference in their respective aesthetics.However I believe that "Worstward Ho" holds a place in the Beckett canon similar to the position of "Finnegans Wake" in Joyce's work.Both are the last major works of their authors and both represent the most perfect realizations of their artistic visions.

"Company"is the union and fulfillment of two of Beckett's recurrent themes - autobiography and "closed place" imagery.Its prose is spare and lyrical, evoking powerful images while its narrative style explores the ambiguities of the relationship between narrator and auditor.

"Ill Seen Ill Said"is a beautiful narrative which is singular among Beckett's prose works in having a female narrator.Its expanded, yet still abstracted and "distilled", cosmology (in comparison to the "closed place" works of the '60s and '70s) represnts an interesting new direction (or destination?) for Beckett's writing.Originally written in French, this work's poetry is best appreciated in that language.

"Worstward Ho" is, I believe, Beckett's masterpiece.It recapitulates all the major themes of his work - the futility of the act of expression, the poverty of language and the problematic dichotomies of perceived and perceiver and of narrator and auditor.It is written in the barest, most stripped-down prose ever composed.At the same time, it is repetitive and resonant. Less than five thousand words long, it compresses volumes of meaning.The more reduced and undetermined the language is, the more potential meanings and significations its words take on.The attempt to pare and refine leads to an ambiguity which grows and dilutes - a paradox Beckett uses with mastery.Despite appearances, the work's structure is as intentionally articulated as its prose.It is also a work of great and black humor, full of punning and wordplay.It should be savored and read and reread.

Somehow read Nohow On
"Nohow On" is a Beckett's second trilogy, consisting of "Company," "Ill Seen, Ill Said," and "Worstword Ho," taking its title from the last lines of the final work.

If youronly Beckett experience has been with the ever-popular "Waiting forGodot" or "Endgame," then you're missing out (not to detractfrom the merit of those works).But if you thought either of those workswere too difficult and still hunger for more Beckett, you might be bestserved to start with his short plays rather than thistrilogy.

Nevertheless, "Nohow On" is a fascinating read. "Company" does not have any plot, setting, action, or charactersto speak of, but is still riveting and has a chilling last line."IllSeen, Ill Said"'s construction is just as vague, but not quite ascaptivating, though containing fascinating imagery."WorstwordHo" is probably the least accessable of the three, reading like astark prose poem.

All in all, the trilogy is a very difficult read, but asatidfying exercise; after all, Beckett is one of the finest writers of ourtime. ... Read more

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This is an eloquent and accessible introduction to one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. This book provides biographical and contextual information, but more fundamentally, it also considers how we might think about an enduringly difficult and experimental novelist and playwright who often challenges the very concepts of meaning and interpretation. It deals with his life, intellectual and cultural background, plays, prose, and critical response and relates Beckett's work and vision to the culture and context from which he wrote. McDonald provides a sustained analysis of the major plays, including Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days and his major prose works including Murphy, Watt and his famous 'trilogy' of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable).This introduction concludes by mapping the huge terrain of criticism Beckett's work has prompted, and it explains the turn in recent years to understanding Beckett within his historical context. ... Read more

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Sursum Corda
One of the many reasons I relish reading books by Beckett is the not infrequent recourse the man has to the moon. Loves that nighttime celestial cup of light I do, "the bogus moon of tenderness and magic," as Denis Johnson styles it in his wonderful poem Heat. And with Sam this enchanting lunacy is not just confined to the dramatic writings, Godot obviously and so forth, but whole portions of the prose are suffused with beams of the most poignant moonlight. Watt is vividly memorable in this regard. Check this out from just after Watt's final departure from Mr. Knott's house:

"The night was of unusual splendour. The moon, if not full, was not far from full, in a day or two it would be full, and then dwindle, until its appearance, in the heavens, would be that compared, by some writers, to a sickle, or a crescent."

Sam surely does not lie when he goes on to write on the very next page the following:

"Watt was always lucky with his weather."

What continues to this day to completely crack me up however is that bit in Watt where Mr. Spiro, a large gentleman who we are told "had been drinking, but not more than was good for him," verbally accosts the hapless Watt in the train compartment:

"I edit Crux, said Mr. Spiro, the popular catholic monthly. We do not pay our contributors, but they benefit in other ways. Our advertisements are extraordinary. We keep our tonsure above water. Our prize competitions are very nice. Times are hard, water in every wine. Of a devout twist, they do more good than harm. For example: Rearrange the fifteen letters of the Holy Family to form a question and answer. Winning entry: Has J. Jurms a po? Yes."

I've been out and about under the Autumn moon of late repeatedly asking and answering aloud this question and it hasn't failed yet to send me off sideways into kinks of laughter. Mr. Spiro even goes on to discuss at length a very particular spiritual inquiry sent in by one Martin Ignatius MacKenzie, author of something called The Chartered Accountant's Saturday Night! Yup and yessum, Watt is vividly memorable in any regard. Furthermore, when it comes to articles of daywear, Beckett's bowler hats have always had their special place in my heart--his greatcoats too. I never did get to own a greatcoat but I did try once to purchase a black bowler in London one time in the early Eighties and the Napoleonically pear-shaped huckster in the hattery told me straight up upon enquiry that they didn't carry that particular eh chapeau in my ahem size. Stone me, I vociferated in my fakest English accent. I wouldn't have minded so much I guess but the wretched little bourgeois with his capon belly hadn't even measured my head when he triumphantly blurted out his announcement. The cheek of the chap. The city of London is not at all to be sneezed at although while there just prior to the fracas in the toque shop I lost complete possession of one of my front teeth, false as matter of fact, another story, but a dental mishap nonetheless that left a most irregular gap in my general aspect and one that may indeed have partially accounted for the cartoonical imperiousness of the midget hat monger. At any rate it was round about the exact same time and place that I first clapped eyes on Beckett's 1934 collection of individually named chapters and right from the off I knew Dante and the Lobster and Ding-Dong, chapters 1 and 3, respectively, were the full and enduring five bob entirely. Some of the other chapters suffer slightly from a type of literary embellishment that I suppose you'd have to chalk up to youth or some such yet to be outgrown exuberance but these lesser episodes are nevertheless by no manner of means impossible to get a right kick out of for the most part, not by a long shot. The real surprise though this time through More Pricks Than Kicks was Walking Out, chapter 6. Now here's an early set of pages that contain in perfect embryo the exquisite austerity of the mature Beckett. I can't believe I missed the crafty intelligence in this comic gem all these years. "Game ball," sez the vagabond in response to Belacqua's timid greeting and really I cannot for the life of me put it any better myself. Yellow too of course, the last tale here but one, chapter 9, is as droll and savoury a little narrative as you are likely to meet with between two boards in a donkey's age. That Belacqua Shuah, that kind of a cretinous Tom Jones, some of his adventures truly are uncommonly good for what ails you. I mean who for a start could ever forget the charred rounds of bread and sweating Gorgonzola of this lovable layabout's famous luncheon sandwich? That viscid salve of Savora, flying splinters of vanquished toast? Not me. I tried replicating just such a scorching sanger myself one time, right down to the green cheese and the foment of mustard and salt and Cayenne pepper, and believe me my mouth too burned and ached with the exploit. Glorious that was!

a neglected great
Beckett's More Pricks Than Kicks is a hilarious collection of short stories. Far from being "stark" or "grim," it is a fudge-brownie layer cake of language and thick with dark, rich, black, earthy humor. These stories are a valuable corrective in reading Beckett who can come across as despairing, minimalist death warmed over. In fact, like Yeats and Joyce, he is as stout as Irish beer and as bracing as Irish whiskey.

a new divine comedy
The short stories about Belacqua are the most beautiful stories Beckett had ever written. They are so picturesque that you can feel the atmosphere with him. The short stories are about love, drinking and poetry. In Dante and the Lobster, Belacqua tries to roast a toast to a specific point. It takes all his energy to make the preparations for this ritual. In Fingal, Belacqua takes his girlfriend Winnie out for a ride to Poltrane. In the end he missed her and rode the way back with a stolen bike. In a wet night he walks in the rain to Alba. On his way to her, he gets controlled by an officer. In the control he pukes all over the shoes of the officer and tries to clean the shoes with a newspaper. In this moment you are all by yourself and laugh out loud. You can't hide your joy of this lyrical depiction. The connection between the ten short stories is the life of Belacqua. He dies in one of the later stories by chance in a hospital. It is so funny because in an earlier story he hasn't got the strength to kill himself and Ruby.
As you see, Belacqua needs a lot of girlfriends in the short stories. He fills it with black humour and it is a joy to read.

Beckett says: "Don't be a Belacqua"
Though some people may be frustrated by "More Pricks than Kicks'" discontinuity of time and seeming discontinuity of plot, they mistake their own reaction."MPTK" is a stark but strikinglybeautiful collection of short stories unified by the main character'sstriking personality. That character is Belacqua Shuah, Samuel Beckett'sDubliner anti-hero; he, auto-biographically, has many elements in commonwith the author, which makes the book read somewhat like a honest andcreative confessional.

Sometimes humorous, somtimes shockinglypessimistic, the short story format works surprisingly well, often allowingfor especially clever closing images or phrases.The short story formatalso makes reading Beckett, rarely an easy task, a touch moreaccessable.

But through it all, Beckett, the master of the declarativesentence, constantly condemns his main character; Belacqua cannot find itwithin himself to shed a tear when one of his three wives dies, nor does hebuy his new wife a new ring, recycling his old wife's ring (inscripted withher name and all) for his supposed new love.This incorrigible bumbler isintellectual to a fault, and dies friendless and unmourned.So all in all,read about Belacqua, but don't be him.

Read "Yellow" also
"Yellow" is worth serious attention as well as "Dante and the Lobster". ... Read more

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One of a series concerning the major plays of leading 20th-century playwrights. This guide introduces, explores and analyzes in detail the principal themes and styles of the work of Samuel Beckett. It also places it in the context of modern theatre, and includes a select bibliography. ... Read more

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Photographs of Samuel Beckett by John Haynes, one of the leading theater photographers in the field, appear here with three new essays by Beckett's biographer and friend, James Knowlson. Haynes' photographs include previously unpublished studies of Beckett in addition to productions and rehearsals. Knowlson'sfirst essay combines a verbal portrait of Beckett with a personal memoir of the writer. The second essay considers the influence of paintings on his theatrical imagery while the third offers a detailed account of Beckett's work as a director of his own plays. James Knowlson was the original founder of the Beckett archive (now the International Beckett Foundation) at the University of Reading, which also houses the Beckett Collection, now the world's largest collection of Beckett resources. Knowlson's previous publications include Frescoes of the Skull: The Later Prose and Drama of Samuel Beckett (Grove, 1980) and the highly praised biography Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (Simon & Schuster, 1999). John Haynes was privileged to work alongside Beckett as photographer in residence at the Royal Court Theatre in the 1970s, when Beckett was directing his plays. Haynes continues to work with the leading directors and actors of British contemporary theatre. ... Read more

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The year 2006 marked the centenary of the birth of Nobel-Prize winning playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. To commemorate the occasion, this collection brings together twenty-three leading international Beckett scholars from ten countries, who take on the centenary challenge of "revolving it all": that is, going "back to Beckett"-the title of an earlier study by critic Ruby Cohn, to whom the book is dedicated-in order to rethink traditional readings and theories; provide new contexts and associations; and reassess his impact on the modern imagination and legacy to future generations.

These original essays, most first presented by the Samuel Beckett Working Group at the Dublin centenary celebration, are divided into three sections: (1) Thinking through Beckett, (2) Shifting Perspectives, and (3) Echoing Beckett. As repeatedly in his canon, images precede words. The book opens with stills from films of experimental filmmaker Peter Gidal and unpublished excerpts from Beckett's 1936-37 German Travel Diaries, presented by Beckett biographer James Knowlson, with permission from the Beckett estate.

Renowned director and theatre theoretician Herbert Blau follows with his personal Beckett "thinking through." Others in Part I explore Beckett and philosophy (Abbott), the influences of Bergson (Gontarski) and Leibniz (Mori), Beckett and autobiography (Locatelli), and Agamben on post-Holocaust testimony (Jones). Essays in Part II recontextualize Beckett's works in relation to iconography (Moorjani), film theoretician Rudolf Arnheim (Engelberts), Marshall McLuhan (Ben-Zvi), exilic writing (McMullan), Pierre Bourdieu's literary field (Siess), romanticism (Brater), social theorists Adorno and Horkheimer (Degani-Raz), and performance issues (Rodríguez-Gago). Part III relates Beckett's writing to that of Yeats (Okamuro), Paul Auster (Campbell), Caryl Churchill (Diamond),William Saroyan (Bryden), Minoru Betsuyaku and Harold Pinter (Tanaka) and Morton Feldman and Jasper Johns (Laws). Finally, Beckett himself becomes a character in other playwrights' works (Zeifman). Taken together these essays make a clear case for the challenges and rewards of thinking through Beckett in his second century. ... Read more

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A more concise form of expression
Samuel Beckett is known most widely for his plays ("Waiting for Godot") and his prose ("Molloy") than his poetry, but this collection displays to the reader that Beckett had a mastery over every literary form, including the world of verse.

Beckett's poetry bears many of the same styles and composition methods as other 20th century writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, but where these others focused on themes of isolation and disenchantment, Beckett employs striking stream-of-consciousness imagery to relate particular moments in time, snapshots of everyday life filtered through the perception of a mind raging with repressed anger and sexuality (see "Whoroscope" for a prime example). Furthermore, his poetry, similar to his drama and fiction, is rife with religious symbolism and allusions, much like his contemporary James Joyce.

Those looking for bombastic, rhythmic, romantic poetry with witty rhymes and colorful adjectives probably won't find Beckett amusing, but the emotional energy and pure expression of this Irish genius' verse should not overlooked.

Keep in mind, also, that many of the poems are in French, though the author translates a few for comparison.

Beckett's poetry will blow you away
Samuel Beckett is very celebrated as a playwright and to a lesser extent, as a novelist. However he is phenomenally underrated as a poet. This relatively short volume shows much of the poet's work in English and in French often with parallel translations, as well as Beckett's translations of poems by famous French poets.

For anyone passionate about Beckett's work, this collection of poems will be an absolute gem. Perhaps it is because of the brevity and concision of verse, but it is within poetry that Beckett's bleakness takes on its greatest power. Here he conveys in an 8 line poem, what he would spend an entire play expressing elsewhere.

As well as the awesome nature of his own work, Beckett gives English translations of other poets who bear a striking resemblance to his style. Poems such as 'Scene' and 'Second Nature' have a power that is rendered even more immense through Beckett's translation.

To all Beckettian readers I say that you do not know the true beauty of his work until you have familiarised yourself with his phenomenal poetry. ... Read more

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From A to Z, this is an indispensable guide to the works, life, and thought of one of the most important writers of our time. The Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett was a literary treasure, and this work represents the only comprehensive reference to the concepts, characters, and biographical details mentioned by, or related to, Beckett. Painstakingly and lovingly compiled by acclaimed Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, it is alphabetical, cross-referenced, and laid out in a very user-friendly format. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett provides an organized trove of information for students and scholars alike, and is a must for any serious reader of Beckett. ... Read more

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Easily the best reference work on Beckett known to me
This is a fine, scholarly work that should be in the hands not just of scholars but also of every serious student of Beckett and late 20th century drama.The cross-referencing is very useful.Above all, each entry is based on a thorough knowledge of the literature on the subject.First rate.

A major work
This is the definitive work on Beckett. You should buy ten copies of this for all your friends. This work is coming back in vogue. Be ahead of the curve. ... Read more

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This is the second in the famous trilogy of novels written by Samuel Beckett in the late 1940s. An old man is dying in a room. His bowl of soup comes, his pots are emptied. He waits to die. And while he waits, he constructs stories, mainly to pass the time. Saposcat, the Lambert family, Macmann and his nurse Moll. Other figures weave in and out of his vision and his imagination. This remarkable soliloquy, so intrinsically Beckettian, is as important as Waiting for Godot or Endgame, the famous plays that made his name. Sean Barrett gives a masterly performance. ... Read more

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Samuel Beckett's long-standing friend, James Knowlson, recreates Beckett's youth in Ireland, his studies at Trinity College, Dublin in the early 1920s and from there to the Continent, where he plunged into the multicultural literary society of late-1920s Paris. The biography throws new light on Beckett's stormy relationship with his mother, the psychotherapy he received after the death of his father and his crucial relationship with James Joyce. There is also material on Beckett's six-month visit to Germany as the Nazi's tightened their grip. The book includes unpublished material on Beckett's personal life after he chose to live in France, including his own account of his work for a Resistance cell during the war, his escape from the Gestapo and his retreat into hiding. Obsessively private, Beckett was wholly committed to the work which eventually brought his public fame, beginning with the controversial success of "Waiting for Godot" in 1953, and culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. James Knowlson is the general editor of "The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett". ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

For Beckett scholars only
This is not much of a book. It is a collection of scraps of writing done by Beckett. There are Essays on Aesthetics,Words about Writers, Words about Painters.Beckett writes about Joyce, Proust, Sean O'Casey and Irish poets like Denis Devlin, and Thomas McGreevy. The language is extremely difficult and Beckett often uses words I doubt most readers will know. Some of the essays are in French, and Beckett would not allow them to be translated. There is little to my mind which signals the great Beckett narratives which are the heart of his work. The editor of this book had Beckett's permission to bring together these pieces but it seems to me they will add nothing to Beckett's reputation.

Too little, again
Beckett at 22.Who could write that essay at 22, but Beckett?In fairness, most of the ideas are from Joyce's mouth to Beckett's pen: but it is Beckett's pen, not Joyce's mouth that interests us.Lines scarely better than those in Beckett's "Proust".

The danger, after all, is in the neatness of identifications.

Good, rare occasional pieces
The hard to find piece "Dante...Bruno.Vico..Joyce" is included in this collection, and for this piece only, this is valuable for all Beckett enthusiasts."Dante" was the leadoff essay to acollection of essays by James Joyce's peers on "Work inProgress," which later became "Finnegans Wake."Beckett'sinsight into the works of Dante, Vico and Joyce is scary (I'm not sure thatBeckett cared too much about Bruno).These three figures have come to beimportant influences in Beckett's writings, and the fusion of Dante andJoyce reveals the very core of Beckett's own oeuvre.(This is the piecewhere Beckett defiantly stated: "Here form is content, content isform."Also, the line: "Literary criticism is notbook-keeping.")In any case, Beckett the great prose-stylist, ahealthy rival to Joyce, demonstrates his worth as a critic, perhaps thebest critic of Joyce.Also, included in this book is the "ThreeDialogues" with Georges Duthuit.This is the classic pseudo-interviewthat reveals some of Beckett's greatests remarks on art:

"Yet Ispeak of an art turning from it in disgust, weary of its puny exploits,weary of pretending to be able, of being able, of doing a little better thesame old thing, of going a little further along a drearyroad."

"The stars are undoubtedly superb, as Freud remarked onreading Kant's cosmological proof of the existence ofGod."

"All that should concern us is the acute and increasinganxiety of the relation itself, as though shadowed more and more darkly bya sense of invalidity, of inadequacy, of existence at the expense of allthat it excludes, all that it blinds to."

Superb.It's hard toimagine giving good word to Beckett.It is better to let these wordstrickle, slide, and coagulate on their own.As Beckett quoted from Freud,"The stars are undoubtedly superb..." ... Read more

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There is nothing short about Beckett's shorts
In this collection: his shorts: First Love, From an Abandoned Work, Enough, Imagination Dead Imagine, Ping, Not I, Breath.

First Love and Ping are authoritative and powerful. Beckett's humor can toss the livers of the readers down the dune. Let's sample this passage taken from p. 33 of First Love:

"One day she had the impudence to announce she was with child, and four or five months gone into the bargain, by me of all people! She offered me a side view of her belly. She even undressed, no doubt to prove she wasn't hiding a cushion under her skirt, and then of course for the pure pleasure of undressing. Perhaps it's mere wind, I said, by the way of consolation."

The scenes of parsnips, his moving in, the bench, and priapic disturbance are riveting, impure, and just wicked. Beckett has such a command of language. The reader can also perceive this command in his experimental/musical linguistic cleavage in Ping. Ping takes language on a level beyond abstraction. Language that makes sense, that shares its foundation with clarity. The sole work of sound and music!

Others have found Beckett absurd, obtuse, difficult, obscure, but I find his work so powerful, so focus, so clear, so precise. It makes me wonder where readers go especially when I think they simply got lost in the ravine of Beckett's clarity.

Sangers in the cemetery
When take the air he must the first-person felly in this exceptionally well-wrought short story takes a turn in the graveyard where his father lies inhumed. Lunches there too sometimes so he does, on sandwiches and a banana. Have a banana. That's a motif that is. A recurring motif, I'm afraid. Krapp's dumbshow creeps to mind but never mind about Krapp, he sidled into the spotlight at a much later date. In the 69th year of his age he is to boot, a wearish old man. Says so in the stage directions. White face. Purple nose. Disordered grey hair. Unshaven. No indeed and his bananas notwithstanding, never mind about Krapp. The felly that this felly in First Love really reminds me of is that other first-person felly in the equally exceptionally well-wrought From an Abandoned Work. Hardly likely that they're one and the same stravaging moribund but still certain sardonic postures and turns of phrase make me wonder. The felly in First Love cracks up over some of the inscriptions he wanders past, clutching the headstones and whatnot for support such is the drollery of one or two. The felly in From an Abandoned Work recalls with a kind of exuberant and hilarious wretchedness the time when his mother took up singing and playing the piano. That was awful, qouth in part the harried and hapless chap. The link is as I say not to be completely credited but for some strangely compelling reason I like to believe the duo do have one plot in common. In any case if Sam Beckett in either of these two sublime narratives doesn't grab hold of your actual being and tug on your overcoat about something well then all I can do frankly is paraecho Red Barber in his soundbooth on that fateful day in 1951 and say: Thomson swings. Pause. And we'll see you next year. It's either that or repeat ad nauseam, have a banana. You know what though, Krapp does to be sure listen to a much younger version of himself on those blasted tapes of his--maybe I should in fact factor in this dude into my thinking here. That's Beckett for you, full to bursting with the exhilarating confusion of innumerable prospects.

The rhythm and silenced passion of his writing is amazing.
I enjoyed this book so much that I am currently writing a paper on it.I'm exploring some Beckett's amazing treatment of the conciousness and the movement that is inherent in each of the pieces.I'm also touching on thepieces as they relate to phenomenology and the study of experienceexpressed in conciousness.Unfortunantly, I need to know how thiscollection was compiled, when, and under whose authorization.This is veryimportant to my thesis.If any one knows where I could find thatinformation I would appreciate a response.

Wunnerful
There are few short stories that leave one feeling satisfied.Fortunately, this is not one of them.

It has been ages since I read it, but I cannot help but recall the feeling it evoked.

All in all, love fails us.All in all, we fail to tell well of the process by which it fails us.Beckett fails better than us all.God bless you, Sam, for always pointing us toward the unutterable. The other stories I do not remember.But "First Love" alone is worth all these fellows ask of you. ... Read more

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Histronic Histonic Works made History
One of the most beautiful books I have ever read/owned. A comprehensive, luminary, brilliant collection of Beckett thirty-two dramatic works including Waiting for Godot, Happy Days, Words and Music, Eh Joe, Krapp's Last Tape, Ghost Trio,...but the Clouds..., What Where. Beckett is well known for his Waiting for Godot, but I think, of this brilliant collection, Endgame is superior. His aesthetics in it is both more subliminal and corporeal. And penetrates deep in the mind's soul, where the imaginative is free to roam freely. He is able to in Endgame subverts the limitation of words, and use words to reinforce the concept that there is no limitation to words (as soon as it becomes sound/shadow/breath: basic tools of existence). Whereas, Waiting for Godot focuses language from an existential standpoint. I would have loved to see Footfalls and Ghost Trio in a real theater instead of the theater of the mind because of its strong physicality and interval/spacialness of time. That Time, my favorite of his short short dramatic work, appeals to me because of Beckett's aptitude for fluidity. For the first time, I finally understood not from a theoretical standpoint what it means when language comes to full circle. The language of That Time is poignant because it plays on that concept of circle and motion and movement and materiality on a semantic level. I savored That Time with much delight.

Beckett Brilliance
Beautiful book. Love it. Perfect for a super nice but reasonable priced gift.

Beckett: A unique voice and an important writer who captured the post apocalyptic fear, loneliness and humor of the mid to late twentieth century.

I have the 4 book hard back collection and I love it.
I ordered the "box set" of all four about a year ago.I had to wait 4 months for it to be delivered but it was worth it.A wonderful collection of his work. I read the play, then watch the DVD on Becket on tape. These books are good quality. Not the best on the planet, but more than acceptable.I am really glad I bought them, and that I okay'd the continuation of the order when Amazon told me of the delay.These books, and the Becket on tape of in the top 3 things I am glad I bought from Amazon.

way too sophisticated for my tastes
I will never buy high-falutin' literature again.Cerebral constipation comes to mind.
If you find yourself interested in this fellow's work I suggest you support your local public library.

Excellent edition
To all Beckett lovers - this is the ultimate, yet cheap, edition. All plays are there.The only compromise is the quality of the paper. ... Read more

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Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted them, staging them in his plays, or using them in his fiction. Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other terms, like 'metaphor' or 'representation', and, in the process, to analyse Beckett's use of images borrowed from philosophy and aesthetics. This study, first published in 2006, carefully examines Beckett's thoughts on the image in his literary works and his extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between philosophy and literature, and how Beckett makes use of images which are borrowed from, or drawn into dialogue with, philosophical images from Geulincx, Berkeley, Bergson, and the ancient Stoics. Uhlmann's reading of Beckett's aesthetic and philosophical interests provides a revolutionary reading of the importance of the image in his work. ... Read more

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Samuel Beckett, one of the century's most original playwrights and novelists, was also passionately interested in music. He once told a friend that all his work had been written for a voice. Samuel Beckett and Music is the first full-length work to deal exclusively with Beckett and music.This collection of essays, most written especially for the volume, brings together a number of leading composers and academics who analyze their response to Beckett's intense musicality. ... Read more