Why should we read Beckett? |
 |
|
|
What questions about Beckett and his work do you think still need to be answered? |
Siggy
because he challenges us, by removing that safety net of morality and reason, he forces the absurd upon us like no one else
can
Pablo - Read Beckett?
Please, someone who appreciates Beckett, respond, help me out—what is a key for a novice wanting to get some of what he has to offer? I've tried, having faith that there is something important and interesting there; but, just can't get it.
Rick - For the novice?
A spur to get a new Beckett reader going?... They should know that his language is sparse (i.e., they needn't know splashes of Latin or be versed in Roman Catholicism, a la Joyce; that it is often funny.
I would have a newcomer read mid- or later Beckett works. I find his very early work, including even Watt, strangely tough. But, hey, tell 'em to read Godot and tell them it's a comedy.
Pierre from Montreal
Because Beckett tells us to keep on going, whilst trying to get the most of a potentially happy (even though too often unhappy) life; the point of life is to have fun, if there is any point at all...
Sam is the greatest cheerleader of all the writers in the world, after Henry Miller.
Happy Days!
Pearl Marie Brown
I think I am going to read Beckett because of his thought that holes in paper can open up and take a person fathoms from anywhere.
Kelly Anspaugh - Genius and humility
I guess that's what has the strongest effect on me, creates my strong respect for this man: how he used his genius to represent loss and failure in a beautiful way. Such a strong affection for the man and his work. Such comfort in his corpus. Of all the writers I've studied, the one I would have been proudest to have called friend.
Jon - Reading Beckett??
To quote Beckett from WORSTWARD HO:
"No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Anonymous - Absurdist Theatre - the point?
Any idiot can face a crisis - its day to day living that wears you out.
JRF - Read Beckett?
Ease into him. Read Molloy. It's the third best of his many novels (behind The Unnameable and Malone Dies). He's funny in all of them; in a way like no other's; but for my taste, Molloy is as funny as Mark Twain. As for the "serious" Beckett—he's never not serious; just can't help laughing and joking—the "it's day to day living that wears you out"—it's all there in Molloy, too. But read, at first, for the laughs. They'll take you somewehere else by themselves.
Michael from Madrid - Read Beckett?
Start with All that fall, the radio play, then read/watch Rough for Threatre 1 and read or listen to the radio play The old tune and then read Murphy.
The radio plays can be listened to on the rte radio 1 web page Follow the Beckett 100 link.
Charles Kell - On Reading Beckett
To find oneself in a horrible predicament, then to read Beckett, one thought or many thoughts flood the brain and heart, then the predicament can and will be faced—one will go on—because of Beckett.
arka chattopadhyay
We should read Beckett to learn the craft of madness, to fathom the hidden secrets of language & non-language. Beckett is a folkloric myth-maker whose work is the history of civilisation—the encrypted core of human existence. Beckett's Biblical rhetoric of authority may jut out, but we would always have the soothing silences! His war was with language of his expression. To him, words could never express the self, they rather problematized & alienated the self! Beckettian dilemma is thus to say on in a world of ill seen-ill said! TO RESTORE SILENCE IS THE ROLE OF OBJECTS! That is what he tries to do all the while, reaching out to the metalinguistic void! Even if the great man fails, as he says it's always a newer & better failure! Beckett is the most original, powerful, visionary & prophetic of the 20th century literary personalities. I just love him!
killian o donnell
Good God. So much ernest desperation. There is nothing 'to get' in Samuel Beckett. Come back down to the page and read. The marvel is self-evident in each and every sentence. Basta.
mella - Beckett
At the first time, thank you for this blog that as evey one of us may notice gives the opportunity to evoke view towards reading Beckett. Till now, Beckett and his writtings are still inaccessible. thy're locked. They are so full of mysteries like Beckett itself.
I cannot denied that reading him provide me with a great appreciation. Yet, i think that i was found several time in front of a work that needs more and more implication. I can ever say that one reading can never be suffisient to hold all its meaning.
All this to ask if there is someone who is interested or want to accept to discuss about some of his works especially the "innommable"????
It will be of a great pleasure for me:-)
alain from montreal - smell
for pablo: You should try to smell the words before trying to read them.
Pablo - Thank you all
So much help; many thanks. OK, I'll fail better; I'll go on; maybe I'll even come back down to the page and read, after smelling the words of course.
George - Beckett delivers Keats's Promise
Early in my literary explorations I repeatedly
encountered phrases echoing Keats's (and other's) idea that Truth is Beauty.
I could repeat that mantra and use it effectively in papers, but I didn't really
intuitively understand it. Then I read Beckett. I was disquieted from the start,
but kept going, and going, and going, even when I thought I could go no further.
Beckett removes all our familiar landmarks in literature, those things we have
grown comfortable with. He removes all traces of what we think of as Beauty
and replaces them with long spinning tales that really go nowhere. He forces
us to adopt a new perspective outside of the traditional literary views, and
he does it with such humor. Within these rambling diatribes, between the lines,
we see the Truth, and that is truly beautiful. Beckett made Keats real for
me.
Matt Melia - Roger Blin - WWII
Can anyone let me know what Blin DID during the war? was he active in resistance activity like Beckett? was he involved at all? cheers.
jonathan - read beckett?
i would suggest going to see one of his plays or watching them on dvd - it will enable you to understand his philosphy which permeates all
of his works. when you see his characters come to life, you will understand his humour, nuances and characters and it will make reading his books a lot easier.
puchin - Why read Beckett?
Dare I say it in this era of celebrity? Dare I breach the purity of the divide between the artist and the artist's work? Dare I defy
Beckett's own resistance to celebrity, but generosity to anyone interested in the work? Times change, and we are here in 2007. And so I shall. (Reasons, obvious.)
For there is no other 'contemporary' artist, whose work is an expression of who he was, more than Samuel Barclay Beckett. Sometimes I think Sam Beckett was the last truly noble man: a great humanist, at once brave and modest. His deeply felt understanding and sympatico for men and women and children of this lovely and troubled Earth is in the work and in the life. Beckett's enormous, impeccable kindness, his gentleness, his generosity, his funny bone and love of laughter: all of the man is in the work.
Such an immensely beloved man is beloved for many reasons. Find out why in the work: look for the audacity written by a gentle man whose voice was so soft and low. The beauty of his person is embodied in the well of empathy and sympathy that were integral to his artistic impulse.
Also: his erudition is such a bracing contrast to the lack of such, at least in the current public arena of blow hards.
So, buy a bottle of Bushmill's, ("since 1608") Beckett's preferred whiskey, pour a tall glass and open the four-volume Grove Complete Works, especially if you are having a 'I can't go on, I'll go on' kind of day.
(month,year,life...)
Dan - The Exhibition
The online exhibition ia a marvel. It is a chance to see publications of legendary rarity: Henry Music, More Pricks than Kicks and the Bordas Murphy for a few. Kudos to the Center for sharing these images.
