Known for his classic ‘Waiting For Godot’
Samuel Beckett’s prose fiction generally gets less attention and what a shame
this is. Beckett is peerless in
prose and works with servre clarity of vision, a master in the manipulation of
language combined with a compassion for those at the margins of socitey. Though this book contains four
novellas, ‘The End’, ‘The Expelled’, ‘The Calmative’ and ‘First Love’, I
actually think this is really just one story broken up and rearranged. There are repetitions that give it away
such as the cowpat with the love heart drawn in it and the same reaction to a
dying plant. It’s not as
complicated as some of his other writings, such as the maddening ‘Play’,
evoking a child-like simplicity in a more pastoral time, early Twenith
Centuary, in a more pastoral place, Ireland, while combining the streets of the
city, Paris. With these novellas
Beckett first uses the French language after making the decsion, to pare down
his writing and give him fewer options I think, to write completely in
French. He merges convosational
talk with obscure allusions. His
homeless characters seem to be naturally educated but unable to control their
lives satisfactorily. Often they
are searching for a place to lay their head ending with a type of
trandenscental despair or beign indifference. ‘So there it is’ he seems to be saying ‘Now what?’.
It is poetic without being typically lyric but he does possibly
romanticise a vagabound life although it can’t be said that his characters are
happy with their situation, they just seem to have been born into it and can do
little about it. Written with huge
pathos for the human condition to be wandering from philosophy to philosophy
without satisfaction trying to find a place between the dirt and the sky where
there can be home. Bleak, yes, but
inspiring with such purity that it cleaneses out the pallet leaving it afresh
for new possibilities. It’s very
easy to read, I managed it in two days, but it gives you enough to get your
teeth into such as how to cope in a loveless world. The last sentence of the first novella is beautiful where
the character after being unable to find anywhere to live sinks in a boat:
‘The
memory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the
likeness of my life, I mean without the courage to the end or the strength to
go on.’
It is stark and bold and as Harold Pinter
has put it: ‘He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going. He bring forth a body of beauty…’ I
couldn’t agree more, for all the dark light there is unmistakable beauty that
radiates out from his lonely characters who are alien even to themselves and
who walk in a strange universe that is indifferent to their survival. Not for the faint of heart or the weak
of stomach, it has guts and strength and determined will. Writing like polished crystal it is
multi-faceted and demands reapeated readings.
Beckett’s known for his drama but I would highly recommend his prose
works as well. They are rich and
rewarding if tough and uncompromising.
These are long poems and would be good if read out loud as each word
seems to be carefully chosen for just the right effect. He has written novels, a so called
trilogy, but if you want a quick glimpse into Beckett’s world then this is a
good introduction to the French writing Irishman, and of course fail better.
No comments:
Post a Comment