1001 books you must read before you die - Samuel Beckett

[camus]

Got this doorstop reference book for Chrimble.

And some fascinating books are held within.

Just read A Confederacy of Dunces and wasn't dissapointed.

That aside I guess I'm addressing this to Cam and any other Samuel Beckett aficionados.

He has quite a few entries and after reading some of the rather oblique reviews, I'm enthralled!

Entries such as:

Beckett is the great master of every possible shade of decline and certainly its unrivalled comedian.

And this, which seems to crop up throughout the reviews in one form or another:

His stories are all the confessions of a syntax addict whose phantom fix is total disagreement with himself.

From what I can fathom on a very basic level is: His writing is based on syntax, these patterned relations form a base for his characters and his tales?

Very Odd.

I Know Waiting for Godot. Thats about it.

What am I letting myself in for?

cheers
Kris

[k-j]

The first quote I agree with, the second I'm not so sure about. Beckett certainly uses some unusual syntax in his prose but I think this expresses his themes rather than defines them. For example, the endless clauses of 'Watt', by which single propositions are extended over ten or twenty pages, illustrate the failure of rationalism to account for even the simplest of observations; the unfettered interior monologue of 'The Unnameable' seems to bespeak a mind without a body, without constraint but also without grounding. One of the strongest themes in B is the insistence on the necessity of language, and stories, in defining oneself, even while that same language is groundless and untrustworthy. The gnarled syntax also has the direct effect of being difficult to read, so you get the feeling that the further you read, and the more you try to construct some coherent reality out of the words, the deeper you sink into a quicksand of abstraction, and you realise that this one step forward, two steps back reading process mirrors exactly the writing process in which B's distracted protagonists are mired - yet what other option is there?

I'd like to talk bollocks all day about Beckett but that would be wrong. It's definitely a unique experience. I'd start with 'Mercier and Camier', a novella which is similar to 'Godot' in many ways, then try 'Watt' and the Trilogy. 'Murphy' is a different kind of novel, very smart-arsey and ostentatious, but still worth reading. Then there are the early short stories in 'More Pricks than Kicks' which have pretentious Joyce acolyte written all over them (but are still quite funny), and the later short prose which is really ghostly and bleak.

Also worth having is the 'Beckett on Film' DVD set, which has some very TV good adaptations of the less often performed stage works. And Jeremy Irons in a silly white wig.

[camus]

Thanks KJ. Illuminating to a point. From that point I guess i'll have to delve.

Shit, I'm not going to war!

Taking literature so seriously disturbs me somewhat.

"yet what other option is there?"

[cameron]

Kris,

I'm familiar with this doorstopper - it's in the college library.

I have to confess that I haven't read all his prose but I think the Trilogy (Molloy, Malone and The Unnamable) is a masterpiece. The three books grind gradually towards nothingness: less plot, less story, less character - until all you have left are the words -chuntering away in the darkness. Interestingly these novels were originally written in French in an attempt to break away from other styles - especially (as kj says) Joyce.

Beckett's work has spawned more academic verbiage than almost any other writer. Don't let this put you off reading a true genuis though.

C

PS he's also very funny - which people who don't like him usually over look.

[camus]

The trilogy it is then, I wonder if you can get them bound in a handy trilogy package?

I'll take a look.

cheers
Kris

[cameron]

See my A Store!

[camus]

Just ordered it through your Amazon Link.

Plus "Pretending to Be Me: Philip Larkin, a Portrait [Audiobook]"

Tom Courtney taking on the role of Philip Larkin.

Synopsis
PRETENDING TO BE ME is an intimate, acerbic and occasionally scurrilous show about the poet, jazz aficionado and Hull University librarian, Philip Larkin. Larkin ('the magnificent Eeyore of British verse' - Daily Telegraph) has moved home; surrounded by packing cases, playing selections from his favourite jazz LPs, and making himself cups of tea - and later whiskies - he reflects wryly on writing and life. Hilarious and moving, the narrative shifts seamlessly between Larkin's outrageous wit and the poems, which Courtenay reads with powerful directness and simplicity. PHILIP LARKIN, one of the foremost figures in 20th-Century English poetry, feared his epitaph would be: 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad'. This, and other familiar poems, 'An Arundel Tomb', 'The Whitsun Weddings' and 'High Windows' are included in PRETENDING TO BE ME.

A good one for the MP3 player.

On the Amazon note, is there any difference in your commission ordering from the store or through the Amazon link?

[cameron]

Thanks man.

No, the commission is 5% for all puchases irrespective of which link is used.

Enjoy the Larkin.

Did you see the Auden programme on Beeb 4 last night? I must admit I gave up half way through. Too many actors doing readings in "pretentious mode" for my liking. Interesting life he had though.

C

[camus]

I did catch the second Auden programme, but like you gave up half way through, watched Jarhead instead.

[David]

PS he's also very funny - which people who don't like him usually over look.

This is also true of Proust, dontcha know.

[camus]

This is also true of Proust, dontcha know.

David, was that a backgammon compliment or a mere slur?

[camus]

A note on Auden, what an amazing lived in face! Like a drunken basset hound.

On the lines of lived in rock star faces, Mick Jagger, the New York Dolls, yet different somehow, all the years of creativity, stencilled in, but without the drugs - perhaps.

[k-j]

Someone told me that when the elderly Auden was having his portrait drawn (I think by Hockney), the artist looked at him and said "Jesus, if that's his face what must his ball bag look like?"

[camus]

"Jesus, if that's his face what must his ball bag look like?"

LOL, very similar I presume.

[David]

Kris, that's a genuine comment - M. Proust is very funny - I just stuck a completely superfluous dontcha know on the end.

[camus]

Ah ok David,

I'm not one to read the Big hitters, Proust - In my mind he's tucked in there with Dante!

No really, forget the Centuries, its all in the name! Proustian, conjours up devilish ideas.

I failed my History CSE.

Although I did well in Metal Work, probably because the teacher was a paedophile, I did not engage!

True though, he was arrested in school time.

Too much info, I'm pissed, and E's are not what they were!

cheers
Kris

[David]

Cheers Kris. Not too much information at all!

I went through a prolonged phase of reading the big hitters a while back, inspired by this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Canon-H ... F8&s=books

It's actually a really entertaining read, and on the back of it, among other things, I just about stumbled through the Divine Comedy and the full Proust. (The full Marcel?)

On balace, I don't think I wasted my time, but if I had to advise anybody else, I'd say have a go at Inferno, which is really unmissable science fiction (as is Paradise Lost, as a matter of fact), albeit fiercely Christian (heterodox) and judgemental, and Swann's Way (Vol. 1 of Proust) - get the older Vintage Moncrieff / Kilmartin translation, though, not the new Penguin one, as I've read some dodgy reviews of that.

Call me a pretentious twat if you like - what the hell, all my friends do, with good reason (but affectionately, I hope) - but I do recommend those two: Inferno and Swann's Way. Are they in your 1001?

David

[camus]

David,

I'll just refer to my Hong Kong book of Kong Fu.

No, it seems the only entry for Proust is Remembrance of Things Past all three-thousand pages of it!

I'll give that one a miss for the time being.

cheers
Kris

[k-j]

I'm 2/3 of the way thru Proust and while I can see what you mean, David, about the sense of humour, I'm running on fumes now to be honest.

[David]

I'm 2/3 of the way thru Proust and while I can see what you mean, David, about the sense of humour, I'm running on fumes now to be honest.

Yes, I think I know what you mean. A lot of fumes. Violet ones, probably. It gets better again when you emerge, blinking, from the Cities of the Plain, and all that vigorous homosexual masochism.

The ending is almost eastern in its transcendentalism. (What on earth do I mean by that? I'm really not sure, but see what you think.)