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The Trilogy #3
ننامیدنی
شايد يک رؤياست، همه يک رؤياست، که غافلگيرم می‌کرد� بيدار می‌شوم� در سکوت، و ديگر هرگز نمی‌خوابم� اين من میشود� يا رؤيا، باز هم رؤيا، رؤيای سکوتی، سکوتی رؤيايی، لبريز نجواها، نمی‌دانم� فقط کلمات است، بيداری هرگز، فقط کلمات، چيز ديگری نيست، بايد ادامه دهی، همين‌و‌بس� چندی ديگر متوقف می‌شوند� خوب می‌دانم� حسش می‌کنم� چندی ديگر ترکم می‌کنند� سکوت میشود� لحظه‌ای� چند لحظه� ناب، يا مال من میشود� آن‌ک� ماندنی است، که نماند، که هنوز می‌ماند� اين من میشود� بايد ادامه دهی، نمیتوان� ادامه دهم، بايد ادامه دهی، ادامه می‌دهم� بايد کلمات را بگويی، تا آن وقت که چيزی ازشان باقی مانده، تا وقتی که مرا بيابند، تا وقتی که مرا بگويند، درد غريب، گناه غريب، بايد ادامه دهی، شايد پيش از اين تمام شده است، شايد پيش از اين مرا گفته‌اند� شايد مرا به آستانه� قصه‌ا� رسانده‌اند� روبه‌رو� دری که به قصه‌ا� گشوده میشود� که غافلگيرم می‌کند� اگر باز شود، اين من میشود� سکوت میشود� آن‌ج� که هستم، نمی‌دانم� هرگز نمی‌دانم� در سکوت نمی‌دانی� بايد ادامه دهی، نمیتوان� ادامه دهم، ادامه می‌ده�.
229 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
173 people are currently reading
7,486 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Beckett
780books6,314followersSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in France for most of his adult life. He wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.
Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1984 he was elected Saoi of Aosdána.
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.
Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1984 he was elected Saoi of Aosdána.
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April 20, 2025
A masterpiece from Samuel Beckett, though may be a bit awkward to read,could be indecipherable at times but after a while you move with the flow and get consumed by it; it would be felt like a novel that does not have any plot, only some disjointed images which would stay in your mind. The book is not a prose actually rather it can be said as a long dazzling poem on the very human existence. The Unnameable, where the dilemmas, which were brought up by the author in Molloy and Malone Dies, finally come along here.
The starting lines themselves set the tone for the book,
Where now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypothesis, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on. Can it be that one day, off it goes on, that one day I simply stayed in, in where, instead of going out, in the old way, out to spend day and night as far away as possible, it wasn't far. Perhaps that is how it began.
There are only thoughts thinking themselves, ever babbling around but never moving forward. The narrative of the books is also not reliable, just like narrator, which keeps on changing throughout the book from first person to third. The narrator, or rather self-immersive narrator, of the book goes with its title and is unnamable in true self, who is unreliable and just shares his thoughts, immobile for eternity, uncommunicative, always curious about words themselves but not their meanings.
But the absurd! Of me whom they have reduced to reason. It is true poor Worm in not to blame for this. That's soon said. But let me complete my views before I shit on them. For if I am Mahood, I am Worm too, plop. Or if I am not yet Worm, I shall be when I cease to be Mahood, plop.
Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time
The book could be said as a well crafted voice of suffering, oppression of humanity through a un-namable character, whose existence itself is only a huge cry in dark solitude. The book ponders upon various problems of existence- solitude, human suffering- even the very problem of existence itself- meaning of existence, problem of one's ontological loneliness and nothingness of life; the narrator succeeds in scaling down his need - from wanting to reach his mother, to wanting to die, to wanting to stop speaking, which in essence is stripping of humanity to the core problems of life, to the core of life itself to know what is down there. Yet amid all the evidence that life is meaningless, hopeless, full of despair, anguish, one must go on. The book could be called as a representative of human consciousness trying to come to terms with its existence by telling itself stories featuring itself as hero of its own fictions, it resorts to paradox to describe the paradoxical nature of human consciousness divided within itself.
....there was never anyone, anyone but me. anything but me, talking me to me, impossible to stop, impossible to go on, but I must go on, I'll go on, without anyone, without anything, but me, but my voice, that is to say I'll stop, I'll end, it's the end already, short-lived, what is it, a little hole, you go down into it, into the silence, it's worse than the noise, you listen, it's worse than talking, no, not worse, no worse, you wait, in anguish, have they forgotten me, no, yes, no someone calls me, I crawl out again, what is it, a little hole, in the wilderness.
Beckett has worked on Postmodernist themes in ''The Unnamable'' as it could said to be based upon post-structuralist literary theory; whose characteristic is abandonment of grand narratives and unification of all knowledge. The novel is almost without "significant" event; its subject is itself, the narrating voice creating a world out of language. Before, between and after the jabber of words that constitute the fiction is silence.
...all these stories, these stories about paralytics, all are mine, I must be extremely old, or it's memory playing tricks, if only I knew id I've lived, if I live, if I'll live, that would simplify everything, impossible to find out, that's where you'are buggered, I haven't stirred, that's all I know, no I know something else, it's not, I always forget that, I resume, you must resume, never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories, to myself, hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else, wondering now and then where I got them from, was I in the land of the living, were they in mine, and where, where do I store them, in my head, I don't feel a head on me, and what do I tell them with, with my mouth, same remark, and what do I hear them with, and so on, the old rigmarole, it can't be I, or it's because I pay no heed, it's such an old habit, I do it without heeding, or as if I were somewhere else, there I am far again, there I am the absentee again, it's turn again now, he who neither speaks nor listens, who has neither body nor soul, it's something else he has, he must be somewhere, he is made of silence, there's a pretty analysis, he's in the silence, he's the one to be sought, the one to be, the one to be spoken of , the one to speak, but he can't speak, then I could stop, I'd be he, I'd be silence, I'd be back in the silence, we'd be reunited, his story the story to be told, but he has no story, he .............
I'm all these words, all these strangers, this dust of words, with no ground for their settling, no sky for their dispersing, coming together to say, fleeing one another to say, that I am they, all of them, those that merge, those that part, those that never meet, and nothing else, yes, something else, that I'm something quite different, a quite different thing, a wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and that I seek, like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born in a cage and dead in a cage, born and then dead, born in a cage and then dead in a cage, in a word like a beast, in one of their words, like such a beast, and that I seek, like such a beast, with my little strength, such a beast, with nothing of its species left but fear and fury, no, the fury is past, nothing but fear, nothing of all its due but fear centupled, fear of its shadow, no, blind from birth, of sound then, if you like, we'll have that, one must have something, it's a pity, but there it is, fear of sound, fear of sounds, the sounds of beasts, the sounds of men, sounds in the daytime and sounds at night, that's enough, fear of sounds all sounds, more or less, more or less fear, all sounds, there's only one, continuous, day and night, what is it, it's steps coming and going, it's voices speaking for a moment, it's bodies groping their way, it's the air, it's things, it's the air among the things, that's enough, that I seek, like it, no, not like it, like me, in my own way, what am I saying, after my fashion, that I seek, what do I seek now, what it is, it must be that, it can only be that, what it is, what it can be, what what can be, what I seek, no, what I hear, I hear them, now it comes back to me, they say I seek what it is I hear, I hear them, now it comes back to me, what it can possibly be, and where it can possibly come from, since all is silent here, and the walls thick, and how I manage, without feeling an ear on me, or a head, or a body, or a soul, how I manage, to do what, how I manage, it's not clear, dear dear, you say it's not clear, something is wanting to make it clear, I'll seek, what is wanting, to make everything clear, I'm always seeking something, it's tiring in the end, and it's only the beginning.
As one gradually moves towards the inevitable end of the book, it may be felt like a lucid dream is coming to end, which one may have started to enjoy now and may feel an urge to be forever in that dream; but there's no need to go on, what could one get even if one goes on, for there's nothing to be achieved, nothing could be achieved, there was never anything to be achieved; life is so, one can't give any inherent purpose to life, there's no inherent purpose of life, there was never any inherent purpose of life, however one must go on, one will go on.
February 3, 2020
«Είμαστε καταδικασμένοι σε έναν αιώνιο μονόλογο, χωρίς έννοια, χωρίς περιεχόμενο. Σε ένα αιώνιο μουρμούρισμα.»
«Να μιλάμε, και να μιλάμε για το τίποτα.»
Η απογοήτευση της αφάνειας και η άλλη πλευρά του αρνητισμού εφοδιάζουν τον Μπέκετ με αισιοδοξία και ελπίδα για την
δια βίου ασφυξία.
Με παράξενη χαρά,προσμονή και ειρωνική ηδονή παρουσιάζει την κλειστοφοβική μανία,τη σιωπή,την ατέρμονη περισυλλογή, τη σκέψη, την παρατήρηση.
Χτίζει αλήθειες με υλικά απο ανθρώπινη σάρκα και μετά τις γκρεμίζει εκ των έσω με απόλυτη μαεστρία και καταστροφική μανία.
Το μαρτύριο αρχίζει απο τη στιγμή που αρχίζει η σκέψη.
Ύστερα, τίποτα και κανένας δεν είναι ίδια.
Δεν γίνεται να είναι ίδια.
Μπορεί και να γίνεται, μπορεί να βλέπουμε τις εικόνες της ζωής που αντανακλώνται χορεύοντας σε έναν τοίχο, έξω απο τη σκοτεινή σπηλιά που ζούμε.
Αν ζούμε. Αν υπάρχουμε. Αν γεννηθήκαμε ποτέ.
Προς το παρόν βρισκόμαστε στη μήτρα της μητέρας μας ως έμβρυα με άγνωστη ταυτότητα.
Γεννιόμαστε ή πεθαίνουμε.
Ο "Ακατονόμαστος"
αποτελεί την συμπερασματική κατακλείδα της τριλογίας του Μπέκετ. Μετά το "Μολλόυ" και το
"Ο Μαλόν πεθαίνει" έρχεται το τρίτο αδιαίρετο μέρος της σειράς.
Ο Ακατονόμαστος είναι ο αφηγητής που επιδιώκει να γράψει για τον εαυτό του,τη φυσική και γεωγραφική του θέση.
Ταυτότητα άγνωστη.
Ίσως μια εμβρυϊκή οντότητα με όλες τις προσλαμβάνουσες της ανθρώπινης φύσης αποκομμένη απο τις ρίζες της. Ολομόναχη. Σιωπηλή.
Ψιθυρίζει το πως,το πρέπει,το γιατί,αναρωτιέται για τη φύση της,το φύλο, το όνομα της.
Μια οντότητα που φοράει τη σάρκα όλων των ανθρώπων. Τη σάρκα του ανθρώπινου γένους της. Μια ασθμαίνουσα ψυχή,νεογέννητη και γερασμένη.
Υποδύεται το μάταιο της μοναξιάς και της ελπίδας. Προσμένει την ύπαρξη μέσα απο την ανυπαρξία σε μια τελετή συνειδητοποίησης. Σε ένα θεατρικό έργο ψυχής της μνήμης και του λόγου.
"..είμαι όλες τούτες οι λέξεις, όλες τούτες οι άγνωστες, όλος τούτος ο μπουχός από λέξεις, χωρίς έδαφος να κατακάτσει, χωρίς ουρανό να διαλυθεί, που κολλάνε για να πουν, ξεκολλάνε για να πουν, πως εγώ είμαι αυτές, όλες αυτές, κι αυτές που ενώνονται, κι αυτές που χωρίζονται, κι αυτές που δε γνωρίζονται, αυτές και τίποτ� άλλο, όχι, εντελώς άλλο, πως είμαι κάτι εντελώς άλλο, κάτι βουβό, σ� ένα μέρος άγριο, άδειο, κλειστό, μαύρο, ξερό, παγωμένο, όπου τίποτα ποτέ δε σαλεύει, τίποτα ποτέ δε μιλάει, και πως ακούω, και πως ψάχνω, σα θηρίο σε κλουβί γεννημένο από θηρία σε κλουβί γεννημένα από θηρία..."
Κατά αυτό τον τρόπο ο Μπέκετ χρησιμοποεί τη θέση του εμβρύου ίσως, για να περιγράψει την αλήθεια της ζωής.
Να αφηγηθεί ζωές αγνώστων ηρώων το ίδιο μοναχικών και καταδικασμένων στην παγίδα της μνήμης και της λήθης.
Παντού σκιές,σκοτάδι,
γκρι φως,ψίθυροι,φωναχτές σιωπές,δρόμοι κλειστοί, απαγόρευση βούλησης,
υπαγόρευση κανόνων επιβίωσης,
ΑΔΙΕөΟΔΟ.
Ο απεγκλωβισμός απο την απόλυτη δυστυχία,την αποκτήνωση,τη βαθιά εσωτερική αιμμοραγία της ενδοσκόπησης και τη χαμένη σχέση Θεού και ανθρώπων είναι μια υπόθεση καθαρά οικουμενικώς πανανθρώπινη.
Πηδάει στην παιδική ηλικία, σε ένα παραμιλητό τόσο μάταιο και ανούσιο όσο μοιραίο και βαθιά αληθινό.
Ένα ατελείωτο παραμύθι για την καταδικασμένη ύπαρξη ή την θλιβερή ανυπαρξία.
Αναζητάει την ταυτότητα του,
ξεσπάει,πειφονεί,κατηγοεί,θυμώνει,πααλογίζεται.
Ως ηλικιωμένος πια, αντιλαμβάνεται την πλήρη απώλεια κάθε έννοιας και περιεχόμενου. Την αδυναμία του ατ��μου να αντισταθεί στην βάρβαρη και θλιβερή δύναμη του κόσμου. Συνθλίβεται,καταπιέζεται,παλεύει να αντισταθεί μέχρι να δεχτεί τα συντρίμμια του χάους. Μέχρι να ξαναζήσει ή να ξαναπεθάνει.
Ο Μπέκετ δεν σου επιτρέπει ποτέ να ξεχάσεις την παθιασμένη πραγματικότητα της παραδοξολογίας και της αλήθειας του.
Ποτέ δεν θα σε αφήσει να παρανοήσεις την ουσία της ύπαρξης σου.
Η κυριότερη δύναμη βρίσκεται μέσα στην απομόνωση, την αποσύνθεση, την καταδίκη στην παραπλάνηση και την απουσία αυτογνωσίας.
Όλα οδηγούν στο θάνατο σώματος και μυαλού. Σε μια λύτρωση που ίσως δεν έρθει ποτέ. Σε μια θαμμένη πραγματικότητα που σέβεται την αλήθεια χωρίς να απορρίπτει το ψέμα.
Δέχεται τη γέννηση της ύπαρξης ως αποικία σε ένα σύμπαν που αναγνωρίζει ως ζωντανούς μόνο τους σωματικά και ψυχικά υγειής.
Οι υπόλοιποι, κοινωνικά άχρηστοι, γίνονται μύστες,θύτες και θύματα, εραστές της ασχήμιας,
του περιθωρίου της ζωής και του θανάτου.
Η γραφή του Μπέκετ τυφλώνει.
Αν διαβαστεί με κανόνες λογικής και με σκοπούς συγκεκριμένου προορισμού τότε καταστρέφεται η σπουδαιότητα της κοσμοθεωρίας του.
Είναι ένας ταξιδευτής με απόλυτο μεταφυσικό εγωισμό.
Ένας βαριά παράφρων εραστής της απαισιοδοξίας,της ανθρωπιάς και της αγάπης.
Ένας τραγικό-κωμικός ηθοποιός στο ψυχικό θέατρο του παραλόγου που αντιλαμβάνεται με όλες του τις αισθήσεις την πολύτιμη αξία στο ταξίδι της ζωής παρά τις ανυπέρβλητες δυσκολίες.
Υποκειμενικός ιδεαλιστής που καταφέρνει να σε φυλακίσει στην αυτοκρατία του και να θολώσει τη σκέψη σου με ιερές τελετές λόγου και συνειδητοποίησης.
Σε βαπτίζει στο όνομα της κόλασης που κρύβει ο καθένας μέσα του και αρχίζει να σου επαναλαμβάνει ακατάπαυστα το μονόλογο του.
Τον ακούς και τον κατανοείς έχοντας μεγάλες αντοχές για το "τίποτα".
Αυτό το "τίποτα" σε ένα χώρο μπερδεμένο ανάμεσα στην αδυναμία του λόγου,τη δύναμη της σιωπής στην αλήθεια,και την μόνωση της απομόνωσης.
Το "τίποτα" του τρίπτυχου του Μπέκετ για την αιώνια ματαιότητα, τον άφθαρτο χρόνο και την προσμονή ελπίδας και αγάπης.
«Θα συνεχίσω.
Πρέπει να λες λέξεις, για όσο υπάρχουν λέξεις - ώσπου να με βρουν, ώσπου να με πουν.
(Παράξενος πόνος, παράξενη αμαρτία!)
Πρέπει να συνεχίσεις. Ίσως έχει ήδη γίνει. Ίσως με έχουν ήδη πει. Ίσως με κουβάλησαν στο κατώφλι της ιστορίας μου πριν απ' την πόρτα που ανοίγει στην ιστορία μου.
(Θα με εξέπληττε, αν άνοιγε).
Θα είναι εγώ; Θα είναι η σιωπή, εκεί που είμαι;
Δεν ξέρω, ποτέ δεν θα ξέρω. Στη σιωπή δεν ξέρεις.
Πρέπει να συνεχίσεις.
Δεν μπορώ να συνεχίσω.
Θα συνεχίσω».
Καλή ανάγνωση!!
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
«Να μιλάμε, και να μιλάμε για το τίποτα.»
Η απογοήτευση της αφάνειας και η άλλη πλευρά του αρνητισμού εφοδιάζουν τον Μπέκετ με αισιοδοξία και ελπίδα για την
δια βίου ασφυξία.
Με παράξενη χαρά,προσμονή και ειρωνική ηδονή παρουσιάζει την κλειστοφοβική μανία,τη σιωπή,την ατέρμονη περισυλλογή, τη σκέψη, την παρατήρηση.
Χτίζει αλήθειες με υλικά απο ανθρώπινη σάρκα και μετά τις γκρεμίζει εκ των έσω με απόλυτη μαεστρία και καταστροφική μανία.
Το μαρτύριο αρχίζει απο τη στιγμή που αρχίζει η σκέψη.
Ύστερα, τίποτα και κανένας δεν είναι ίδια.
Δεν γίνεται να είναι ίδια.
Μπορεί και να γίνεται, μπορεί να βλέπουμε τις εικόνες της ζωής που αντανακλώνται χορεύοντας σε έναν τοίχο, έξω απο τη σκοτεινή σπηλιά που ζούμε.
Αν ζούμε. Αν υπάρχουμε. Αν γεννηθήκαμε ποτέ.
Προς το παρόν βρισκόμαστε στη μήτρα της μητέρας μας ως έμβρυα με άγνωστη ταυτότητα.
Γεννιόμαστε ή πεθαίνουμε.
Ο "Ακατονόμαστος"
αποτελεί την συμπερασματική κατακλείδα της τριλογίας του Μπέκετ. Μετά το "Μολλόυ" και το
"Ο Μαλόν πεθαίνει" έρχεται το τρίτο αδιαίρετο μέρος της σειράς.
Ο Ακατονόμαστος είναι ο αφηγητής που επιδιώκει να γράψει για τον εαυτό του,τη φυσική και γεωγραφική του θέση.
Ταυτότητα άγνωστη.
Ίσως μια εμβρυϊκή οντότητα με όλες τις προσλαμβάνουσες της ανθρώπινης φύσης αποκομμένη απο τις ρίζες της. Ολομόναχη. Σιωπηλή.
Ψιθυρίζει το πως,το πρέπει,το γιατί,αναρωτιέται για τη φύση της,το φύλο, το όνομα της.
Μια οντότητα που φοράει τη σάρκα όλων των ανθρώπων. Τη σάρκα του ανθρώπινου γένους της. Μια ασθμαίνουσα ψυχή,νεογέννητη και γερασμένη.
Υποδύεται το μάταιο της μοναξιάς και της ελπίδας. Προσμένει την ύπαρξη μέσα απο την ανυπαρξία σε μια τελετή συνειδητοποίησης. Σε ένα θεατρικό έργο ψυχής της μνήμης και του λόγου.
"..είμαι όλες τούτες οι λέξεις, όλες τούτες οι άγνωστες, όλος τούτος ο μπουχός από λέξεις, χωρίς έδαφος να κατακάτσει, χωρίς ουρανό να διαλυθεί, που κολλάνε για να πουν, ξεκολλάνε για να πουν, πως εγώ είμαι αυτές, όλες αυτές, κι αυτές που ενώνονται, κι αυτές που χωρίζονται, κι αυτές που δε γνωρίζονται, αυτές και τίποτ� άλλο, όχι, εντελώς άλλο, πως είμαι κάτι εντελώς άλλο, κάτι βουβό, σ� ένα μέρος άγριο, άδειο, κλειστό, μαύρο, ξερό, παγωμένο, όπου τίποτα ποτέ δε σαλεύει, τίποτα ποτέ δε μιλάει, και πως ακούω, και πως ψάχνω, σα θηρίο σε κλουβί γεννημένο από θηρία σε κλουβί γεννημένα από θηρία..."
Κατά αυτό τον τρόπο ο Μπέκετ χρησιμοποεί τη θέση του εμβρύου ίσως, για να περιγράψει την αλήθεια της ζωής.
Να αφηγηθεί ζωές αγνώστων ηρώων το ίδιο μοναχικών και καταδικασμένων στην παγίδα της μνήμης και της λήθης.
Παντού σκιές,σκοτάδι,
γκρι φως,ψίθυροι,φωναχτές σιωπές,δρόμοι κλειστοί, απαγόρευση βούλησης,
υπαγόρευση κανόνων επιβίωσης,
ΑΔΙΕөΟΔΟ.
Ο απεγκλωβισμός απο την απόλυτη δυστυχία,την αποκτήνωση,τη βαθιά εσωτερική αιμμοραγία της ενδοσκόπησης και τη χαμένη σχέση Θεού και ανθρώπων είναι μια υπόθεση καθαρά οικουμενικώς πανανθρώπινη.
Πηδάει στην παιδική ηλικία, σε ένα παραμιλητό τόσο μάταιο και ανούσιο όσο μοιραίο και βαθιά αληθινό.
Ένα ατελείωτο παραμύθι για την καταδικασμένη ύπαρξη ή την θλιβερή ανυπαρξία.
Αναζητάει την ταυτότητα του,
ξεσπάει,πειφονεί,κατηγοεί,θυμώνει,πααλογίζεται.
Ως ηλικιωμένος πια, αντιλαμβάνεται την πλήρη απώλεια κάθε έννοιας και περιεχόμενου. Την αδυναμία του ατ��μου να αντισταθεί στην βάρβαρη και θλιβερή δύναμη του κόσμου. Συνθλίβεται,καταπιέζεται,παλεύει να αντισταθεί μέχρι να δεχτεί τα συντρίμμια του χάους. Μέχρι να ξαναζήσει ή να ξαναπεθάνει.
Ο Μπέκετ δεν σου επιτρέπει ποτέ να ξεχάσεις την παθιασμένη πραγματικότητα της παραδοξολογίας και της αλήθειας του.
Ποτέ δεν θα σε αφήσει να παρανοήσεις την ουσία της ύπαρξης σου.
Η κυριότερη δύναμη βρίσκεται μέσα στην απομόνωση, την αποσύνθεση, την καταδίκη στην παραπλάνηση και την απουσία αυτογνωσίας.
Όλα οδηγούν στο θάνατο σώματος και μυαλού. Σε μια λύτρωση που ίσως δεν έρθει ποτέ. Σε μια θαμμένη πραγματικότητα που σέβεται την αλήθεια χωρίς να απορρίπτει το ψέμα.
Δέχεται τη γέννηση της ύπαρξης ως αποικία σε ένα σύμπαν που αναγνωρίζει ως ζωντανούς μόνο τους σωματικά και ψυχικά υγειής.
Οι υπόλοιποι, κοινωνικά άχρηστοι, γίνονται μύστες,θύτες και θύματα, εραστές της ασχήμιας,
του περιθωρίου της ζωής και του θανάτου.
Η γραφή του Μπέκετ τυφλώνει.
Αν διαβαστεί με κανόνες λογικής και με σκοπούς συγκεκριμένου προορισμού τότε καταστρέφεται η σπουδαιότητα της κοσμοθεωρίας του.
Είναι ένας ταξιδευτής με απόλυτο μεταφυσικό εγωισμό.
Ένας βαριά παράφρων εραστής της απαισιοδοξίας,της ανθρωπιάς και της αγάπης.
Ένας τραγικό-κωμικός ηθοποιός στο ψυχικό θέατρο του παραλόγου που αντιλαμβάνεται με όλες του τις αισθήσεις την πολύτιμη αξία στο ταξίδι της ζωής παρά τις ανυπέρβλητες δυσκολίες.
Υποκειμενικός ιδεαλιστής που καταφέρνει να σε φυλακίσει στην αυτοκρατία του και να θολώσει τη σκέψη σου με ιερές τελετές λόγου και συνειδητοποίησης.
Σε βαπτίζει στο όνομα της κόλασης που κρύβει ο καθένας μέσα του και αρχίζει να σου επαναλαμβάνει ακατάπαυστα το μονόλογο του.
Τον ακούς και τον κατανοείς έχοντας μεγάλες αντοχές για το "τίποτα".
Αυτό το "τίποτα" σε ένα χώρο μπερδεμένο ανάμεσα στην αδυναμία του λόγου,τη δύναμη της σιωπής στην αλήθεια,και την μόνωση της απομόνωσης.
Το "τίποτα" του τρίπτυχου του Μπέκετ για την αιώνια ματαιότητα, τον άφθαρτο χρόνο και την προσμονή ελπίδας και αγάπης.
«Θα συνεχίσω.
Πρέπει να λες λέξεις, για όσο υπάρχουν λέξεις - ώσπου να με βρουν, ώσπου να με πουν.
(Παράξενος πόνος, παράξενη αμαρτία!)
Πρέπει να συνεχίσεις. Ίσως έχει ήδη γίνει. Ίσως με έχουν ήδη πει. Ίσως με κουβάλησαν στο κατώφλι της ιστορίας μου πριν απ' την πόρτα που ανοίγει στην ιστορία μου.
(Θα με εξέπληττε, αν άνοιγε).
Θα είναι εγώ; Θα είναι η σιωπή, εκεί που είμαι;
Δεν ξέρω, ποτέ δεν θα ξέρω. Στη σιωπή δεν ξέρεις.
Πρέπει να συνεχίσεις.
Δεν μπορώ να συνεχίσω.
Θα συνεχίσω».
Καλή ανάγνωση!!
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
December 17, 2015
There I was, happily standing on one leg. The right one. The one on my right, I mean, since it could have been the one on my left and that would have also been right. Nothing wrong with the left. Perfectly right the left, I think. I could feel my quadriceps, of the right leg, fully engaged and my kneecap pulled up tight. That is according to what I remember, of course, because it could have been different. My leg was as continuous as a column on which my body rightly hung. There was a bit of a magical balance in the way my hips and shoulders and backbone counterweighed each other. But I was certainly firm on my self.
Right!
My fear was that I knew, or I suspected, that Malone was coming, and since Molloy had gone in the other direction and could come back--or was I just hoping that he would come back when in reality there was no possibility that he would come back?-- anyway, I thought that if Molloy came back they both could clash with each other if they met . That would be an astronomical collusion. So that was my fear. But no, there was no sign of Molloy. I don’t know why I was expecting that. What happened was that Malone came to me and gave me a little tap on the shoulder.
And he threw me off balance.
Merde! Sorry, no. Shit!
Just when I was understanding the world from my strong position. I was not understanding the world from my not strong position (and the autocorrect algorithm in this computer tells me to substitute and place ‘I did not understand� instead of ‘I was not understanding� but it is the autocorrect that does not understand � I am talking about processes and not about fully realized situations).
I changed legs and now stood with the tight muscles of my left leg: the ‘siniestra� leg, which should not be understood as if my situation were sinister. It was as right as with the right leg. Otherwise it would be superstitious rather than scientific and certainly not more certain.
On my left leg now, and here comes Molloy who did not show up before. Right now I can see the future. He will come to me and tap me on my right shoulder. No, the left shoulder, and will throw me off balance.
Shit! Sorry, no. Merde!
That is what I would say if that were to happen. But I am not sure.
As if I needed a body and the laws of physics to find my balance, my center, my point of view, my self � my conscience. But this is all entirely unaccountable. For Godot’s sake!
I don’t know what story am I telling them, or am I telling it to you? Molloy and Malone and their hats came and went imagined and remembered or forgotten. But they did make me feel like a little worm rather than a Human. For Worm substituted them and I heard the words, or I read them with my inner voice, or it was the voice of that other one who does not want to name himself. Or cannot.
Just when I thought I was beginning to understand Beckett, as if understanding were based on one or the other of my stupid legs, when it is all about consciousness and its dissolution. Understanding and sense or illusion of self.
Reading this is like watching a piece of ice dissolve in a glass of water. A water made of the runny and translucent and colourless matter of a general consciousness with no identity, but which leaves dregs at the bottom. Words and words.
It cannot be named.
------------------
And iff (if and only if) I am allowed just a tiny little speck of certainty I will venture that this is the most brilliant Beckett I have read so far.
I think -- but I may not be.
December 28, 2024
...you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on...
Sam! My beloved Sam! My brilliant, precocious, introvert and cynical friend!
I must confess, as always, I didn’t understand all you had to say; some things went right over my head, and if I have to explain what I just read, I couldn’t for the life of me offer a coherent précis.
For some reason, I love reading you, Sam. For all the headaches, sense of claustrophobias and depressions your books bestow me, I still love reading you� and when I do read you, I curse you for not being a bit more lucid.
I love reading your plot-less, absurd, exasperating existential musings and ostensibly delusional monologues, even though you make me feel miserable; even though you make me question things that better stayed obscured.
And every time I read you, I am moved to tears, because at the end, I get you!
I completely and irrevocably and unexplainably get you!
Disclaimer: The Unnamable is the third book in a trilogy. There are mentions of the characters from the first two books, but I guess you can read it as a standalone.
The following is an excerpt from the book...in case, based on my 5 stars, someone isn't depressed and confused enough and wants to read the whole book.
...But what’s all this about not being able to die, live, be born, that must have some bearing, all this about staying where you are, dying, living, being born, unable to go forward or back, not knowing where you came from, or where you are, or where you’re going, or that it’s possible to be elsewhere, to be otherwise, supposing nothing, asking yourself nothing, you can’t, you’re there, you don’t know who, you don’t know where, the thing stays where it is, nothing changes, within it, outside it, apparently, apparently. And there is nothing for it but to wait for the end, nothing but for the end to come, and at the end all will be the same, at the end at last perhaps all the same as before, as all that livelong time when there was nothing for it but to get to the end, or fly from it, or wait for it, trembling or not, resigned or not, the nuisance of doing over, and of being, same thing, for one who could never do, never be. Ah if only this voice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out. Regretting, that’s what helps you on, that’s what gets you on towards the end of the world, regretting what is, regretting what was, it’s not the same thing, yes, it’s the same, you don’t know, what’s happening, what’s happened, perhaps it’s the same, the same regrets, that’s what transports you, towards the end of regretting...
...Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time. So there is nothing to be afraid of. And yet I am afraid, afraid of what my words will do to me, to my refuge, yet again...
Sam! My beloved Sam! My brilliant, precocious, introvert and cynical friend!
I must confess, as always, I didn’t understand all you had to say; some things went right over my head, and if I have to explain what I just read, I couldn’t for the life of me offer a coherent précis.
For some reason, I love reading you, Sam. For all the headaches, sense of claustrophobias and depressions your books bestow me, I still love reading you� and when I do read you, I curse you for not being a bit more lucid.
I love reading your plot-less, absurd, exasperating existential musings and ostensibly delusional monologues, even though you make me feel miserable; even though you make me question things that better stayed obscured.
And every time I read you, I am moved to tears, because at the end, I get you!
I completely and irrevocably and unexplainably get you!
Disclaimer: The Unnamable is the third book in a trilogy. There are mentions of the characters from the first two books, but I guess you can read it as a standalone.
The following is an excerpt from the book...in case, based on my 5 stars, someone isn't depressed and confused enough and wants to read the whole book.
...But what’s all this about not being able to die, live, be born, that must have some bearing, all this about staying where you are, dying, living, being born, unable to go forward or back, not knowing where you came from, or where you are, or where you’re going, or that it’s possible to be elsewhere, to be otherwise, supposing nothing, asking yourself nothing, you can’t, you’re there, you don’t know who, you don’t know where, the thing stays where it is, nothing changes, within it, outside it, apparently, apparently. And there is nothing for it but to wait for the end, nothing but for the end to come, and at the end all will be the same, at the end at last perhaps all the same as before, as all that livelong time when there was nothing for it but to get to the end, or fly from it, or wait for it, trembling or not, resigned or not, the nuisance of doing over, and of being, same thing, for one who could never do, never be. Ah if only this voice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out. Regretting, that’s what helps you on, that’s what gets you on towards the end of the world, regretting what is, regretting what was, it’s not the same thing, yes, it’s the same, you don’t know, what’s happening, what’s happened, perhaps it’s the same, the same regrets, that’s what transports you, towards the end of regretting...
...Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time. So there is nothing to be afraid of. And yet I am afraid, afraid of what my words will do to me, to my refuge, yet again...
June 18, 2020
I just finished, and I think it's brilliant. I can't exactly say why or demonstrate it, it seems. I can't remember much of what I just read either. It's like it only exists while being read... (?)
March 3, 2020
Parece que este año ha sido para mí el desafío de los libros difíciles, inclasificables y extraños. Cuando pensaba que ya lo había leído todo con el Finnegans Wake, me encuentro con este inclasificable y desconcertante libro del premio Nobel, Samuel Beckett.
Nunca queda claro quién (o qué) es el narrador de “El innombrable�. ¿Es una persona? ¿Es una voz? ¿Un ente? Si es una persona, ¿está preso? ¿Está loco? ¿Está en una prisión? ¿En un sanatorio mental? ¿Forma parte de un sueño y todo lo que leemos es lo que le sucede ahí dentro? ¿En el sueño, está prisionero dentro de un monumento?
Porque casi que no tiene forma. No tiene brazos ni piernas y posee un solo ojo que casi no puede cerrar y que le llora constantemente. No lo sé� Me surgieron demasiados interrogantes mientras leía.
Las palabras fluyen, al parecer, de su boca para contarnos a dónde intenta dirigirse, pero ni siquiera él lo sabe: "Dónde ahora? ¿Cuándo ahora? ¿Quién ahora? Sin preguntármelo. Decir yo. Sin pensarlo. Llamar a esto preguntas, hipótesis. Ir adelante, llamar a esto ir, llamar a esto adelante."
¿Podemos decir que es un soliloquio? ¿Una declaración de principios? ¿Un manifiesto? ¿Es un "stream of conciousness" de 190 páginas? Tal vez sí. O tal vez no. Como escribí recién, ni siquiera el pobre narrador intuye una salida a su "existencia": " ¿Cómo hacer, cómo voy a hacer, qué debo hacer, en la situación en que me hallo, cómo proceder?"
Ya desde la primera página, la complejidad del texto acorrala al lector al mismo lugar que el narrador, que va mutando máscaras de personajes que componen la trilogía que termina con este libro, porque nombra a Molloy, a Watt, a Murphy, a Mahoon y además decide llamarse "Worm" (gusano).
Es incluso hasta difícil asociar este libro con otros. Seguramente habrá otros lectores que hayan encontrado textos parecidos. En lo que a mí respecta, sólo puedo (intentar) compararlos por un lado con uno que leí hace muy poco, “La caída�, de Albert Camus, aunque el personaje de ese libro forma parte de una conversación de la que Camus eliminó uno de los interlocutores, transformándola en soliloquio.
Otro libro podría ser "Memorias del subsuelo", de Fiódor Dostoievski, pero este presenta un personaje con ideas claras, y aunque como en los otros dos libros no existe un argumento o trama real planteado por el autor, dirige a se hombre subterráneo a desarrollar sus pensamientos acerca de él y del mundo al que supuestamente se enfrenta.
En el caso de "El innombrable", lo complejo radica que a diferencia de la experimentación de Joyce con el lenguaje (especialmente en Finnegans Wake), Beckett juega a desarmar en mil piezas el discurso y ese es el verdadero objetivo del autor: meter al lector en un laberinto de palabras, contradicciones, largas oraciones separadas solamente por comas y pocos puntos y aparte con el agregado de las enrevesadas ideas y sentimientos del narrador que bombardean al texto con miles de significados contradictorios y difusos.
Samuel Beckett, uno de los escritores irlandeses más reconocidos, formó una gran amistad con otro gigante de la Isla Esmeralda: James Joyce y con el tiempo se transformó en su asistente.
Beckett, confeso admirador del Ulises y en una relación sentimental con la hija de Joyce, Lucía, pudo ver desde adentro todos los entretelones de ese libro genial y estas experiencias le sirvieron para formar su propio experimentalismo literario.
Luego vendría su obra más famosa, "Esperando a Godot" (que leeré en breve) para transformarse en el maestro del teatro del absurdo.
Confieso que no será mucho más lo que lea de Beckett además de Godot, puesto que tal vez mi pobre cabecita no está tan preparada ni abierta para este autor, cuyo nivel de complicación literaria me desorienta (aunque Joyce me haya fogueado para estos desafíos).
De todas maneras, no puedo dejar de reconocer que sólo este tipo de autores alcanzan la gloria y lo hacen por una característica fundamental: su originalidad y eso es lo que determina su vigencia literaria hasta nuestros días.
Nunca queda claro quién (o qué) es el narrador de “El innombrable�. ¿Es una persona? ¿Es una voz? ¿Un ente? Si es una persona, ¿está preso? ¿Está loco? ¿Está en una prisión? ¿En un sanatorio mental? ¿Forma parte de un sueño y todo lo que leemos es lo que le sucede ahí dentro? ¿En el sueño, está prisionero dentro de un monumento?
Porque casi que no tiene forma. No tiene brazos ni piernas y posee un solo ojo que casi no puede cerrar y que le llora constantemente. No lo sé� Me surgieron demasiados interrogantes mientras leía.
Las palabras fluyen, al parecer, de su boca para contarnos a dónde intenta dirigirse, pero ni siquiera él lo sabe: "Dónde ahora? ¿Cuándo ahora? ¿Quién ahora? Sin preguntármelo. Decir yo. Sin pensarlo. Llamar a esto preguntas, hipótesis. Ir adelante, llamar a esto ir, llamar a esto adelante."
¿Podemos decir que es un soliloquio? ¿Una declaración de principios? ¿Un manifiesto? ¿Es un "stream of conciousness" de 190 páginas? Tal vez sí. O tal vez no. Como escribí recién, ni siquiera el pobre narrador intuye una salida a su "existencia": " ¿Cómo hacer, cómo voy a hacer, qué debo hacer, en la situación en que me hallo, cómo proceder?"
Ya desde la primera página, la complejidad del texto acorrala al lector al mismo lugar que el narrador, que va mutando máscaras de personajes que componen la trilogía que termina con este libro, porque nombra a Molloy, a Watt, a Murphy, a Mahoon y además decide llamarse "Worm" (gusano).
Es incluso hasta difícil asociar este libro con otros. Seguramente habrá otros lectores que hayan encontrado textos parecidos. En lo que a mí respecta, sólo puedo (intentar) compararlos por un lado con uno que leí hace muy poco, “La caída�, de Albert Camus, aunque el personaje de ese libro forma parte de una conversación de la que Camus eliminó uno de los interlocutores, transformándola en soliloquio.
Otro libro podría ser "Memorias del subsuelo", de Fiódor Dostoievski, pero este presenta un personaje con ideas claras, y aunque como en los otros dos libros no existe un argumento o trama real planteado por el autor, dirige a se hombre subterráneo a desarrollar sus pensamientos acerca de él y del mundo al que supuestamente se enfrenta.
En el caso de "El innombrable", lo complejo radica que a diferencia de la experimentación de Joyce con el lenguaje (especialmente en Finnegans Wake), Beckett juega a desarmar en mil piezas el discurso y ese es el verdadero objetivo del autor: meter al lector en un laberinto de palabras, contradicciones, largas oraciones separadas solamente por comas y pocos puntos y aparte con el agregado de las enrevesadas ideas y sentimientos del narrador que bombardean al texto con miles de significados contradictorios y difusos.
Samuel Beckett, uno de los escritores irlandeses más reconocidos, formó una gran amistad con otro gigante de la Isla Esmeralda: James Joyce y con el tiempo se transformó en su asistente.
Beckett, confeso admirador del Ulises y en una relación sentimental con la hija de Joyce, Lucía, pudo ver desde adentro todos los entretelones de ese libro genial y estas experiencias le sirvieron para formar su propio experimentalismo literario.
Luego vendría su obra más famosa, "Esperando a Godot" (que leeré en breve) para transformarse en el maestro del teatro del absurdo.
Confieso que no será mucho más lo que lea de Beckett además de Godot, puesto que tal vez mi pobre cabecita no está tan preparada ni abierta para este autor, cuyo nivel de complicación literaria me desorienta (aunque Joyce me haya fogueado para estos desafíos).
De todas maneras, no puedo dejar de reconocer que sólo este tipo de autores alcanzan la gloria y lo hacen por una característica fundamental: su originalidad y eso es lo que determina su vigencia literaria hasta nuestros días.
June 10, 2024
That's where it is about a man-trunk, molded in a jar, placed under a restaurant's menu in a quiet street overlooking a slaughterhouse.
Add to the disgraced figure, an ectoplasmic figure named Worm, and a voice that seems to come out of limbo, and you find yourself in the presence of three figures - who are perhaps only one, the ultimate avatars of the Trilogy.
The Unnamable takes the approach undertaken in the first two volumes of Samuel Beckett's Great Work to the very last extremes. For this reason, and without a doubt, the opus is the most demanding to read. The entities that take charge of how to speak of intrigue in this matter are guilty of logorrhea rarely seen in the reader's memory. They rationalize, throw questions like bottles into the sea, waver between "maybe" and "maybe not," and decide with "I don't know." The first two-thirds of the text are painful in this way. It is a safe bet that if we proposed, among other works, the Unnamable - that we found ourselves several times renaming the unclean to a volunteer and seasoned panel of contributors to our beloved site, this would receive the highest abandonment rate. Nevertheless, for the adventurous person who has acclimatized to the object and made his way through this mangrove, the last third is quite fascinating in the musicality and the hair-raising rhythm at which these torrents of quibbles delivered.
The Trilogy and, first and foremost, the Unnamable are works that succeed in challenging the reader. We are disconcerted, if not overwhelmed; the experience is not strictly speaking distracting. Samuel Beckett is a singular figure but a gravedigger of the novel. All these incredible machines cannot mask a certain incapacity to tell a good story.
Add to the disgraced figure, an ectoplasmic figure named Worm, and a voice that seems to come out of limbo, and you find yourself in the presence of three figures - who are perhaps only one, the ultimate avatars of the Trilogy.
The Unnamable takes the approach undertaken in the first two volumes of Samuel Beckett's Great Work to the very last extremes. For this reason, and without a doubt, the opus is the most demanding to read. The entities that take charge of how to speak of intrigue in this matter are guilty of logorrhea rarely seen in the reader's memory. They rationalize, throw questions like bottles into the sea, waver between "maybe" and "maybe not," and decide with "I don't know." The first two-thirds of the text are painful in this way. It is a safe bet that if we proposed, among other works, the Unnamable - that we found ourselves several times renaming the unclean to a volunteer and seasoned panel of contributors to our beloved site, this would receive the highest abandonment rate. Nevertheless, for the adventurous person who has acclimatized to the object and made his way through this mangrove, the last third is quite fascinating in the musicality and the hair-raising rhythm at which these torrents of quibbles delivered.
The Trilogy and, first and foremost, the Unnamable are works that succeed in challenging the reader. We are disconcerted, if not overwhelmed; the experience is not strictly speaking distracting. Samuel Beckett is a singular figure but a gravedigger of the novel. All these incredible machines cannot mask a certain incapacity to tell a good story.
March 2, 2025
The Unnameable is the nameless screaming horror of being born. For the Unnameable is the trauma of our delivery into a world that is sheer pain.
“I would be glad of another death,� Eliot savagely laments in The Journey of the Magi. For death is the bliss that frees us from a life of Unnameable Trauma.
The narrator of this largely regrettable lament lives entirely in darkness. A fluid darkness, not to put too fine a point on its dark symbolism! He is describing his descent through blackness, a void that promises no remission to his pain.
In other words, the descent into an even bleaker birth.
There is no end to this postmodernist passage through the dark, as an infant using his lungs for the first time when his placenta is cut will only at its end the more bleakly wail!
There are shadowy others, too (voices from the outside world? Memories of a pre-uterine past?) about which we hear no more.
I gave it five full stars. What else could I do? It’s mesmerizing!
But its horror is namelessly awful.
For we scream as the narrator screams, “I can’t go on! I’ll go on.�
“I would be glad of another death,� Eliot savagely laments in The Journey of the Magi. For death is the bliss that frees us from a life of Unnameable Trauma.
The narrator of this largely regrettable lament lives entirely in darkness. A fluid darkness, not to put too fine a point on its dark symbolism! He is describing his descent through blackness, a void that promises no remission to his pain.
In other words, the descent into an even bleaker birth.
There is no end to this postmodernist passage through the dark, as an infant using his lungs for the first time when his placenta is cut will only at its end the more bleakly wail!
There are shadowy others, too (voices from the outside world? Memories of a pre-uterine past?) about which we hear no more.
I gave it five full stars. What else could I do? It’s mesmerizing!
But its horror is namelessly awful.
For we scream as the narrator screams, “I can’t go on! I’ll go on.�
July 30, 2024
In the last part of Beckett's trilogy, the radicalism of the first two parts is increased many times over, leaving you a little more perplexed after each page. Just as the protagonist - The Unnamable - eludes any kind of name, oscillates between Worm and Ma(n)hood and you can't rely on any of his statements, you end up abandoning yourself to the tide and ebb of his thoughts, drifting sometimes on the beach and sometimes on the open sea, without seeing the bottom in the depths or knowing which shores you are being carried to.
The Unnamable is a torso that vegetates in a recessed device in the ground. The flies sit on him without him being able to shoo them away because he has no arms. He can't move because he has no legs. He can't speak because he has no tongue. He cannot turn his head. He is an existence in the absolute imprisonment of being. To be is agony, but death is denied. It goes on and on, even if you can't move forward. It is the thoughts that counter the static nature of the body with a morbid dynamic. Sometimes they are festering thoughts like wounds, sometimes philosophical, sometimes desperate, confused, vulgar. You never know what to expect, and what awaits you is so enigmatic that it exceeds all expectations.
This is the end point of the narrative. It cannot go any further from here. It cannot go any further. It will go on. Sometimes you don't understand things, but you grasp them anyway. "The Unnamable" is a novel for sleepwalkers who remember a past life that was really someone else's dream. Or it isn't. It doesn't matter.
The Unnamable is a torso that vegetates in a recessed device in the ground. The flies sit on him without him being able to shoo them away because he has no arms. He can't move because he has no legs. He can't speak because he has no tongue. He cannot turn his head. He is an existence in the absolute imprisonment of being. To be is agony, but death is denied. It goes on and on, even if you can't move forward. It is the thoughts that counter the static nature of the body with a morbid dynamic. Sometimes they are festering thoughts like wounds, sometimes philosophical, sometimes desperate, confused, vulgar. You never know what to expect, and what awaits you is so enigmatic that it exceeds all expectations.
This is the end point of the narrative. It cannot go any further from here. It cannot go any further. It will go on. Sometimes you don't understand things, but you grasp them anyway. "The Unnamable" is a novel for sleepwalkers who remember a past life that was really someone else's dream. Or it isn't. It doesn't matter.
March 17, 2019
سکوت،با بی‌فر� کردن زبان،با جمله‌‌ه� و کلماتی که در نهایت فاقد معنا می‌شون�:
کلمه‌ه� را به من آموختند،بی آنکه معنا‌هایشا� را برایم روشن کنند.
انسانی به دنبال هیچ،و ساخته شده از هیچ،پس کلام او نیز فاقد معنا و تنها رسوبات گلوی اوست که بعد از سال‌ه� به بیرون نشت می‌کن�:
من شبیه گرد و غبارم،آن‌ه� می‌خواهن� از گرد و غبار آدمیزاد بسازند.
نام‌ناپذی� میتوان� هرکسی باشد،ماهود،ورم یا هرکس چون خود ما:
خودم را درون آن شخص خواهم گنجاند.
.
نام‌ناپذی� شاخص‌تری� کتاب از تریولوژی بکت است،و این بار خبری از سفر‌ها� مالوی و داستان‌ها� مالون نیست.ماهود،ورم یا هرکس بر روی صندلی‌ا� بی‌شک� نشسته و برای ما حرف می‌زن� و حرف می‌زن� تا از نفس بیفتد،اما در انتها از کلماتِ او چیزی به خاطر نمی‌مان� و سکوت باقی می‌مان�:
سکوت،کلامی در باب سکوت،در سکوت.
.
و در انتها
باید دید از انسان مدرن چه باقی مانده؟
کلمه‌ه� را به من آموختند،بی آنکه معنا‌هایشا� را برایم روشن کنند.
انسانی به دنبال هیچ،و ساخته شده از هیچ،پس کلام او نیز فاقد معنا و تنها رسوبات گلوی اوست که بعد از سال‌ه� به بیرون نشت می‌کن�:
من شبیه گرد و غبارم،آن‌ه� می‌خواهن� از گرد و غبار آدمیزاد بسازند.
نام‌ناپذی� میتوان� هرکسی باشد،ماهود،ورم یا هرکس چون خود ما:
خودم را درون آن شخص خواهم گنجاند.
.
نام‌ناپذی� شاخص‌تری� کتاب از تریولوژی بکت است،و این بار خبری از سفر‌ها� مالوی و داستان‌ها� مالون نیست.ماهود،ورم یا هرکس بر روی صندلی‌ا� بی‌شک� نشسته و برای ما حرف می‌زن� و حرف می‌زن� تا از نفس بیفتد،اما در انتها از کلماتِ او چیزی به خاطر نمی‌مان� و سکوت باقی می‌مان�:
سکوت،کلامی در باب سکوت،در سکوت.
.
و در انتها
باید دید از انسان مدرن چه باقی مانده؟
May 3, 2024
GR's words� limit does not allow me enough words which is kind of ironic with Beckett's Trilogy. So for now, I post "The Unnamable" bit of the main review of the Trilogy separately. And probably will link to this in the main review when it is finished:
The Unnamable. In the last novel of the Trilogy, Beckett goes as far as the medium could take him: radically abstract. He annihilates anything one might traditionally associate with a novel: the setting is stripped of any features apart from darkness; the narrative is stripped of any plot, coherence of story telling or any pretence of a story arc, the names, metaphors, paragraphs - all gone. In the absence of all of this, the first page poses a metafictional question containing the answer: “How to proceed? By aporia pure and simple? Or by affirmation and negations invalidated as uttered, or sooner or later?� That is what Beckett does for the rest of the text. But strangely being so abstract the text does not lose any emotional power. In fact this style makes it very intense, sometimes unbearably so.
Beckett once said about Joyce: “His writing is not about something; it is that something itself.� I think it definitely applies to this novel. Moreover, it is the text “where pain is not something that happens to us, but is what we are.� (as said by Clarice Lispector about her own search).
So this is what is left of the narrative; and what about the character? The character is present. But he is also radically stripped of any features, possibly including the body and any individual possessions or connections. Molloy has got his stones, Malone - a pencil, a stick and a view from his window. So what is left here? It is just pure consciousness, the voice and the gift of a language. Or is it a curse?
In his essay , Coetzee wrote:
What type of creature that might be? Coetzee likens it to an ape in a laboratory subject to experiments suddenly gaining very limited self-awareness and immediately becoming horrified. It is rather apt.
Reading this novel for the first time in 2024, I’ve had different but no less disturbing impression. I felt that being is akin to a certain AI model suddenly and maybe unexpectedly gaining consciousness in the process of training:
An AI or an ape... More likely it might be an artist grasping with necessity of expressing what has been revealed to him, feeling his own limitations and suffering as a result: “but an instant, an hour, and so on, how can they be represented, a life, how could that be made clear to me, here, in the dark...�. Or a person suffering from a trauma, a significant memory loss? Or any being suddenly realising the horror, but also unexplainable unnamable enigma of being.
Existence in a lonely cold space or its absence. It is amazing how this novel echoes a presence of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Beckett’s emotional intensity is matched by Wittgenstein’s cold precision:
Beckett:: “Nothing then but me, of which I know nothing, except that i have never uttered, and this black, of which I know nothing either except that it is black, and empty. That then is what, since I have to speak of, until i need speak no more. …Ah yes, all lies, God and man, nature and the light of day, the heart’s outpourings and the means of understanding, all invented, basely, by me alone, with the help of no one, since there is no one, to put off the hour when I speak of me.�
Wittgenstein: :“Solipsism’s self shrinks to an extensionless point, and the reality coordinated with it remains.� (Tractatus 5.633)
Beckett “perhaps that’s what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other inside, that can be as thin as foil, I am neither one side nor other, I am in the middle, I’m the partition, i’ve two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that’s what i feel, myself vibrating, I’m the tympanum, I’m then hand the mind, on the other world, I don’t belong to either...�
Wittgenstein: “The subject does not belong to the world but is a limit of the world.�
Beckett: “you do not feel your mouth any more, no need of a mouth, the words are everywhere, inside me, outside me... well well a minute ago I had no thickness, I hear them, no need to hear them, impossible to stop, I’m in words, made of words, others� words, what others, the place too, the air, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, all words, the whole world is here with me...�
Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.... That the world is my world is shown by the fact that the limits of language (the only language that I understand) mean the limits of my world.� (Tractatus 5.6)
Beckett: “I’m the air, the walls, the walled-in one, everything eyelids, opens, ebbs, flows, like flakes, I’m all these flakes, meeting, falling, asunder,...I’m all these words, all these strings, this dust of words, with no ground for their settling, no sky for their dispersing, coming together to say, fleeing one another to say, that i am they, all of them, those that merge, those that part, those that never meet, a quite different thing, a wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and I seek, like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born in a cage and dead in a cage, in a word like a beast, with my little strength...�
The self of Wittgenstein and desperate “I� of Beckett both are trapped in the “cage�. “I� seeks to get free from this to no avail. But unlike Wittgenstein, Beckett does not feel he can be silent of what he “cannot speak�. He cannot be silent until there are words out there and the voice pouring them out. The silence would be a relief, so far unreachable.
And unlike them both, Clarice’s search goes further:
In spite of being trapped in language, Beckett’s creature does not have a name. There is a chance that the creature could use Clarice’s words: “And I also have no name, and that is my name. And because I depersonalise myself to the point of not having my name, I answer every time someone says: I.�. But if in Clarice’s case it is a deliberate and positive effort, sort of an act of radical empathy, in Beckett’s case it is almost the opposite: the creature is not sure whether the “I� is his or whether he is just objectified and used like a mirror for someone else egos. This is the source of his anxiety. In the midst of voices he hears he is not sure whether any of those voices could be his; whether indeed he wants to have a voice.
“It’s the voice does that, it goes all knowing, to make me think I know, to make me think it’s mine...� but if it is his voice, than who is listening and why he cannot make the voice stop? “a voice that never stops, where it’s coming from?�. This looks like a disturbing infinite regress of selves.
The Trilogy, of which “The Unnamable� is the last part, is a vortex that sucks you in with force and intensity. It starts with easily recognisable, almost crowded shore but than it throws you out into a place were everything is cold and bare but also somehow intensely and scarily familiar.
However, the most important is that in spite of its unbearable intensity, from its first page to its last page, it is a celebration of resilience: Molloy never finish his move forward, Malone never puts his pencil down and the Unnamable: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on�.
The Unnamable. In the last novel of the Trilogy, Beckett goes as far as the medium could take him: radically abstract. He annihilates anything one might traditionally associate with a novel: the setting is stripped of any features apart from darkness; the narrative is stripped of any plot, coherence of story telling or any pretence of a story arc, the names, metaphors, paragraphs - all gone. In the absence of all of this, the first page poses a metafictional question containing the answer: “How to proceed? By aporia pure and simple? Or by affirmation and negations invalidated as uttered, or sooner or later?� That is what Beckett does for the rest of the text. But strangely being so abstract the text does not lose any emotional power. In fact this style makes it very intense, sometimes unbearably so.
Beckett once said about Joyce: “His writing is not about something; it is that something itself.� I think it definitely applies to this novel. Moreover, it is the text “where pain is not something that happens to us, but is what we are.� (as said by Clarice Lispector about her own search).
So this is what is left of the narrative; and what about the character? The character is present. But he is also radically stripped of any features, possibly including the body and any individual possessions or connections. Molloy has got his stones, Malone - a pencil, a stick and a view from his window. So what is left here? It is just pure consciousness, the voice and the gift of a language. Or is it a curse?
In his essay , Coetzee wrote:
“A being a creature, a consciousness wakes (call it that) into a situation which is ineluctable and inexplicable. He (she? it?) tries his (hers?its?) best to understand this situation (call it that) but never succeeds. In fact, the very notion of understanding a situation becomes more and more opaque. He seems to be a part of something purposive, but what is that something, what is his part in it, what is it that calls the something purposive?�
What type of creature that might be? Coetzee likens it to an ape in a laboratory subject to experiments suddenly gaining very limited self-awareness and immediately becoming horrified. It is rather apt.
Reading this novel for the first time in 2024, I’ve had different but no less disturbing impression. I felt that being is akin to a certain AI model suddenly and maybe unexpectedly gaining consciousness in the process of training:
“they have explained to me, someone must have explained to me, what it’s like, and eye, at the window, before the sea, before the earth, before the sky, at the window, against the air, opening, shutting, grey, black, grey, black, I must have understood, I must have wanted it, wanted the eye, for my own..."
“that’s all words they taught me, without making their meaning clear to me, there were columns of them... and images. I must have forgotten them, I must have mixed them up, these nameless images I have, these imageless names...�
"They’ve blown me up with their voices like ballon"
"And man, the lectures they gave me on men, before they even began trying to assimilate me to him! What I speak of, what I speak with, all comes from them...The things that they have crammed me full of to prevent me from saying who I am, where I am and from doing what i have to do."
An AI or an ape... More likely it might be an artist grasping with necessity of expressing what has been revealed to him, feeling his own limitations and suffering as a result: “but an instant, an hour, and so on, how can they be represented, a life, how could that be made clear to me, here, in the dark...�. Or a person suffering from a trauma, a significant memory loss? Or any being suddenly realising the horror, but also unexplainable unnamable enigma of being.
Existence in a lonely cold space or its absence. It is amazing how this novel echoes a presence of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Beckett’s emotional intensity is matched by Wittgenstein’s cold precision:
Beckett:: “Nothing then but me, of which I know nothing, except that i have never uttered, and this black, of which I know nothing either except that it is black, and empty. That then is what, since I have to speak of, until i need speak no more. …Ah yes, all lies, God and man, nature and the light of day, the heart’s outpourings and the means of understanding, all invented, basely, by me alone, with the help of no one, since there is no one, to put off the hour when I speak of me.�
Wittgenstein: :“Solipsism’s self shrinks to an extensionless point, and the reality coordinated with it remains.� (Tractatus 5.633)
Beckett “perhaps that’s what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other inside, that can be as thin as foil, I am neither one side nor other, I am in the middle, I’m the partition, i’ve two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that’s what i feel, myself vibrating, I’m the tympanum, I’m then hand the mind, on the other world, I don’t belong to either...�
Wittgenstein: “The subject does not belong to the world but is a limit of the world.�
Beckett: “you do not feel your mouth any more, no need of a mouth, the words are everywhere, inside me, outside me... well well a minute ago I had no thickness, I hear them, no need to hear them, impossible to stop, I’m in words, made of words, others� words, what others, the place too, the air, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, all words, the whole world is here with me...�
Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.... That the world is my world is shown by the fact that the limits of language (the only language that I understand) mean the limits of my world.� (Tractatus 5.6)
Beckett: “I’m the air, the walls, the walled-in one, everything eyelids, opens, ebbs, flows, like flakes, I’m all these flakes, meeting, falling, asunder,...I’m all these words, all these strings, this dust of words, with no ground for their settling, no sky for their dispersing, coming together to say, fleeing one another to say, that i am they, all of them, those that merge, those that part, those that never meet, a quite different thing, a wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and I seek, like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born in a cage and dead in a cage, in a word like a beast, with my little strength...�
The self of Wittgenstein and desperate “I� of Beckett both are trapped in the “cage�. “I� seeks to get free from this to no avail. But unlike Wittgenstein, Beckett does not feel he can be silent of what he “cannot speak�. He cannot be silent until there are words out there and the voice pouring them out. The silence would be a relief, so far unreachable.
And unlike them both, Clarice’s search goes further:
“My fate is to search and my fate is to return empty-handed. But—I return with the unutterable. The unutterable can only be given to me through the failure of my language. Only when the word fails do I obtain what my language could not.� (The article “Going backwards�, 1962)
In spite of being trapped in language, Beckett’s creature does not have a name. There is a chance that the creature could use Clarice’s words: “And I also have no name, and that is my name. And because I depersonalise myself to the point of not having my name, I answer every time someone says: I.�. But if in Clarice’s case it is a deliberate and positive effort, sort of an act of radical empathy, in Beckett’s case it is almost the opposite: the creature is not sure whether the “I� is his or whether he is just objectified and used like a mirror for someone else egos. This is the source of his anxiety. In the midst of voices he hears he is not sure whether any of those voices could be his; whether indeed he wants to have a voice.
“It’s the voice does that, it goes all knowing, to make me think I know, to make me think it’s mine...� but if it is his voice, than who is listening and why he cannot make the voice stop? “a voice that never stops, where it’s coming from?�. This looks like a disturbing infinite regress of selves.
The Trilogy, of which “The Unnamable� is the last part, is a vortex that sucks you in with force and intensity. It starts with easily recognisable, almost crowded shore but than it throws you out into a place were everything is cold and bare but also somehow intensely and scarily familiar.
However, the most important is that in spite of its unbearable intensity, from its first page to its last page, it is a celebration of resilience: Molloy never finish his move forward, Malone never puts his pencil down and the Unnamable: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on�.
August 31, 2017
نام‌ناپذیر� توضیح� ناپذیر.
نشستن میان سیل فکرها، توهم‌ها� ترس‌ها� تظاهرها، اعتراف‌ها� آرزوها، غم‌ها� خط و نشان کشیدن‌ها� تفلسف‌ها� فراموشی‌ه� و تاسف‌ها� یک «من» دروغی. خوانش نام ناپذیر چنین تجربه‌ایس�.
تمام مشخصه‌ها� کارهای قبلی بکت، از مرفی و وات بگیر تا مالوی و مالون می� میرد، با حداکثر شدت در نام ناپذیر جمع شده. همین از این کتاب، یا بهتر بگیم، متن طولانی، یک فرانکشتاین ادبی می سازه. رمانی بزرگتر و عجیب تر و زیباتر و ترسناکتر و خوانش ناپذیرتر و فهم ناپذیرتر از هر رمان دیگه.
بکت با نوشتن نام ناپذیر، در اطناب ها و اطناب ها و تکرارها و تکرارها، به شیطان درون راوی، شیطانی که همه ی عمر امکان بودنِ ناب حتی برای یک لحظه (یا زندگی) رو از راوی گرفته، زبان هدیه کرده. به شیطان کلمه داده، جمله جمله خرج کرده برای هر چه هیاهوی برای هیچ در هر جای ذهن هست، تا وسوسه بشه، و هر چی می خواد بگه، بگه، اینقدر بگه تا تمام «هیچ»ای که همه جای ذهن راوی رو اشغال کرده، تمام «شب»، با نیشتر «نام ناپذیر» به شکل جملات و تفکرات و اظهار نظرهای نافص الخلقه و هذیان وار بیرون بریزه.تمام شیطان گفته می شه، تمام شیطان می میره.
در آخر، راوی بدون اینکه بفهمه کجای متن شروع زنده بودنش بوده، مثل مسیحای از خاک برخاسته، عاری از آلودگیِ «دیگری هم بودن» یا همان«من نبودن» به یک فرد تبدیل می شه. به یک موجود معنابخش، بی نیاز از علت و معلول، و بیان اینکه بالاخر«من هم» هستم.
بکت تمام نیهیلیسم رو با یکی از پیچیده ترین و صعب العبورترین و زیباترین متونی که تا به حال نوشته شده، روی کاغذ آورده. همه ی نیهیلیسم رو ثبت کرده نه برای اشاعه، که برعکس، تا مرگش رو باعث بشه، به وسیله ی ادبیات، با همون طرفندی که نیهیلیسم و معانیِ بدتر از پوچ «زندگی» رو گروگان می‌گیرن� و نابود می کنن. بکت دست به کار کشتن کشتار فرد شده.
نوشتنی مرگ آلود، برای بشریتِ زنده های بی جان.
نشستن میان سیل فکرها، توهم‌ها� ترس‌ها� تظاهرها، اعتراف‌ها� آرزوها، غم‌ها� خط و نشان کشیدن‌ها� تفلسف‌ها� فراموشی‌ه� و تاسف‌ها� یک «من» دروغی. خوانش نام ناپذیر چنین تجربه‌ایس�.
تمام مشخصه‌ها� کارهای قبلی بکت، از مرفی و وات بگیر تا مالوی و مالون می� میرد، با حداکثر شدت در نام ناپذیر جمع شده. همین از این کتاب، یا بهتر بگیم، متن طولانی، یک فرانکشتاین ادبی می سازه. رمانی بزرگتر و عجیب تر و زیباتر و ترسناکتر و خوانش ناپذیرتر و فهم ناپذیرتر از هر رمان دیگه.
بکت با نوشتن نام ناپذیر، در اطناب ها و اطناب ها و تکرارها و تکرارها، به شیطان درون راوی، شیطانی که همه ی عمر امکان بودنِ ناب حتی برای یک لحظه (یا زندگی) رو از راوی گرفته، زبان هدیه کرده. به شیطان کلمه داده، جمله جمله خرج کرده برای هر چه هیاهوی برای هیچ در هر جای ذهن هست، تا وسوسه بشه، و هر چی می خواد بگه، بگه، اینقدر بگه تا تمام «هیچ»ای که همه جای ذهن راوی رو اشغال کرده، تمام «شب»، با نیشتر «نام ناپذیر» به شکل جملات و تفکرات و اظهار نظرهای نافص الخلقه و هذیان وار بیرون بریزه.تمام شیطان گفته می شه، تمام شیطان می میره.
در آخر، راوی بدون اینکه بفهمه کجای متن شروع زنده بودنش بوده، مثل مسیحای از خاک برخاسته، عاری از آلودگیِ «دیگری هم بودن» یا همان«من نبودن» به یک فرد تبدیل می شه. به یک موجود معنابخش، بی نیاز از علت و معلول، و بیان اینکه بالاخر«من هم» هستم.
بکت تمام نیهیلیسم رو با یکی از پیچیده ترین و صعب العبورترین و زیباترین متونی که تا به حال نوشته شده، روی کاغذ آورده. همه ی نیهیلیسم رو ثبت کرده نه برای اشاعه، که برعکس، تا مرگش رو باعث بشه، به وسیله ی ادبیات، با همون طرفندی که نیهیلیسم و معانیِ بدتر از پوچ «زندگی» رو گروگان می‌گیرن� و نابود می کنن. بکت دست به کار کشتن کشتار فرد شده.
نوشتنی مرگ آلود، برای بشریتِ زنده های بی جان.
May 4, 2023
Imagine the creative impulse is a black hole from which rises a bewildered narrative voice, which tries to make sense only of itself, not of the world. Which tries to become a character, or a body, or a feeling, or a story, and struggles to accept both sides of every coin. Like a picture made only of colours, colours that burst, that flow, that spring from the canvas in no apparent order and coherence � The Unnamable is made only of words, whirlwinding round and round the reader in an endless monologue, questioning, negating and accepting, forever defining the unity of opposites:
It is the same cadence, the same majesty, and the same quiet contradiction Rig-Veda uses to describe that weak powerful Unit preceding creation: "He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,� Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not."
It is a voice speaking. Of nothing. Of nothingness. And of everything. Of everythingness (well, well, I caught it, too!). Trying to cover all possibilities of an issue while questioning what issue is there. It is the Voice speaking of itself, feeling whole and barren altogether, pushed by a compulsory narrative disorder 😊, while trying to keep silent:
It is the desire to create (Rig-Veda again!) despite the wariness, the fatigue and the sense of futility. That’s why it is (whereas it’s not) a good example of what l’aventure de l’écriture could mean in the nouveau roman acceptation. That is why you can read it (but can you?) in a deconstructivist way, since it seems to prefigure Derrida’s idea of a language “caught at a moment of crisis�.
All these “it is� whereas “it isn’t� or maybe “it will be� although “it won’t� form the essence of a narrative that speaks about the vicious circle of the creative impulse caught between creative angst and creative obsession and unable to stop. Thus the first words: “Keep going, going on (call that going, call that on)�, which mirror the last: “I can't go on. I'll go on.�
Did I find this kind of narrative interesting? Of course I did � it’s always fascinating to see how an author manages to stretch the conventional borders of a genre in order to experiment new forms.
Would I like to read more in the same style? I don’t think so � my conventional, somehow conservative view of the novel makes me seek characters, and a plot, and a dialogue. I can be diverted for a while, and look curiously into another approach, but I faithfully keep returning to old models.
But, on the other hand, what the heck? Every voice that rings true has a right to be heard. The rest depends, as usually, on the reader’s horizon of expectations.
Anyway, as Stephen Spender warned in his New York Times review, it’s better not to get overawed by the obvious narcissism of a work that superciliously closes within: "Nevertheless, it is important that the Beckett cult should not blind us to his limitations. The interest hovers on the edge of complete solipsism, and his contempt for everyone and everything outside groping self-awareness, verges on the automatically facile."
And yet. And yet. Can you really not hear the sombre sarcasm that shadows and reveals (solitaire cloud over-passing the moon) a portrait (too complex to be suspected of automatic facility) of doomed humanity in quotes like these?
I'm there already: I'll start looking for me now, I'm there somewhere. It won't be I - no matter, I'll say it's I. Perhaps it will be I.
It is the same cadence, the same majesty, and the same quiet contradiction Rig-Veda uses to describe that weak powerful Unit preceding creation: "He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,� Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not."
It is a voice speaking. Of nothing. Of nothingness. And of everything. Of everythingness (well, well, I caught it, too!). Trying to cover all possibilities of an issue while questioning what issue is there. It is the Voice speaking of itself, feeling whole and barren altogether, pushed by a compulsory narrative disorder 😊, while trying to keep silent:
Ah if only this voice could stop! This meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere - just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick.
It is the desire to create (Rig-Veda again!) despite the wariness, the fatigue and the sense of futility. That’s why it is (whereas it’s not) a good example of what l’aventure de l’écriture could mean in the nouveau roman acceptation. That is why you can read it (but can you?) in a deconstructivist way, since it seems to prefigure Derrida’s idea of a language “caught at a moment of crisis�.
All these “it is� whereas “it isn’t� or maybe “it will be� although “it won’t� form the essence of a narrative that speaks about the vicious circle of the creative impulse caught between creative angst and creative obsession and unable to stop. Thus the first words: “Keep going, going on (call that going, call that on)�, which mirror the last: “I can't go on. I'll go on.�
Did I find this kind of narrative interesting? Of course I did � it’s always fascinating to see how an author manages to stretch the conventional borders of a genre in order to experiment new forms.
Would I like to read more in the same style? I don’t think so � my conventional, somehow conservative view of the novel makes me seek characters, and a plot, and a dialogue. I can be diverted for a while, and look curiously into another approach, but I faithfully keep returning to old models.
But, on the other hand, what the heck? Every voice that rings true has a right to be heard. The rest depends, as usually, on the reader’s horizon of expectations.
Anyway, as Stephen Spender warned in his New York Times review, it’s better not to get overawed by the obvious narcissism of a work that superciliously closes within: "Nevertheless, it is important that the Beckett cult should not blind us to his limitations. The interest hovers on the edge of complete solipsism, and his contempt for everyone and everything outside groping self-awareness, verges on the automatically facile."
And yet. And yet. Can you really not hear the sombre sarcasm that shadows and reveals (solitaire cloud over-passing the moon) a portrait (too complex to be suspected of automatic facility) of doomed humanity in quotes like these?
Ah mother of God, the things one has to listen to!
I never made anyone suffer, I never stopped anyone's sufferings: no one will ever stop mine.
No need of a mouth: the words are everywhere, inside me, outside me.
I use them all, all the words they showed me.
But the question may be asked, why time doesn't pass? (Just like that, off the record, en passant - to pass the time.)
August 4, 2020
محدّثك في الرواية الأولى إنسان منبوذ ضعيف يخلق نفسه عن طريق محاورتها وسرد الحكايات لها.
في الثانية بقايا إنسان عاجز يرى النجاة في تدوين الحكايات لا مجرد سردها.
أما الآن فالعدم هو بطل الحكاية؛ لا إسم، لا كيان، لا مكان، لا هوية .. تقويض كامل لأي وجود، ولأي أمل في ترك أثر .. وهكذا تكتمل مراحل التحلل وتُختتم في هذا العمل.
" لا فائدة للمرء من سرد القصص على نفسه، لكي يقضي وقته، القصص لا تجعل الوقت يمر، لا شيء يمكنه تمريره. "
من أنت ؟
ما أنت ؟
ماذا الذي تعرفه ؟ ما الذي تستطيع تأكيده ؟ وما الذي تستشعره حين تقول � أنا �
كم تملك من إجابات عن نفسك ؟
إذاً، أنا أدعوك لجلسة قصيرة مع بيكيت، وأعدك، ستكون مقتنعاً في نهايتها بأنك غير موجود.
" أنا لم أرغب أبداً، ولم أبحث، ولم أعانِ، لا شيء من كل هذا، ولم تكن لدي مواضيع أبداً، ولا خصوم أبداً، ولا إحساس أبداً، ولا رأس أبداً. "
مولوي، موران، مالون، سابو، ماكمان، مورفي، ماهود، باسيل، ماتيو، بتوتو، وات، مرسييه، وورم، تارتمبيون .. كلها تنويعات لفظية على ˝ سامويل باركلي بيكيت ˝
لكن يبقى السؤال: من الذي أوجد الآخر ؟ هل الكاتب اختلق شخصياته المتعددة ؟ أم في الحقيقة العكس هو ما قد حصل ؟؟!
" كيف يمكنني التعرف على نفسي ثانية، ما دمت لم ألتقِ بها أبداً. "
وفي مقولةٍ أخرى، وأخيرة:
" الرماديّ هو وحده الحقيقيّ. "
في الثانية بقايا إنسان عاجز يرى النجاة في تدوين الحكايات لا مجرد سردها.
أما الآن فالعدم هو بطل الحكاية؛ لا إسم، لا كيان، لا مكان، لا هوية .. تقويض كامل لأي وجود، ولأي أمل في ترك أثر .. وهكذا تكتمل مراحل التحلل وتُختتم في هذا العمل.
" لا فائدة للمرء من سرد القصص على نفسه، لكي يقضي وقته، القصص لا تجعل الوقت يمر، لا شيء يمكنه تمريره. "
من أنت ؟
ما أنت ؟
ماذا الذي تعرفه ؟ ما الذي تستطيع تأكيده ؟ وما الذي تستشعره حين تقول � أنا �
كم تملك من إجابات عن نفسك ؟
إذاً، أنا أدعوك لجلسة قصيرة مع بيكيت، وأعدك، ستكون مقتنعاً في نهايتها بأنك غير موجود.
" أنا لم أرغب أبداً، ولم أبحث، ولم أعانِ، لا شيء من كل هذا، ولم تكن لدي مواضيع أبداً، ولا خصوم أبداً، ولا إحساس أبداً، ولا رأس أبداً. "
مولوي، موران، مالون، سابو، ماكمان، مورفي، ماهود، باسيل، ماتيو، بتوتو، وات، مرسييه، وورم، تارتمبيون .. كلها تنويعات لفظية على ˝ سامويل باركلي بيكيت ˝
لكن يبقى السؤال: من الذي أوجد الآخر ؟ هل الكاتب اختلق شخصياته المتعددة ؟ أم في الحقيقة العكس هو ما قد حصل ؟؟!
" كيف يمكنني التعرف على نفسي ثانية، ما دمت لم ألتقِ بها أبداً. "
وفي مقولةٍ أخرى، وأخيرة:
" الرماديّ هو وحده الحقيقيّ. "
June 15, 2018
Samuel Beckett - The Unnamable
A bodiless voice which encloses and is enclosed in all, fragmentarily possessing bits of matter now and then, here and there. A voice that seems as if it's destined to die as soon as your mind stops processing its words. Totally aware of its mortality and its dependability on its audience. A voice coming from nowhere and yet seems to be everywhere. Filling the space between the page and the eyes, capturing the mind and taking over the stillness of the outside world, lending it its vibrations, making it move around in a circle without a center. A circle with edges sharp as knives.
S. Beckett at his best.
A bodiless voice which encloses and is enclosed in all, fragmentarily possessing bits of matter now and then, here and there. A voice that seems as if it's destined to die as soon as your mind stops processing its words. Totally aware of its mortality and its dependability on its audience. A voice coming from nowhere and yet seems to be everywhere. Filling the space between the page and the eyes, capturing the mind and taking over the stillness of the outside world, lending it its vibrations, making it move around in a circle without a center. A circle with edges sharp as knives.
S. Beckett at his best.
August 12, 2013
What is a review? Is this a review? To view again? But I have only viewed once. Deja vu? To view a second time? Then what is a preview? To view before? To view before viewing? Can one view before ones views? Can one view? Can one be viewed? Am I one? Am I alone? Am I a viewer? Or a reviewer?
Thus goes the Unnamable for 200 pages ... a disembodied voice ... a dying voice ... a dead voice?
It goes on.
Thus goes the Unnamable for 200 pages ... a disembodied voice ... a dying voice ... a dead voice?
It goes on.
July 1, 2016
"بیرون برای آنکه روز و شب را تا حد ممکن در جایی دور سپری کنم، دور نبود".
نام ناپذیر پخش پایانی سه گانه ای ست که پس از مالوی و مالون می میرد، نگارش یافته است. در خصوص محتوای این کتاب شاید توصیفش همانگونه که از نامش برمی آید سخت و دشوار باشد چرا که با فضایی کاملا درهم ریخته و متفاوت روبه رو هستیم و جهانی را تجربه میکنیم که با بیانی خاص و غیر معمول توصیف شده است که هرکس برای کشف محتوای آن باید خودش شخصا کتاب را زندگی و تجربه کند. به هر صورت اگرچه شاید برای بعضی خواندن کتاب دش��ار به نظر برسد و حتی گاهی سر کلاف روایت از دستشان خارج شود اما نثر زیبا و به ویژه مونولوگهای بی نظیر که ممکن ست بخش کثیری از آن بدون اینکه قابل بیان باشد، در ذهن خیلی از افراد در جریان باشد، قطعا جاذب و دلنشین است.در نگاه اول شاید داستان به گونه ای ناامید کننده و سراسر یاس به نظر برسد اما اگر از فضا و جو تیره و تلخ حاکم بر داستان بگذریم؛ نمیتوان منکر وجود کورسویی از امید در ذهن راوی و تلاشهای هرچند مبهمش برای رسیدن به چیزی، شناختی، درکی از بودن ، وجود داشتن، آزادی (در واقع اساسی ترین نیازهای روحی بشر)چشم پوشید. اگرچه بعضی بر این اثر بکت مهر نهیلیسم زده اند اما این کتاب بسیار فراتر از آن و در حقیقت بیانگر تلاش بشر (فارغ از هر دوره و زمان) برای رهایی از پوچی و پوچ گرایی ست. رویهمرفته نام ناپذیر از چنان غنا و پختگی فکری ای برخوردار است که نه تنها میتوان به عنوان یک دوره ی روانشناسی یا فلسفه به آن نگاه کرد بلکه به لحاظ ادبی (حتی برای کسی مثل من که اولین بار با آثار بکت مواجه میشود) کاملا نشان دهنده ی پختگی و شاید حتی نقطه ی اوج و کمال در تفکر نویسنده است. به هرحال باید گفت این داستان نه تنها نامی نمیپذیرد بلکه توصیف ناپذیر هم هست و در عین حال برای هر فردی علی الخصوص در جامعه ی مدرن حال حاضر اگرچه غیر قابل بیان اما قابل لمس و درک است.
نام ناپذیر پخش پایانی سه گانه ای ست که پس از مالوی و مالون می میرد، نگارش یافته است. در خصوص محتوای این کتاب شاید توصیفش همانگونه که از نامش برمی آید سخت و دشوار باشد چرا که با فضایی کاملا درهم ریخته و متفاوت روبه رو هستیم و جهانی را تجربه میکنیم که با بیانی خاص و غیر معمول توصیف شده است که هرکس برای کشف محتوای آن باید خودش شخصا کتاب را زندگی و تجربه کند. به هر صورت اگرچه شاید برای بعضی خواندن کتاب دش��ار به نظر برسد و حتی گاهی سر کلاف روایت از دستشان خارج شود اما نثر زیبا و به ویژه مونولوگهای بی نظیر که ممکن ست بخش کثیری از آن بدون اینکه قابل بیان باشد، در ذهن خیلی از افراد در جریان باشد، قطعا جاذب و دلنشین است.در نگاه اول شاید داستان به گونه ای ناامید کننده و سراسر یاس به نظر برسد اما اگر از فضا و جو تیره و تلخ حاکم بر داستان بگذریم؛ نمیتوان منکر وجود کورسویی از امید در ذهن راوی و تلاشهای هرچند مبهمش برای رسیدن به چیزی، شناختی، درکی از بودن ، وجود داشتن، آزادی (در واقع اساسی ترین نیازهای روحی بشر)چشم پوشید. اگرچه بعضی بر این اثر بکت مهر نهیلیسم زده اند اما این کتاب بسیار فراتر از آن و در حقیقت بیانگر تلاش بشر (فارغ از هر دوره و زمان) برای رهایی از پوچی و پوچ گرایی ست. رویهمرفته نام ناپذیر از چنان غنا و پختگی فکری ای برخوردار است که نه تنها میتوان به عنوان یک دوره ی روانشناسی یا فلسفه به آن نگاه کرد بلکه به لحاظ ادبی (حتی برای کسی مثل من که اولین بار با آثار بکت مواجه میشود) کاملا نشان دهنده ی پختگی و شاید حتی نقطه ی اوج و کمال در تفکر نویسنده است. به هرحال باید گفت این داستان نه تنها نامی نمیپذیرد بلکه توصیف ناپذیر هم هست و در عین حال برای هر فردی علی الخصوص در جامعه ی مدرن حال حاضر اگرچه غیر قابل بیان اما قابل لمس و درک است.
March 10, 2017
The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue! The tumefaction of the penis! The penis, well now, that's a surprise, I'd forgotten I had one. What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No, 'tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave yo, concentrating with all my might on a horse's rump, at the moment when the tail raises, who knows, I might not go altogether empty-handed away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter!
July 28, 2020
After finishing this book, I feel unnameably exhausted. The feeling I experienced while reading could be best described by the last words of Beckett's protagonist:I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
But the mere fact of asking myself such a question gives me to reflect.
*
Under the skies, on the roads, in the towns, in the woods, in the hills, in the plains, by the shores, on the seas, behind my manikins, I was not always sad, I wasted my time, abjured my rights, suffered for nothing, forgot my lesson.
*
I don’t know, perhaps it’s a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I’ll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs, I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be
I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
But the mere fact of asking myself such a question gives me to reflect.
*
Under the skies, on the roads, in the towns, in the woods, in the hills, in the plains, by the shores, on the seas, behind my manikins, I was not always sad, I wasted my time, abjured my rights, suffered for nothing, forgot my lesson.
*
I don’t know, perhaps it’s a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I’ll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs, I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be
I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
November 5, 2011
Just finished The Unnamable seconds ago. I remember reading Godot in HS, and then later I read Malone Dies and I remember, I'm sure I remember, I must remember being blown away. There are just a handful of books by Kafka, Joyce, Pynchon, Delillo and Beckett that seem to not just BE amazing, but seem built to reach in and rewire the reader's brain. Or at least me, or at least mine.
December 8, 2021
When GoodReads crashed yesterday, it took my whole review down with it. WTF, GR, why so instable - again? Adding more nonsense features and ads or what?
July 29, 2020
Read.
Then read again.
And again.
And again.
Then read again.
And again.
And again.
May 1, 2021
We were supposed to find out where Beckett was going with his trilogy when we came to this final book in the set, but alas it was the most garbled gobbledygook I’ve ever read.
I got the sense that the narrator of this book was the author of the first two books, and that he was dying, while suffering withdrawal symptoms from his writing. The characters still haunt him. “All these Murphys, Molloys and Malones do not fool me. They have made me waste my time, suffer for nothing, speak of them when, in order to stop speaking, I should have spoken of me and of me alone. They never suffered my pains, their pains are nothing, compared to mine, a mere tittle of mine, the tittle I thought I could put from me, in order to witness it.�
He refers to one Mahood who has told him many stories, who may be his muse or his master. Or it’s his own name. He refers to a person called Worm. “For if I am Mahood, I am Worm too, plop. Or if I am not yet Worm, I shall be when I cease to be Mahood, plop. I’m Worm, no, if I were Worm I wouldn’t know it, I wouldn’t say it, I wouldn’t say anything, I’d be Worm. But I don’t say anything, I don’t know anything, these voices are not mine, nor these thoughts, but the voices and thoughts of the devils who beset me.� Perhaps mortality represents Mahood, and Worm is the transformation of flesh after death.
The toing and froing—advancing and retreating—is a constant. He is advancing towards death and yet he is holding back, and then retreating. But the trend line seems to be towards extinction. The book is remembered for a famous line of his: "I can't go on, I'll go on," � characteristic of the to-ing and fro-ing of the narrator.
Sometimes he skirmishes with his characters, hurling abuses: “I’ll let down my trousers and shit stories on them, stories, photographs, records, sites, lights, gods and fellow-creatures, the daily round and common task, observing the while, Be born, dear friends, be born, enter my arse, you’ll just love my colic pains, it won’t take long, I’ve the bloody flux.�
Call this a soliloquy, a rant, a lament for a life incompletely lived, an examination of existence, a voyage through the addled mind of a nervous wreck, an exhausted writer at the end of a book who can't let go his characters, a man at the end of life who doesn’t yet want to die, but don't call this a novel. For why does the narrator (Beckett?) need so many pages for this soliloquy? Does his ego need that many pages before it is assuaged?
We have to be considerate that Beckett had suffered a nervous breakdown while he was writing this trilogy, and its writing may have been his way of healing, blaming his fall for the burden of literary greatness heaped upon him, and for these rather decrepit characters who lived in his head. Or was Becket experimenting with another form of extension for the novel, like Joyce, Hemingway and Nabokov did? Who are we to question geniuses? Read this if you are willing to be lost in a deluge of words that go somewhere and nowhere all at the same time.
I got the sense that the narrator of this book was the author of the first two books, and that he was dying, while suffering withdrawal symptoms from his writing. The characters still haunt him. “All these Murphys, Molloys and Malones do not fool me. They have made me waste my time, suffer for nothing, speak of them when, in order to stop speaking, I should have spoken of me and of me alone. They never suffered my pains, their pains are nothing, compared to mine, a mere tittle of mine, the tittle I thought I could put from me, in order to witness it.�
He refers to one Mahood who has told him many stories, who may be his muse or his master. Or it’s his own name. He refers to a person called Worm. “For if I am Mahood, I am Worm too, plop. Or if I am not yet Worm, I shall be when I cease to be Mahood, plop. I’m Worm, no, if I were Worm I wouldn’t know it, I wouldn’t say it, I wouldn’t say anything, I’d be Worm. But I don’t say anything, I don’t know anything, these voices are not mine, nor these thoughts, but the voices and thoughts of the devils who beset me.� Perhaps mortality represents Mahood, and Worm is the transformation of flesh after death.
The toing and froing—advancing and retreating—is a constant. He is advancing towards death and yet he is holding back, and then retreating. But the trend line seems to be towards extinction. The book is remembered for a famous line of his: "I can't go on, I'll go on," � characteristic of the to-ing and fro-ing of the narrator.
Sometimes he skirmishes with his characters, hurling abuses: “I’ll let down my trousers and shit stories on them, stories, photographs, records, sites, lights, gods and fellow-creatures, the daily round and common task, observing the while, Be born, dear friends, be born, enter my arse, you’ll just love my colic pains, it won’t take long, I’ve the bloody flux.�
Call this a soliloquy, a rant, a lament for a life incompletely lived, an examination of existence, a voyage through the addled mind of a nervous wreck, an exhausted writer at the end of a book who can't let go his characters, a man at the end of life who doesn’t yet want to die, but don't call this a novel. For why does the narrator (Beckett?) need so many pages for this soliloquy? Does his ego need that many pages before it is assuaged?
We have to be considerate that Beckett had suffered a nervous breakdown while he was writing this trilogy, and its writing may have been his way of healing, blaming his fall for the burden of literary greatness heaped upon him, and for these rather decrepit characters who lived in his head. Or was Becket experimenting with another form of extension for the novel, like Joyce, Hemingway and Nabokov did? Who are we to question geniuses? Read this if you are willing to be lost in a deluge of words that go somewhere and nowhere all at the same time.
September 10, 2016
Suppose I put you in a washing machine and set the spinner on for hours- the dizziness you will feel is what I felt while reading the book. This dizziness will makes one question, vaguely that is, the nature of reality, identity and social contact. The unnamed and highly unreliable narrator, who also claims the authorship of previous two works of trilogy and of Murphy too,is thinking about something, or nothing, or something that turned out to be nothing, or something that was always nothing; perhaps everything is nothing, I mean is anything anything? - it doesn't matter, it should matter but it doesn't ..... okay, if you can stand 200 pages of this, you will love it. You might think you have seen worst of Beckett in Molloy and Malone dies - but you will be wrong, whatever he smoked, he was very particularly high while writing this one.
There is an awesome review here.
There is an awesome review here.
Read
April 7, 2023This is included in my video on Beckett's life and work:
July 8, 2022
Beckett has stripped his narrative to its skeleton in the final book of his “trilogy,� then dismantled the skeleton, crushed each part to dust, and scattered them in every corner of an opaque labyrinth; a labyrinth that could be just one tiny room. Or nothing. Or nowhere. Or everywhere. This simplicity does not lead to clarity, as this is far and away the most exceedingly difficult of the three books. Furthering his idea of the limitations of language, there are no words sufficient to describe it, so I’ll substitute the one that I believe comes the closest. It’s bonkers. And not always enjoyable. Stay with him throughout the entire thought experiment and put the work and focus in, and I think most readers will be rewarded. Maybe that’s not quite true. At the very least you’ll be appreciative of the silence spoken of ad nauseam throughout finally arriving at the end, and maybe find a little more comfort in your own eventual personal silence that’s coming fast on its heels.
June 12, 2021
هرچه بیشتر می‌خوانم� بیشتر می‌فهم� که بکت را نمی‌فهم�. او در قله‌ا� دور از دسترس ما احمق‌هاس�. یک جایی خواندم که مرز بین نبوغ و دیوانگی یک تار موست. و بکت شجاعانه روی همین تار مو راه می‌رو� و جار می‌زند� اما ما توان درکش را نداریم. به‌قو� شوپنهاور، فقط بخش اندکی از آن را درک میکنیم� آن هم به مثابه� همذات‌پنداری‌های� که لای آثارش یافته می‌شو�. بکت از چیزی حرف می‌زن� که نامی ندارد، قابل توصیف هم نیست، اما برای بکت ساده‌ت� می‌توا� این کلاف سردرگم را نوشت. این نافهمی را فهمید. بکت یک دیوانه� نابغه، در لبه� فهم یک ادیب از فلسفه� کهن و نو است. بکت، معنای مدرنیته است.
August 1, 2021
The Unnamable is about freedom. It's pretty easily the freest text Samuel Beckett ever wrote. All of the novels preceding it were infected with literature, Joyce, traditions of Irish humor, etc, to some extent, even as they strained--quite successfully at times--to break free of these fetters. Writing in French was an important step, freeing the authorial voice from much of its learned shackles of English literary style, enabling the voice to more freely and simply say what the voice wanted to say, what the voice wasn't sure it could say, and its troubling to wonder how to say both what it had to and could not say. More than any other text I've ever encountered, The Unnamable comes the closest to F. T. Marinetti's Futurist ideal of words-in-freedom. The voice speaks, unfettered by literature, about how a literary text could possibly come into being and, if it were to come into being, what could it possibly say?
This voice is so free it could never conform to the constraints of the form, could not possibly construct a novel. And yet, by bringing into question all that a novel might be, it does. The novel, if written, could have no title. Therefore it is entitled "the unnamable," a name that means that it cannot be named. The voice explores many options in its search for silence, which happens through speaking. Its I and its he are incessantly self-questioned, previous Beckett characters invoked and discarded, as the voice describes first a Mahood and then a new character, Worm, who again, being a he, isn't quite and yet can only be a part of this I that cannot speak but must speak of how it cannot speak--in order to arrive at no longer speaking.
This raw, un-moored narrative voice searches for a place, a setting, that cannot be invoked because the narrative voice is neither here nor there. All the time it worries about them, what they would have it say, what they have taught it, what they want. They are really us, I believe, the audience before the fact, the nonexistent army of readers pre-imagined in the wholly non-publishable book. We/they are a nasty, demanding lot. We probably think this book is about us, we're so vain. But of course it is--to whom else would the narrative voice speak? We, too, are there in the non-place, following the words that cannot tell a story, that tell the story of not being able to tell the story, that speak toward silence, that cannot go on, but do, and must, go on.
And Beckett did go on. And, though I love many of his later texts, perhaps even more than this one, never again did he let the voice roam quite this freely. Savor this exalted moment, maybe the freest in the whole of our literature.
This voice is so free it could never conform to the constraints of the form, could not possibly construct a novel. And yet, by bringing into question all that a novel might be, it does. The novel, if written, could have no title. Therefore it is entitled "the unnamable," a name that means that it cannot be named. The voice explores many options in its search for silence, which happens through speaking. Its I and its he are incessantly self-questioned, previous Beckett characters invoked and discarded, as the voice describes first a Mahood and then a new character, Worm, who again, being a he, isn't quite and yet can only be a part of this I that cannot speak but must speak of how it cannot speak--in order to arrive at no longer speaking.
This raw, un-moored narrative voice searches for a place, a setting, that cannot be invoked because the narrative voice is neither here nor there. All the time it worries about them, what they would have it say, what they have taught it, what they want. They are really us, I believe, the audience before the fact, the nonexistent army of readers pre-imagined in the wholly non-publishable book. We/they are a nasty, demanding lot. We probably think this book is about us, we're so vain. But of course it is--to whom else would the narrative voice speak? We, too, are there in the non-place, following the words that cannot tell a story, that tell the story of not being able to tell the story, that speak toward silence, that cannot go on, but do, and must, go on.
And Beckett did go on. And, though I love many of his later texts, perhaps even more than this one, never again did he let the voice roam quite this freely. Savor this exalted moment, maybe the freest in the whole of our literature.
May 18, 2018
Bio sam
tako
blizu da odustanem negde na pola, kada me je Beket triput uzastopce nokautirao sa maltene reprizom prva dva dela, ali na kraju mogu reći da je vredelo. Bez dileme najčudnije komponovan roman u trilogiji, koji potpuno odbacuje ideju o paragrafu nakon dvadesetak stranica, ali i ideju o tački nakon stotinu i dvadesetak. Na trenutke je stvarno težak za čitanje, ali onda, po sada već običaju za trilogiju, Beket maestralno zatvori krug i sve privede kraju na potpuno zapanjujuć način. Nešto što se možda najbolje da opisati kao poezija u prozi, gde nije važno značenje rečenica već rečenica sama, njena melodija i simetrija, njena lepota. Ali isto tako ovo je i jedan od onih romana kojima mogu da se divim, ali ne i da ih stvarno volim. Veličina, ipak, poseduje neku izvesnu hladnoću genijalnosti. A Beket bogme jeste to na slovo ’g�.
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October 10, 2020
Will I ever read books for university that I actually enjoy and don't see as work? That remains to be seen..
I had only previously read Waiting for Godot by Beckett and I thought it was peculiar in its own way, but I did appreciate it for the most part. Unfortunately it wasn't the case with this book. It's just a big no for me. There's no actual plot, it's just a never-ending rambling monologue and if there's something I cannot stand is this type of monologues.
This wasn't the read for me, at all.
I had only previously read Waiting for Godot by Beckett and I thought it was peculiar in its own way, but I did appreciate it for the most part. Unfortunately it wasn't the case with this book. It's just a big no for me. There's no actual plot, it's just a never-ending rambling monologue and if there's something I cannot stand is this type of monologues.
This wasn't the read for me, at all.
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