Any fans of Beckett here? He’s becoming one of my favorite authors. I read “Waiting for Godot” about two years ago and totally loved it. I also read “Endgame” and liked it, but not as much. It’s a lot darker and lacks the (for lack of a better word) humanness that “Godot” has.
I recently read his story “Dante and the Lobster” and liked that a lot too. The last few lines are wonderful.
I’ve read some of his poems too. My favorite so far is Cascando. The second part of it is some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve ever read.
Now I’m reading “First Love”. His first person prose was kind of hard at first, but once you get into it it’s great. The toilet humor is kind of gross though.
Anyone here like him? Or dislike him even? Or even has never heard of him but has something to say about the poem I linked to?
I thought this thread was going to be about Quantum Leap.
Is there a character named Samuel Beckett in it?
Curses! I misspelled “appreciation” in the thread title and didn’t even see it until now. If any of you mods come wandering by and don’t have anything better to do, could you consider fixing it? Samuel Beckett deserves better!
I was going to post, but, really, there’s nothing to be done.
Yes. The main character is Dr. Samuel Beckett. Which is a really odd reference for the show, given that the premise is that a man is hopped around in time by a force that might as well be God to put right where once went wrong.
You’re a fan of early Beckett, then. You’ll like Murphy and maybe Mercier and Camier, but the two trilogies are likely not for you.
I can’t go on reading this thread. I must go on.
I’ll keep that in mind. I did like Endgame, it was just not what I expected. I recognize that it was brilliant in many ways, and I like dark humor. I might still like his later stuff as long as it doesn’t go into out and out nihilism.
I have the three novels Molloy, Mallone Dies, and The Unnamable in one book. I actually tried reading Molloy not too long ago, but I found the prose really hard to get into so I decided it would be better with some context and I started on the collection of some of his works that I have. The other night I had the same problem starting “First Love” as I did with Molloy but I tried again last night and I guess it just clicked.
To all you wonderful, terrible wiseguys: I guess I should have expected answers like that. I thought of putting in some kind of witty reference in my OP but couldn’t think of anything. The best I can do is make a reference to Waiting for Godot when someone mentions Existentialism.
I think there’s an art to writing OP’s, and a good OP writer can generate a lot of discussion in a thread. Unfortunately I lack that skill, but hopefully we can still get a good discussion going if there’s one to be had. Maybe I’ll use the crutch of desperate OP writers everywhere: the list of questions.
Are there some works of his that people like more than others, or don’t like?
Are there some mediums that he writes in that you like or dislike more than others?
What do you think his place is in 20th century literature?