Samuel Beckett

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A last word about the Purgatories. Dante’s is conical and consequently implies culmination. Mr. Joyce’s is spherical and excludes culmination. In the one there is an ascent from real vegetation —— Ante-Purgatory, to ideal vegetation — Terrestial Paradise: in the other there is no ascent and no ideal vegetation. In the one, absolute progression and a guaranteed consummation: in the other, flux —— progression or retrogression, and an apparent consummation. In the one movement is unidirectional, and a step forward represents a net advance: in the other movement is non-directional — or multi—directional, and a step forward is, by definition, a step back. Dante’s Terrestial Paradise is the carriage entrance to a Paradise that is not terrestial: Mr. Joyce’s Terrestial Paradise is the tradesmen’s entrance on to the sea-shore. Sin is an impediment to movement up the cone, and a condition of movement round the sphere. In what sense, then, is Mr. Joyce’s work purgatorial? In the absolute absence of the Absolute. Hell is the static lifelessness of unrelieved viciousness. Paradise the static lifelessness of unrelieved immaculation. Purgatory a Hood of movement and vitality released by the conjunction of these two elements. There is a continuous purgatorial process at work, in the sense that the vicious circle of humanity is being achieved, and this achievement depends on the recurrent predomination of one of two broad qualities. No resistance, no eruption, and it is only in Hell and Paradise that there are no eruptions, that there can be none, need be none. On this earth that is Purgatory, Vice and Virtue —— which you may take to mean any pair of large contrary human factors ——- must in turn be purged down to spirits of rebelliousness. Then the dominant crust of the Vicious or Virtuous sets, resistance is provided, the explosion duly takes place and the machine proceeds. And no more than this; neither prize nor penalty; simply a series of stimulants to enable the kitten to catch its tail. And the partially purgatorial agent? The partially purged.
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This made me want to drop everything and read The Divine Comedy and The Wake at the same time.
 
C

catalog

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version said:
No. I'm still awake. And I actually feel surprisingly fired up. I think just being awake in the day gives you a bit more energy, even if you're knackered.
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sometimes a night with no sleep, if you've got interesting shit to do the next day, can work wonders. bad one if you've got boring admin stuff to do. but sometimes it can fire you up
 
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This looks like something you'd see on tumblr now. A fashion icon.

samuel-beckett.jpg
 
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In the end it was magic that had the honour of my ruins, and still today, when I walk there, I find its vestiges. But mostly they are a place with neither plan nor bounds and of which I understand nothing, not even of what it is made, still less into what. And the thing in ruins, I don’t know what it is, what it was, nor whether it is not less a question of ruins than the indestructible chaos of timeless things, if that is the right expression. It is in any case a place devoid of mystery, deserted by magic, because devoid of mystery. And if I do not go there gladly, I go perhaps more gladly there than anywhere else, astonished and at peace, I nearly said as in a dream, but no, no. But it is not the kind of place where you go, but where you find yourself, sometimes, not knowing how, and which you cannot leave at will, and where you find yourself without any pleasure, but with more perhaps than in those places you can escape from, by making 'an effort, places full of mystery, full of the familiar mysteries. I listen and the voice is of a world collapsing endlessly, a frozen world, under a faint untroubled sky, enough to see by, yes, and frozen too. And I hear it murmur that all wilts and yields, as if loaded down, but here there are no loads, and the ground too, unfit for loads, and the light too, down towards an end it seems can never come. For what possible end to these wastes where true light never was, nor any upright thing, nor any true foundation, but only these leaning things, forever lapsing and crumbling away, beneath a sky without memory of morning or hope of night. These things, what things, come from where, made of what? And it says that here nothing stirs, has never stirred, will never stir, except myself, who do not stir either, when I am there, but see and am seen. Yes, a world at an end, in spite of appearances, its end brought it forth, ending it began, is it clear enough? And I too am at an end, when I am there, my eyes close, my sufferings cease and I end, I wither as the living can not. And if I went on listening to that far whisper, silent long since and which I still hear, I would learn still more, about this. But I will listen no longer, for the time being, to that far whisper, for I do not like it, I fear it...
 
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Someone on Reddit was asking for some sort of guidebook or analysis for the trilogy and another poster took offense,

Beckett would have nothing of the kind. His work is the work of a noble man, so please treat it accordingly. Don't go out and about looking for academic guides and hermeneutical efforts that seek to apparently elucidate the text. If it seems abstruse, think that perhaps it was supposed to be, and that there's no justification true to the text to do away with its intimate nature. There are certain areas of art that professors should stay way clear of. A work as deeply rooted in one's internal being as Beckett's would be destroyed by reading guides and esoteric studies that would proclaim to have solved the enigma. There is no enigma. There is no secret. There is no hidden treasure awaiting for you after a herculean toil. This is Beckett.

😂
 
entertainment

entertainment

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I've read Murphy, Molloy and Godot.

They were all good on pretty much the same terms, which Molloy hit the deepest and Godot with the most intensity. But that thing that they all did I haven't found in anything else.

I zoned out through the big central dialogue scene in Murphy but otherwise I liked picking it up each time.
 
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entertainment said:
They were all good on pretty much the same terms, which Molloy hit the deepest and Godot with the most intensity. But that thing that they all did I haven't found in anything else.
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Yeah, 'Molloy' went straight to the top of my favourite books. I couldn't really tell you why or even what it was about, but I was bowled over by it.
 
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Corpsey said:
I keep seeing this and thinking he's checking his smartphone
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A very fashionable man.

b86338be1f55ef7adbd0f78bd3527db2.jpg
 
entertainment

entertainment

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version said:
Yeah, 'Molloy' went straight to the top of my favourite books. I couldn't really tell you why or even what it was about, but I was bowled over by it.
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right, that strong presence of 'something' in it, a sense of doom haunting seemingly unaware sentences. you can't really link it to anything specific and say 'here it is', it's in the whole thing, you jumble it together between odd impressions as you go along.
 
entertainment

entertainment

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... which means that it's highly negotiatiable with what you bring to it as a reader. One of the times I picked it up I was depressed and dopamine depleted and the book seemed much much darker and the humor much more tragic. I couldn't believe it was the same book because my impression of its mood was unrecognizable.
 
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It totally resists being "worked out" too. It doesn't even feel like that's an option. Any possible interpretation you come up with will be lacking.
 
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