Source:

http://www.csulb.edu/~bhfinney/beckett.htm
Samuel Beckett's Postmodern Fictions
Beckett shares with Borges the distinction of inaugurating in literature what has come to be
called postmodernism. The term is still the subject of heated debate. It clearly refers to that
which succeeds modernism, itself an international movement that broke with nineteenth
century
forms of realism. But the impetus of modernism has continued to the present day, so that
postmodernism coexists with that which it claims to displace. The phenomenon of
postmodernism then cannot be explained in purely temporal terms. As the rench philosopher
!ean"ran#ois $yotard has suggested, it represents a radical epistemological break with our
understanding of what the human sciences have to offer. %hat characteri&es the postmodern
in $yotard's eyes is the abandonment of those grand narratives that began with the
(nlightenment, such as the liberation of humanity or the unification of all knowledge. The
unstable, heterogeneous and dispersed social reality of the postmodern cannot be contained
within any totali&ing theory. %ithout such metanarratives, $yotard argues, each work of art,
)working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done,) becomes
a uni*ue event describing its own process of coming into being.
This is what Beckett's fictions do. (ach one starts out anew, inventing its rules as it goes
along. 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. +ow to express
silence through sound, Beckett is preoccupied with this dilemma from the beginning of his
career. -nlike pigment and musical notes, words signify beyond any writer's control. )Is there
any reason,) Beckett asks a friend in ./01, )why that terrible arbitrary materiality of the
word's surface should not be permitted to dissolve...,) As an avant"garde writer Beckett
fretted from the start of his career over the inescapable signification that accompanies the
words he wants to use abstractly. In a world deprived of meaning how can the linguistic artist
express this meaninglessness with words that necessarily convey meaning, +ow can he
produce what he called a )literature of the unword,) Throughout his long writing life Beckett
conducted a war on words that led him to startling innovations in form and language. +e went
on experimenting to the end, never content with the increasingly minimal, pared down fictions
that characteri&e the second half of his writing life. 2othing satisfied him for long. %ords, the
enemy, continued to signify beyond every defeat he inflicted on them. +is fictions are the
progressive record of his fight to subdue language so that the silence of the 3eal might make
its presence felt. The fact that the later fictions resurrect themselves on the corpses of those
that preceded them is the reason for the chronological consideration of his work in this
chapter.
4ilence features large in his earliest fiction, )Assumption) 5a short story, ./6/7, )8ream of
air to 9iddling %omen) 5a novel written in ./06, published ./:07, More Pricks Than Kicks
5a novel, or ten connected short stories, ./0;7, and )A <ase in a Thousand) 5a short story,
./0;7. In )Assumption) the male protagonist is locked in a self"imposed silence. After he has
met a woman who seduces him, a lifetime's suppressed scream escapes from him that sweeps
her aside and leads to his death, )fused with the cosmic discord.) +ere in miniature is
described the fate awaiting Belac*ua, the anti"hero of )8ream) and More Pricks. $ike his
namesake in 8ante's Purgatorio, Belac*ua aspires to stasis and silence. Inevitably this makes
him unlikable 5he is constantly escaping social obligations7 and uninteresting in conventional
novelistic terms. As in )Assumption) sexuality is closely linked to death, figurative and
literal. 4exual love means exile from the self. It is also likely to result in that unforgivable
crime " bringing another unfortunate human being into this purgatorial life. 4o Beckett from
the start offers us an anti"hero in an anti"novel that scorns the conventions of romance.
In fact the Belac*ua narratives implicitly reject the conventions of the entire genre of prose
fiction. In his construction of fictional character Beckett explicitly renounces the appeal to
)=m>ilieux, race, family, structure. temperament, past and present...) +e refuses to offer
motive, for instance, when Belac*ua decides to commit suicide? )The simplest course ..is to
call that deed ex nihilo and have done.) 3evealingly he offers the suggestion that, in acting so
capriciously throughout the book, Belac*ua may )be likened to the laws of nature.) 4o much
for claims to psychological realism by modernists such as @irginia %oolf and 8.+. $awrence.
Beckett plays just as fast and loose with the plot. Aages are devoted to Belac*ua's preparations
of a lunchtime sandwich. But all )major) events are thrown away as asides. Bn the eve of her
marriage to Belac*ua, $ucy on horseback is run over by a )drunken lord) in a 8aimler. +er
horse dies instantly. )$ucy however was not so fortunate, being crippled for life and her
beauty dreadfully marred.) This arbitrary accident in turn becomes the key to the couple's
happiness by removing her from the sexual arena. Three pages later the next section begins
peremptorily? )Belac*ua was so happy married to the crippled $ucy that he tended to be sorry
for himself when she died, which she did on the eve of the second anniversary of her terrible
accident.) Beckett reverses the traditional understanding of what is and is not important
within the event structure of a novel. Belac*ua's death at the operating table is another pure
accident that is dismissed in two sentences? )By <hristC he did dieC They had clean forgotten
to auscultate himC)
Throughout both Belac*ua narratives the narrator plays an obtrusive, metafictional role. +e
comments on his own and others' fictional structures. )The only unity in this story,) he
interjects, )is, please Dod, an involuntary unity.) +e reminds us 5also in )8ream)7 of the
fictional status of his invented characters? )There is no real Belac*ua, it is to be hoped not
indeed, there is no such person.) +e shares with his readers his authorial manipulations of
character and event, saying of Belac*ua, )%hat shall we make him do now, what would be the
correct thing for him to think for us,) At the same time Beckett plays tricks on his readers by
showing his narrator to be unreliable, inconsistent, and deceitful. By the end of More Pricks
the reader is left with no firm vantage point, no center from which to order the material of the
book. +ad the publisher allowed the final episode 5)(cho's Bones)7 to appear with the others
this narrative confusion would have been compounded by the post"mortem appearance of
Belac*ua, who in one section obliges a local lord by spending the night with his wife so as to
leave him with an heir. Beckett's habitual association of sexuality with mortality here reaches
bi&arre proportions.
The language Beckett employs in these early fictions could be described as Irish baro*ue.
8ialogue is mannered and consists largely of non se*uiturs. 8escriptive passages are
characteri&ed by a display of artifice and verbal ingenuity that is often divorced from fictional
function. Beckett attempts to subvert the representational nature of words by the use of
figurative language. In addition Beckett relies heavily on literary allusion to foreground the
opa*ue nature of his text. Both titles of the Belac*ua narratives make bathetic allusion to
literary classics as does the name of the protagonist. %hole episodes form loose parodies of
scenes from earlier writers' fictions. )%et 2ight), for instance, is a poor imitation of a
Aroustian party scene. At times the narrative sinks under the weight of excessive allusion. At
the same time Beckett uses intertextuality to remind the reader of the intrusion of literature
into life, of the command language has over human destiny. -nfortunately language in More
Pricks also appears to have the upper hand in Beckett's fight to subvert its semantic
properties.
Murphy 5./0:7 shows Beckett exercising more control over this Irish baro*ue style. The
opening sentence suggests the new sense of economy that characteri&es his prose style in this
book? )The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.) Aacked into this sentence
are a parody of (cclesiastes 5.. v7, a subscription to fatalism, and a statement of a major
theme in the book " the absence of real change in human life. Beckett is trying to break
through the illusion of order, of correspondence between signifier and signified, that words
produce. Murphy offers a vision of <reation as a huge verbal joke. Its hero, 9urphy, not only
reverses all commonly accepted social conventions 5preferring rest to work, contemplation to
sexual love, the insane to the sane7E he simultaneously inverts traditional uses of language. )In
the beginning was the pun,) he intones. Beckett employs puns, paradox, allusion, repetition,
inversion, all in an attempt to disrupt the predictable semantic effects of language. 9uch of
the resulting dialogue is highly mannered, showing more interest in creating mutually
negating patterns of words than in mimetically reproducing plausible verbal exchanges. Take
9urphy's exchange with <elia, the heroine"prostitute?
)+ow can I care what you do,)
)I am what I do,) said <elia.
)2o,) said 9urphy. )Fou do what you are...)
9urphy comes closer than his fictional predecessor to 8ante's Belac*ua 5about whom he
fantasi&es7 by inducing physical stasis in order to be free to explore the world of the mind. An
entire chapter describes his mind and his attempts to retreat to what he fondly imagines is its
freedom from worldly involvement. )9urphy's mind pictured itself as a large hollow sphere,
hermetically closed to the universe without.) +ere Beckett pictures for the first time the
skullscape of consciousness that is to become the principal arena for his major work. 9urphy
in fact feels divided in <artesian fashion between body and mind " the perfect inheritor of an
(nlightenment project gone awry. +is mind is divided into three &ones, light, half light, and
dark, roughly corresponding to the conscious, semi conscious and unconscious. +e aspires to
enter the dark which is )nothing but commotion.) )+ere he was not free, but a mote in the
dark of absolute freedom.) 9urphy's biggest error consists in thinking that he can choose or
will himself to become such a mote. reedom in this book means total indifference to one's
circumstances. The only character who approximates to this condition is (ndon 5Dreek for
)within)7, a mental patient. 9urphy plays chess with him only to reali&e that (ndon plays
chess with nobody but himself. +e does not even acknowledge the existence of his opponent.
Da&ing into (ndon's eyes 9urphy reali&es that (ndon fails to see him. All he can perceive is
his own reflection in (ndon's eyeballs. )'9r. 9urphy is a speck in 9r. (ndon's unseen.') 2o
communication between minds is possible.
If 9urphy represents the mind in 8escartes' dual metaphysic, a bunch of Irish characters in
search of 9urphy for various reasons represent the tyranny of the body. 3ushing between
<ork, 8ublin and $ondon, they are incessantly in motion. Bne of them 5<ooper7 is unable to
sit down until the end of the book. They all subscribe to a 2ewtonian world governed by the
conservation of momentum. Bne " 2eary 5an acronym for )yearn)7 " spends his time longing
for one woman only to transfer his affections to another as soon as he wins her. )I greatly
fear,) his companion %ylie tells him, )that the syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit
of palliation. or every symptom that is eased, another is made worse.) All action is shown to
be pointless. <elia, trying to decide whether to return to 9urphy or abandon him for good,
asks? )%hat difference...would it make now, whether she went up the stairs to 9urphy or back
down them into the mew,) The narrator answers? )The difference between her way of
destroying them both, according to him, and his way, according to her.) Bnce again Beckett
uses self"negating clauses to undermine both the validity of action and the semantic logic of
words.
Murphy is characteri&ed by many of the features of what has since become a recogni&able
Beckettian world. $ove is exile from reality. Birth is a form of death. 4anity is insanity.
Activity is non"productive. Ahilosophy is the consolation of the deluded. $inguistically
Beckett achieves similar effects. Asychotic patients' padded cells are in 9urphy's eyes
4penserian )indoor bowers of bliss.) Bur possession of a mind and a body are dismissed in
the mis*uoted words of 9arlow's Barabas as )infinite riches in a %.<.) 5what could be more
like 9arlow's )little room) than that,7. 9urphy refers to )the moment of his being strangled
into a state of respiration.) 5one remembers Beckett saying to !ohn Druen after being awarded
the 2obel Ari&e? )The major sin is the sin of being born.)7 (xiting from life is already a
problem? 9urphy was earlier a theological student who spent his time )pondering <hrist's
Aarthian shaft? It is finished." 3epeatedly Beckett turns *uotations back on themselves,
especially Biblical ones. As 9urphy puts it, )%hat but an imperfect sense of humor could
have made such a mess of chaos.) Murphy is Beckett's most accessible novel. It is also a
clever parody of many of the characteristics of the genre he was using.
Watt, Beckett's last novel to be written in (nglish, was begun in Aaris in ./;6, continued in
3ousillon where Beckett was hiding from the Destapo in ./;6"0, and finished in 8ublin and
Aaris in ./;G. It was not published until ./G0 after Waiting for odot and the first two of his
celebrated trilogy of novels 5Molloy, Mallone !ies, The "nna#able 7 had appeared in print.
Beckett has called it )unsatisfactory) while affirming that )it has its place in the series.) That
seems a fair assessment of this peculiarly difficult book that contains *uintessentially
Beckettian motifs that nevertheless fail to find a wholly satisfactory fictional embodiment.
The novel is almost without )significant) incident. %att makes his way to 9r. Hnott's house,
becomes second, then first servant there, fails to ascertain anything definable about Hnott, is
replaced, leaves the house and ends up in a )mansion) that closely resembles a mental asylum.
In fact %att's journey is an inner journey of the mind, what Beckett describes in one of the
poems printed in the Addenda to the book as )the dim mind wayfaringI) and )the dark mind
stumblingI through barren lands.) %att sees his *uest in the former terms, the narrator in the
latter terms. %att is an inveterate rationalist who pursues <artesian rules for orderly en*uiry
with such rigor that he repeatedly exposes the futile nature of the entire epistemological
endeavor. %hat gave 8escartes and the entire (nlightenment project its sense of optimism
was the need to invoke Dod as a way of bridging the otherwise baffling barrier between mind
5or self7 and body 5or matter7. %att, a representative modern skeptic and agnostic in search of
the self, brings the (nlightenment project to a standstill by taking it more seriously and
pursuing it more thoroughly than any of his fictional predecessors. %att comes face to face
with the n$ant of the post"war, postmodern world epitomi&ed by Hnottt and his house. %att's
)%hat,) is negated by Hnottt's )2ot.) The conjunction of these two figures produces whatnot,
an absence of metanarratives, especially those of the late seventeenth" and eighteenth"century
rationalists. %here 8escartes argued his way from thought to being and thence to Dod, %att
finds that the application of reason leaves him doubting his own, as well as that of a divine,
being.
Both words and numbers fail %att. 2umbers fail because they are the invention of the fallible
human brain. A footnote following an exhaustive account of the members of the $ynch family
reads? )The figures given here are incorrect. The conse*uent calculations are therefore doubly
erroneous.) %hen rationalists try to apply the arithmetical neatness of numbers to the web of
language all hell is let loose. Hnottt negates %att's cogito by remaining wordless. +is
nothingness can only be circumscribed by %att's words that prove to be self canceling. %att
reali&es that )the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were
something, just as the only way one can speak of Dod is to speak of him as though he were a
man.) Both Dod and the 3eal have no ade*uate place in the symbolic order of language. They
can only be given shape in the form of fictions. orm is all that is left. $inguistic form.
ictional form. %ords turn out to be delusory semantic succor for %att who, with his faulty
reasoning, )had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old
words, for his head.)
9any of %att's rationalist attempts to exhaust all the possibilities of a subject are listed
exhaustively 5and exhaustingly7 over pages and pages of the novel, trying the patience of most
readers. The most distinctive characteristic of this novel is its disruptive use of form to
suggest the formlessness of the 3eal. The first and last of its four sections are located in the
everyday world that surrounds Hnottt's house. In section I %att finds his way to the house and
replaces the upstairs servant by moving in downstairs, the downstairs servant moving upstairs.
The middle two sections describe %att's stay in first the downstairs and then the upstairs
floors of Hnottt's house. In section I@ %att leaves the house on the arrival of a new servant
downstairs. +e makes his way to the train station where he buys a ticket to the end of the line.
After his disappearance the station officials agree that )life isn't such a bad old bugger.) %att
is returned to the world of delusion.
But in section III we learn that %att is telling his story to 4am, the narrator of the book, in an
asylum that he has reached after buying his ticket to the end of the line. The beginning of
section I@ reads? )As %att told the beginning of his story, not first, but second, so not fourth,
but third, now he told its end.) The contorted word order of this sentence draws attention to
the contorted way in which the chronological order of %att's narration has been rearranged by
4am. 2either order is that of the fabula 5or basic story"line7% both are versions of syu&het 5or
plotted rearrangement of the story7. In 4am's version of the story it is %att's stay at Hnottt's
house that is illusory, contained within the )realistic) outer sectionsE in %att's telling it is the
everyday world of sections I and I@ that are made to appear illusory, contained within the two
sections describing %att's stay at Hnottt's house. By this means Beckett avoids giving primacy
to either the world of the mind or that of the body. This neat interchangeability is further
complicated by the fact that the opening and closing pages of the novel cannot have been
witnessed by %att or told by him to 4am. 9oreover %att's only direct speech appears in
section III where he communicates with 4am by pronouncing words, then sentences,
backwards. 4o the entire fiction paradoxically uses 4am's words to describe a near"wordless
protagonist whose use of words has been negated by the wordless Hnottt.
After Watt Beckett underwent a double revolution. Bn a short visit to 8ublin in ./;J he had a
blinding flash of insight in which he reali&ed that the )dark side) of his personality should
provide him with the true subject of his work. +is new aim was to conduct an interior
excavation of that darkness that he )had struggled to keep under.) At about the same time he
began writing in an ac*uired, alien language " rench " to curb the remnants of what I have
called his Irish Dothic. In rench, he claimed, )it is easier to write without style.) +e
proceeded to write a novel, Mercier et 'a#ier, that he withheld from publication until ./1K,
partly because he drew on some of it for Waiting for odot. The same year he wrote four
nouvelles that anticipate in theme and form the trilogy of novels that was to establish his
reputation in the field of fiction. They show Beckett turning to the interior monologue as the
form best suited to his new desire for self"excavation. (ach protagonist, like his successors in
the trilogy, tells himself )this story that aspires to be the last.)
In a spurt of creativity between ./;1 and ./;/ Beckett wrote Molloy 5./G.7, Malone !ies
5Malone #uert, ./G07, and The "nna#able 5()inno##able, ./G07. (ach novel has its own
pseudo"couple, avatars or stand"ins for Beckett, the narrating subject. Molloy is divided into
the story of 9olloy from the moment he set out on crutches and bicycle to find his mother to
his arrival in her room where he sits in bed writing his story, and the story of 9oran who sets
out in search of 9olloy with his son and ends up writing a report of his failure to find him.
Malone !ies describes 9alone, in bed in a similar room to that of 9olloy's mother's, writing
stories 5while waiting to die7 about one 4aposcat 5a combination of ho#o sapiens and skatos,
Dreek for excrement7 who turns into 9acmann 5son of man " or of 9alone, the evil one7. The
"nna#able offers the narrative of a disembodied voice that conjures up images of two
postmortem )vice"existers), 9ahood 5manhood,7 a trunk and head without limbs stuck in a
jar, and %orm, an even more rudimentary creature with minimal human attributes. All three
novels focus on a representative human consciousness trying to come to terms with its
existence by telling itself stories featuring itself as hero of its own fictions.
(ach of the three novels is an exercise in self"destruction. Molloy illustrates in particular the
anti"chronological thrust of Beckett's project. 9oran's apparent failure to track down 9olloy
is undercut by the way he is transformed in the course of his search from the confident agent
and authoritarian father at the start of his narrative to an uncanny copy 5down to the crutches7
of 9olloy, whose story preceded his. The reason in part is that 9oran, like 9olloy, is
searching for his true self, whatever that might be. )And as for myself, that unfailing
pastime, ...there were moments when it did not seem so far from me, when I seemed to be
drawing towards it...) That self is what Beckett once called )the narrator narrated.) Beckett
uses his successive pairs of protagonists to try to stalk this self, to illuminate his darkness that
constantly recedes before the light of his narrational pursuit. 4o the trilogy is e*ually about
the predicament of representative man who tries to reach the core of his being by recounting
his life to himself, and about the predicament of the modern artist bent on exploring the
source of his imagination by telling stories to himself 5and others7 which alienate him from
the )real) world. The predicament, as Beckett described it in his early critical work on Aroust,
is that to be a modern artist )is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world, and to
shrink from it desertion.) As the -nnamable reassures himself, )I am doing my best, and
failing again.)
4een thematically, each successive novel appears to repeat the pattern established in its
predecessor. Aut in the structuralist terms of the rench semiotician, A.!. Dreimas, Beckett
seems to be presenting the same )immanent level) of narration, the same paradigmatic story,
in all three novels. And yet there is an apparent progression from the two narrators' accounts
of their increasingly impeded physical journeys in Molloy, to 9alone's written account of the
wanderings of fictional substitutes, to the -nnamable's wholly verbal meanderings where to
)go on) means to go on voicing his mental search for an escape from his world of words. In
each novel the narrator succeeds in scaling down his need " from wanting to reach his mother,
to wanting to die, to wanting to stop speaking. As the recurrent narrative structure only
emerges after the second and third novels have been read, Beckett is able to lure his readers
into the same illusion suffered by his successive protagonists " that they are making progress.
In Beckett's bleak view of human existence we delude ourselves into thinking that things are
changing in order to avoid the harsh truth that life is fundamentally repetitive. As 9alone
reminds himself, )The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its
formlessness.) Aerception is subjective and fallible. )%hat I best see I see ill,) says the
-nnamable. 9emory fails us, so that we cannot remember whether we have been through any
particular experience before. Time is circular, space illusory. )I am being given,) 9alone
writes, )if I may venture the expression, birth into death.) As !ohn letcher pointed out,
Malone !ies illustrates Deorges Bataille's observation that man is the only creature who
spends his life mythologi&ing his death.
4o all the narrators and their doubles are seeking for a place of final rest " their mother's room
5or womb7, physical death, an end to speech. (ach successive narrator pursues a more
reductive search of the selfE each fails. %hy, Because the self belongs to the void of the 3eal.
The void or n$ant belongs to a realm of silence. But humans are condemned to the false
linearity, rationality and semantic properties of language. Aut in $acanian terms, each of us
longs to return to the blissful ignorance of infancy when our experience was one of pure
libido 5or Bbidil, as 9oran calls it, whom he )longed to see face to face)7. Instead we are
condemned to a symbolic order in which language constitutes us as subjects split within
ourselves. %e are split between a conscious self whose lack condemns us to a lifetime of
unfulfilled desire and an unconscious forever deferred along the signifying chain of language.
%e are also split between a desire for unity and a lack of concrete being. This is what 9oran
terms )being dispossessed of self.) The -nnamable resorts to paradox to describe the
paradoxical nature of human consciousness divided within itself? )%here I am there is no one
but me, who am not.)
The trilogy takes this predicament of ours and doggedly explores it until it has reduced the
problem to one of pure language in The "nna#able. The voice in this third novel desperately
looks for a way to reach silence, just as the narrator looks for a way finally to end his
narration by telling the story of himself instead of that of )the ponderous chronicle of
moribunds) that the trilogy has produced. +is problem is bound up in the nature of language,
especially in the uni*ue nature of the first and second person pronouns. Beckett appears to
have anticipated the formulations of the rench structuralist linguist, (mile Benveniste.
Benveniste argues that the pronouns )I) and )you,) unlike other signifiers, only produce
signifieds in concrete discursive contexts. -nlike )tree,) say, )I) has no concrete meaning
until it appears in a specific context. There it signifies somebody only for the duration of the
discourse in which it appears. )4o,) Benveniste concludes, )it is literally true that the basis of
subjectivity is in the exercise of language.) This also means that in between two discursive
moments subjectivity evaporates. %hen 9alone loses his pencil for forty eight hours, on
recovering it he writes, )I have spent two unforgettable days of which nothing will ever be
known...) This is why all the narrators in the trilogy pant on to the end, because it is only by
continuing to speak in the first person that they can hope to constitute themselves as subjects.
As the -nnamable says, )the discourse must go on,) because )I'm in words, made of words,
others' words.)
%hy )others' words), Because, as Benveniste explains, any discursive use of )I) entails two
subjects, the speaking subject or )referent,) and the subject of speech or )referee.) +e goes on
to insist that these two )I)s can never be collapsed into one another. The spoken subject acts
as a signifier. By identifying with this signifier the speaking subject hopes to define his or her
subjectivity. In Beckett's trilogy the spoken subject is invariably one of the speaking subject's
many )vice"existers,) by means of which the narrator seeks to signify his own self. +e would
like to collapse this distinction, to be, as the -nnamable longs to be, )the teller and the told.)
Instead the narrator is carried helplessly along a chain of signifiers " his )troop of lunatics,)
never reaching the signified of himself. )%hen I think,) says the -nnamable, )of the time I've
wasted with these bran"dips, beginning with 9urphy, who wasn't even the first, when I had
me on the premises, within easy reach, tottering under my own skin and bones, real ones,
rotting with solitude and neglect, till I doubted my own existence, and even still, today, I have
no faith in it, none, so that I have to say, when I speak, %ho speaks, and seek, and so on and
similarly for all the other things that happen to me and for which someone must be found, for
things that happen must have someone to happen to, someone must stop them.) +ere within
one breathless sentence Beckett wittily follows full circle the chain of signifiers from 9urphy
and before that were intended to lead to their signified " the narrating self " and that by the end
of this deliberately contorted syntactical structure still hold the speaking subject at a distance
from himself.
Beckett knows, then, that he is bound to fail at his excavatory task. +is failure is itself a satiric
thrust at not just the metanarratives of humanist metaphysics but at the pretensions of verbal
fictions that see themselves as narrating fictions instead of concentrating on the fiction of
narration. This latter Beckett does by poking fun at the tricks language plays on the narrator.
9oran, for instance, begins his narration in an orderly manner, giving his name, introducing
his report and setting the scene with? )It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows.) But
his attempt to be factual and businesslike gradually breaks down and turns into the
paragraphless flow of verbiage that characteri&ed 9olloy's previous narrative. 9oran ends his
monologue by celebrating the fictionality of his narrative? )It was not midnight. It was not
raining.) 9alone follows a similar reversal by setting out to tell four different stories and then
to conduct an inventory of his possessions, neither of which projects he completes.
But it is the -nnamable who best illustrates the verbal and pronominal impasse that all these
narrators reach by the end. The narrative use of language literally proves his undoing. Beckett
has called )writing style) )that vanity,) )a bowtie about a throat cancer.) The -nnamable
illustrates this dangerously delusive nature of language in his funny, desperate and perplexed
frontal assault on what the rench philosopher and critic Daston Bachelard called a
)logosphere,) a verbal fabric out of which he too is constructed as a subject. The -nnamable's
mental confusion within what he calls the )wordy"gurdy) is mirrored by the syntactical
impasses he gets himself into? )But my good will at certain moments is such, and my longing
to have floundered however briefly, however feebly, in the great life torrent streaming from
the earliest proto&oa to the very latest humans, that I, no, parenthesis unfinished. I'll begin
again.) This manner of propelling sentences along by fits and starts has been described by
$udovic !anvier as )style with engine trouble.) In particular Beckett plays fast and loose with
pronouns. )To get me to be he, the anti"9ahood...) he starts off one sentence. Bn another
occasion he finds himself talking of )we,) only to ask himself whom )we) refers to. %ithin a
sentence he gives up? )no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather.)
Towards the end of the -nnamable's monologue his words come spewing out in a torrent of
syntactically disjointed phrases that constantly circle round the narrator's central dilemma.
!ust as the narrator is caught in a pronominal limbo between referent and referee, so all the
positives within the narration are speedily negated, ending with the now famous last lines in
which changing verbal tenses and pronouns reflect the -nnamable's continuing confusion?
)you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.)
After completing The "nna#able, Beckett felt that he had exhausted his vein of self"
immersive narration. The nineteen fifties were the years in which Beckett established his
reputation as a dramatist with Waiting for odot, *ndga#e and Krapp)s (ast Tape. In ./GK he
did begin writing a series of linked short prose texts in rench that he reluctantly released for
publication in ./GG as Te+tes pour rien 5Te+ts for ,othing 7. In ./GJ he claimed that the
trilogy brought him to the point where subse*uently he felt he was repeating himself? )In the
last book""$'Innommable""there's complete disintegration...There's no way to go on.) +e adds
that Te+ts pour rien )was an attempt to get out of the attitude of disintegration, but it failed.)
Apart from being wary of Beckett's constant put"downs of his own work, failure, as he wrote,
is in his view the modern artist's world. As the voice remarks in the first text, )nothing like
breathing your last to put new life in you.) Te+ts for ,othing certainly does not match the
virtuoso performance of The "nna#able. Fet it points forward to Beckett's last full"length
novel, -ow It Is, by looking to form for a way out of the dead end reached at the close of The
"nna#able.
It has long been recogni&ed that the title, Te+tes pour rien, alludes to the musical term,
)mesure pour rien,) meaning )a bar's rest.) Aauses in music are as necessary a part of the
score as the pauses Beckett incorporates in odot or -ow It Is. In the case of Te+ts, each of
the short thirteen texts brings the -nnamable's successor's unstoppable torrent of speech to a
temporary rest. (ach text offers an evening's worth of narration. All thirteen texts also take the
musical form of variations on a theme already adumbrated in the trilogy 5although even that is
modified by the abandonment of any serious attempt to tell a story7. The voice explains why it
keeps )trying to vary) " )you never know, it's perhaps all a *uestion of hitting on the right
aggregate.) Beckett called the thirteenth text a coda. 4een in their entirety, Te+ts form a
musical coda to the trilogy. In .eckett and the /oice of 0pecies (ric $evy has shown how each
text introduces a *uestion and ends with )a provisional conclusion which does not so much
answer the *uery as remove the possibility of its being properly asked.) The theme is that of a
disembodied voice that is constantly looking to assume a concrete existence in its desire for
selfhood. The variations that Beckett plays on this theme include imaging this situation as that
of a body face down remembering images of life in the light aboveE portraying his
predicament as that of both judge and party, witness and advocate at his own trialE searching
for a missing person " himselfE looking for the way out 5anticipating The (ost 1nes 7E giving
upE and finally returning to the main theme, the reali&ation that )there is nothing but a voice
murmuring a trace.) Both individual texts and the composition as a whole reveal a circularity
beneath an initial appearance of progression.
This formal strategy of countering the linearity of language and its semantic content with a
circularity of structure and motifs is given brilliant expression in Beckett's last full"length
novel 5as it was called in the rench, but not the (nglish edition7, -ow It Is 5'o##ent ')est,
./J.7. %ritten in rench in ./JK, this work reflects Beckett's conviction at this time that the
modern artist could no longer try to reduce the chaos of existence to the orderliness of artistic
form in the manner of !oyce and other modernists. Instead Beckett was looking for a new
form that )admits the chaos,) while remaining separate from it. The chaos which incorporates
our condition takes the haunting form of a figure living out its existence crawling across the
mud dragging with it a sack of canned food. Its voice tells of its tortured life in three phases
corresponding to the three sections of the novel. In part one 5)before Aim)7 it describes its
slow progress and the images that come to it from the old )life in the light.) Aart two 5)with
Aim)7 describes his overtaking another crawler, Aim, whom he tortures into speech. In part
three 5)after Aim)7 Aim gets away and the figure is left crawling on waiting to be overtaken by
another crawler who will torture him in turn.
Beckett is offering us a savage image of what he sees as the hell of life on earth. +e makes a
number of obli*ue references to 8ante's Inferno. The entire situation is reminiscent of <anto
@II where the souls of the sullen lie immersed in the mud rehearsing their lives in gurgles. In
what he calls this )outer hell) 8ante's sign above hell's gate 5)abandon hope all ye who enter
here)7 is echoed in Beckett's text with )abandoned here effect of hope.) The )muckheap) or
)sewer) through which his protagonist crawls is Beckett's fiercest visual representation of the
reality of human existence, the postmodern hell that confines us each to his or her own
consciousness. %e are back in the confusion of a dispersed subjectivity. But this time it is not
the voice trying to rejoin its authorial origin. Instead Beckett offers a voice that ventrilo*uially
reiterates in unpunctuated brief bursts of speech whatever is said to it? )how it is I say it as I
hear it natural order more or less bits and scraps in the mud my life murmur it to the mud.)
+ere the subject of speech portrays himself as the victim of the speaking subject who is
simultaneously the author responsible for this fictional creation and the god made responsible
by uncomprehending humankind for its miserable condition.
4een in Bakhtinian terms, -ow It Is turns out to be a celebration of what the 3ussian literary
theorist 9ikhail Bakhtin termed dialogism, of the independence of fictional voices from their
authorial origin. The author is made to make way for the voices that speak through him, for
the polyphonic nature of language itself. In part one the narrating voice adopts a similar
posture to that adopted by the voice of the -nnamable " one of victimi&ation at the hands of
the unseen author. The author 5or Author7 is pictured as one who )lives bent over me,) aided
by a )scribe sitting aloof) who records )an ancient voice in me not mine.) The voice is
tortured into speech by this alien figure. But in part two we witness the tortured narrator turn
torturer of Aim who has been brought to life by the narrating voice? )but for me he would
never Aim we're talking of Aim never be but for me.) +is torture takes the appropriate form of
forcing the victim into the act of speech. Towards the end of part two the voice recogni&es that
)Aim never was...only one voice my voice never any other.) (very victim becomes torturer in
Beckett's contemporary (rebus. inally in part three the narrating voice throws off all
pretence of being under god"like authorial control. +aving demonstrated in the manner of
8escartes and 9alebranche the need for a god 5)need of one not one of us an intelligence
somewhere)7 to coordinate the movements of his innumerable crawlers in the mud, he
immediately undercuts this yearning for order by exploding the very idea of a just god " or a
controlling author? )but all this business of voices yes *ua*ua yes of other worlds yes of
someone in another world yes whose kind of dream I am yes said to be yes...all balls.)
Actually there's )only me yes alone yes with my voice yes,) a voice detached from its origin
as we have become detached from our god, a voice that belongs to the Babel of heteroglossia.
-ow It Is is an artistic tour de force in which Beckett's discovery of a form that would not
conceal the chaos is matched by a radically pared down use of language that results in a
heightened mode of prose poetry. +is use of a three"part structure, as in the trilogy, reflects
the repetitive circularity of human life. %hat he has done, he informs us, is to )divide into
three a single eternity for the sake of clarity.) As he admits towards the end of the novel, his
protagonist's life actually consists of four phases? crawling towards a victim, torturing him,
crawling on, and being overtaken by a torturer. But, the voice concludes, )of the four three
*uarters of our total life only three lend themselves to communication.) %hy, Because victim
and victimi&er play identical if complementary roles. But also because he only needs to
narrate enough to show the reader that the series can continue ad infinitum. Three parts also
enable Beckett to include a central section in which conditions promise to improve? )happy
time in its way part two.) This is only to give formal expression to the way life repeatedly
deludes us into thinking that things are getting better before returning us 5in part three7 to the
primordial mud which is our reality.
<ompared to the manic breathless pace of the prose in The "nna#able, the brief phrases
which make up the unpunctuated versets of differing lengths in -ow It Is have a more
deliberate, rhythmic *uality to them that successfully reproduce the mutterings of a voice that
has to pause for breath at fre*uent intervals. Those blank spaces between the versets 5which
Beckett only adopted in place of continuous prose just before printing the first edition7 act as
a visual metaphor for the silence to which the voice aspires, and for the n$ant where language
with its semantic pretensions has no place. The murmurings of the narrator are so many stains
on the silence of the 3eal. Beckett talks in the text of his use of )little blurts midget grammar.)
By omitting so many of the normal elements of a conventional sentence he is able to undercut
some of the denotative aspects of language while foregrounding its connotative and figurative
uses. In the original rench version, in particular, he plays punningly on the similarity in
sound between words like )bout) 5)end)7 and )boue) 5)mud)7, )Bom) and )bon) 5)good)7,
and especially between )comment c'est) 5)how it is)7 and )commence&) 5)begin)7 with which
the novel teasingly ends. The lack of punctuation, capital letters 5except proper nouns7 and
other parts of speech, the use of poetic inversion, and the proliferation of allusions to other
texts, also increase the potential for multiple readings of parts of the text and make especially
heavy if rewarding demands on the reader, offering an extreme example of what the rench
literary theorist 3oland Barthes calls a )writerly) text.
-ow It Is is Beckett's last novel"length work of fiction. After ./JK his fiction took the form of
what he variously called )residua,) )capua mortua) or )tLtes mortes) 5)death's"heads)7,
)foirades) 5)little farts) or )fi&&les)7, and )fiascos.) All of these later texts 5it would be a
misnomer to call them short stories7 cultivate an art of minimalism. %hat they lack in length
they make up for in density. As Beckett told me, these pieces are residual )5.7 4everally, even
when that does not appear of which each is all that remains and 567 In relation to whole body
of previous work.) %hile a number of these residua refer back to situations explored in earlier
novels, many of them evolve from abandoned larger 5and occasionally smaller7 works. There
are eight very brief )i&&les) that were written between the very late ./GKs and ./1G. There
are also six more substantial texts? 2ll 0trange 2way 5written ./J0";7, I#agination #orte
i#agine& 5I#agination !ead I#agine, written./JG7, )(nough) 5)Asse&,) ./JG7, (e
!$peupleur 5The (ost 1nes, ./JG"J, completed ./1.7, .ing 5Ping, ./JJ7 and 0ans 5(essness,
./J/7. ive of these texts evolve out of one another. I#agination !ead I#agine is the
distillment of 2ll 0trange 2way. The (ost 1nes employs a similar fluctuation of heat and light
as that which characteri&ed the world of I#agination !ead I#agine. .ing, Beckett informed
me, )is a separate work written after and in reaction to (e !$peupleur abandoned because of
its complexity getting beyond control.) (essness was written in direct reaction to Ping,
causing the walls of Ping)s )true refuge) to fall down in the opening paragraph. )(nough) is
the only text to stand outside the series 5)I don't know what came over me,) Beckett wrote of
it7.
%ith the exception of )(nough) all these residua and the later )i&&les) eschew the use of the
first person pronoun. %ith each new text Beckett aspires to greater impersonality, although
the detachment his narrator cultivates is fre*uently undermined by an ironic tone of
exaggeration. In The (ost 1nes his little people all progress to stasis. In I#agination !ead
I#agine, Ping and (essness his protagonists have stopped even crawling and come to their
final resting place, only betraying their continuing life of the mind by their breath or by
movements of the eyes. In I#agination !ead I#agine Beckett conjures up the image of a man
and a woman lying back to back in a rotundaE in The (ost 1nes he uncharacteristically
imagines a $illiputian people inhabiting a cylinder fifty meters in circumference from which
they seek vainly to escapeE in Ping he evokes a )bare white body) confined upright to a white
box"like room two yards high and one yard s*uareE and in (essness the same body stands
amidst the grey 5)never was but grey)7 ruins of the fallen down walls that surrounded it in
Ping. All of these haunting images are the products of Beckett's imaginative attempt to
produce a simulacrum of the reality of human existence. This is an inner landscape of the
mind, a skullscape, given its most literal reali&ation in the rotunda of I#agination !ead
I#agine which is subject to fluctuations of light and heat reminiscent of day and night,
summer and winter, consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, to which we and our
minds are subject.
Bne of the striking features of these shorter texts is their use of arithmetically or
proportionally shaped form. The delusions of mathematics constituted one of Beckett's
favorite satirical targets in the earlier novels such as Watt and -ow It Is. In these residua
Beckett has incorporated the delusive allure of numbers 5that had ultimately trapped the
eighteenth century rationalists7 into their structure by means of which he attempts to express
the illusory nature of life in general. I#agination !ead I#agine meticulously constructs and
measures with all the finesse of (uclidean geometry an image that refuses to remain stable,
which is only to be expected of a product of the artist's consciousness. The tone of scientific
detachment employed by the narrator soon exposes him to the reader's ridicule as his effort to
remain objective, faced with the evanescent product of the artistic imagination, proves
increasingly ridiculous? )2either fat nor thin, big nor small, the bodies seem whole and in
fairly good condition, to judge by the surfaces exposed to view.) This narrating &oologist"
turned"pathologist fails to perceive the failure inherent in his scientific approach. %hat causes
the image to ultimately disappear is the obvious relativity of the observer who can not bear to
concentrate for too long on an image of suffering humanity. )Bnly murmur ah, no more, in
this silence, and at the same instant for the eye of prey the infinitesimal shudder
instantaneously suppressed.) %hether )the eye of prey) refers to the eye of one of the figures
or to that of the supposedly impersonal observer, the effect is the same " )no *uestion now of
ever finding again that white speck lost in whiteness.)
The (ost 1nes employs a similar techni*ue for similar ends. %e are guided through the
complex rules of this pigmy population inhabiting a cylinder subject to the same fluctuations
of light and heat as in the previous text by a professorial voice whose pomposity exposes him
to ridicule. +is sentences usually start with phrases such as )To be noted...) or )It might safely
be maintained...) and end with such remarks as )4o much for a first aper#u of...) or )...if this
notion is maintained.) %hen applied to subjects like human sexuality the pose inherent in this
lofty attitude becomes the object of Beckett's overt satire? )The mucous membrane itself is
affected which would not greatly matter were it not for its hampering effect on the work of
love. But even from this point of view no great harm is done so rare is erection in the cylinder.
It does occur none the less followed by more or less happy penetration in the nearest tube.)
+aving searched exhaustively for the self in the earlier fiction it is improbable that Beckett
would allow a narrator to pontificate in this manner unscathed. 4ure enough within the first
section the narrator undercuts his own stance by revealing the theoretical impossibility of
ac*uiring the knowledge he claims to be purveying? )4uch harmony only he can relish whose
long experience and detailed knowledge of the niches are such as to permit a perfect mental
image of the entire system. But it is doubtful that such a one exists.) The narrator's inherently
logocentric position is exposed by his unwitting act of deconstruction. Beckett multiplies the
permutations of his miniature world over fourteen sections, at which point he abandoned the
work until five years later when he added a final section. This posits a theoretical )last state of
the cylinder) in which the last searcher gives up the search and joins the other van*uished.
The narrator dryly calls this )the unthinkable end) which it has to be if only because the
narrator has still not given up his own search which takes the narrative form of attempting to
explain the appearance of order that prevails in the cylinder.
In these first two texts the narrator has employed mathematical and pseudo"scientific methods
to attempt to give substance to the insubstantial fabric of the artistic imagination. In Ping and
(essness the narrator hides behind an impersonal voice that betrays no obvious personality
traits. But the text is constructed and shaped by mathematical manipulation. It is no
coincidence that these texts belong to the heyday of rench structuralism. In both texts
reiterative individual components ac*uire meaning principally through the context in which
they appear. Ping consists of .,K0K words made up of .6K words that recur in the form of a
.KK different phrases. <ertain combinations of words such as )bare white body fixed) appear
fre*uently. But whereas the first appearance of this phrase is followed by further descriptive
information 5)...one yard legs joined...)7 in subse*uent appearances the context robs it of its
certitude 5e.g. )...white on white invisible.)7. Beckett further subverts the impression of
exactitude by introducing at random intervals the word )ping) which invariably disturbs the
image just described, as in )bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere.) The word )ping)
operates as a random principle, undermining the sense of structuration that the ordering of
words and phrases suggests, signifying the presence of a disordering element within the
mathematically created illusion of order.
Beckett refines this arithmetic conception of form yet further in (essness. As in Ping, both the
symmetry and chaos of human life are reflected in the way its .6K sentences are ordered on
the page. Bur longing for order is reflected in formal terms by the way each sentence in the
first half of the text is repeated in the second half, and by the way the sixty sentences in each
half divide into ten sentences, each set belonging to one of six groups of images.
4imultaneously Beckett incorporates the random nature of infinity, endlessness, into his
formal organi&ation by employing random paragraph lengths, a random se*uence of the six
images and the random reappearance of each sentence in the second half. Beckett summons
what he has called a )syntax of weakness) to reinforce these structural ploys. or the most
part he uses minimal syntax to link the remnants of full sentences. +e reserves the use of full
syntax for the description of images that belong to the old delusive life in the light. The
juxtaposition is intentionally startling, exposing as it does the artificiality of the poetic use of
language that blinds us to the grey reality of endlessness? )$ittle body ash grey locked rigid
heart beating face to endlessness. Bn him will rain again as in the blessed days of blue the
passing cloud.) The poetic word inversion, the intrusion of the definite article, paralleled by
the eruption of color and nostalgia in the second sentence perform a similar function to the
use of )ping) in signaling the futility of the attempt to mathematically comprehend the
ultimately random nature of chaos.
After two decades during which Beckett's fictional and dramatic works had become
progressively more minimalist, he surprised everyone with a renewed burst of creativity,
publishing three short novella length texts in the early ./:Ks. These three works of fiction
written in his late seventies constitute a second trilogy. The first of these, 'o#pany, was
written in (nglish between ./11 and ./1/, translated into rench, and then published in
(nglish in ./:K after Beckett revised it in the light of the rench text. Ill 0een Ill 0aid was
first written in rench as Mal vu #al dit. Both rench and (nglish editions were first
published in ./:.. Worstward -o was first written in (nglish and published in ./:0.
5Beckett's only subse*uent significant short work of fiction was 0tirrings 0till 5./:/7, written
on re*uest to help out his old American publisher financially.7 These three powerful and
highly concentrated texts are not abandoned longer works nor works in progress. They pursue
Beckett's lifelong fight with language to new and *uite extraordinary lengths. Beckett wrote
back in ./01, )As we cannot eliminate language all at once, we should at least leave nothing
undone that might contribute to its falling into disrepute.) It is as if he was inspired to take up
this assault on the false security that language offers us with renewed energy in his old age.
%hereas the first trilogy was more closely integrated with its references back to characters
and events in the earlier two volumes, these three texts are connected by their progressive
reduction of the components that constitute a normal sentence. In 'o#pany a )voice comes to
one in the dark.) In Ill 0een the voice is )ill said.' By Worstward -o the voice is )missaid.)
Bne only has to pay attention to the titles of these three texts to see the progressive
deterioration that each describes.
In 'o#pany Beckett's principal concern is with the enigma of the first person pronoun. %here
he assailed the fictionality of the )I) in the earlier trilogy by employing it throughout, in
'o#pany he acknowledges the dependence of the )I) on designating a )you) and a )he) for its
very meaning. Bn the one hand Beckett describes a )he) who lies on his back in the darkE on
the other hand he creates a voice that addresses the )he) as )you) in the course of describing
incidents in his past life. The subject is split between a third"person thinking and reflecting
mind whose thoughts are directed at the reader and a second"person voice of memory that is
directed at the one in the dark. ifteen of the ninety paragraphs employ the second person to
evoke autobiographical scenes that bear a close resemblance to incidents in Beckett's own
past recounted in 8eirdre Bair's biography of him. It *uickly becomes apparent that the
memories that the voice recalls have become distorted with time. 4ome of the most nostalgic
memories of happiness are lit by an unreal and ideali&ed )=s>unless cloudless brightness.)
Another memory emphasi&es its distance from the memori&ed event? )Fou lie in the dark with
closed eyes and see the scene. As you could not at the time.)
The other contemplative voice in the third person *uickly finds itself in its own
epistemological *uagmire. or a start it is blessed with )reason"ridden) imagination. urther,
whose is this voice, <learly there has to be a third voice that is responsible for the other two?
)8eviser of the voice and of its hearer and of himself.) This leaves him with a )=d>evised
deviser devising it all for company.) The possibility of proliferating these pronominal voices
is virtually infinite. The only way of limiting them is for the second and third person pronouns
to unite in an impossible first person )I) that )will utter again. Fes I remember. That was I.
That was I then.) But Beckett has already demonstrated in the first trilogy the inescapable
division that splits the subject between speaking subject and subject of speech. $anguage is
the villain because it lures us into thinking that its identical use of the pronoun )I) in both
cases means that a unified ego exists somewhere. The only way out of the impasse is to end
the fiction, immobili&e the devised and the deviser, and then bring the )words to an end. %ith
every inane word a little nearer to the last.) The final paragraph returns the )you) to where
)you always were. Alone.) All the pronominal presences were fictive additions that gave
linguistic credence to an ultimately undefinable, non verbal subject.
Ill 0een Ill 0aid is a fictive construct the subject of which is the construction of fiction, a work
of imagination in which imagination is seen constantly at work. This text takes the
postmodern trait of self referentiality to unprecedented lengths. To record the process of
composition in the very act of composing that record is to go beyond the by now familiar
intrusion of the writer into his or her narrative. 2ot content with commentary, Beckett allows
the narrator's concern with his craft to usurp his concern with his story. The story is minimal.
It concerns an old woman who moves about a house and visits a nearby tombstone. 4usan
Brien&a suggests that the tombstone could stand in for the grave of traditional fiction, and that
the )arewell to farewell) of the final paragraph 5out of J.7 reveals the entire text to be a
wake for his previous fictional output. <ertainly it is the telling of the story rather than the
story itself that preoccupies the narrator from the opening paragraph. 2ear the beginning the
narrative voice urges itself into movement with )Bn,) and pursues the metaphor of motion
with commands like )Muick then,) )<areful,) or )Dently gently.) Towards the close of the
piece it applies verbal brakes with exclamations like )$ess,) )(nough,) )2o more.)
These commands represent the artistic imagination caught in the very act of creation. At times
it appears a god like faculty. It summons up whatever objects it re*uires. )The cabin,) it will
announce, or, )9eagre pastures...) But then *uestions arise. )+ow come a cabin in such a
place, +ow came,) The correction of tense shows the imagination already mistaking past for
present, fiction for actuality. As the narrative proceeds the features summoned earlier with
such authority begin to impose their own limitations on the imaginative faculty? )A moor
would have better met the case...In any case too late.) 2evertheless the imagination's needs
ultimately take precedence over internal demands for narrative consistency. %hat is initially
ill seen soon enough becomes ill said. %ords subsume the image which appears and
disappears in increasingly distorted form, )well on the way to inexistence.) The answer is to
fall back on the inner eye of the imagination? )2othing for it but to close the eye for good and
see her. +er and rest.) This inner sight is a verbal construct that has to be finally said ill
enough to be rid of it. (ven then the imagination has one last trick to play in the closing
paragraph by prolonging its activity )=o>ne moment more...Hnow happiness.) The ill seen
scenario of the narrative has been )devoured) by the ill said activity of artistic creation which
has always been a principal preoccupation in Beckett's work.
%hat we witness in the second trilogy is the gradual replacement of the diegesis of narration
5the indirect rendering of speech7 by the mimesis 5or direct rendering7 of the act of narration.
The images that provide the subject of narration in these texts are most prolific in 'o#pany.
In Ill 0een Ill 0aid a drastically reduced visual content makes spasmodic appearances. In
Worstward -o the minimal images of a woman, an old man and a child, and a skull are first
conjured up and then persistently reduced to a trunk or a one"eyed stare, until finally they
reach the ultimate state in minimali&ation, )Three pins. Bne pinhole.) 4imultaneously the act
of narration has taken over as subject. In effect Beckett has deconstructed the traditional form
of narrative by sei&ing on the conventionally marginali&ed process of narration and
reinscribing plot and character within this new hierarchy. This is a particularly appropriate
strategy for a postmodernist to take if one accepts the hypothesis that one way of defining
postmodernism is that it deconstructs modernism. In the case of literature such an act of
deconstruction cannot ignore the logocentric use to which narration puts language. )%ords are
a form of complacency,) Beckett wrote. In Worstward -o he launches his fiercest assault on
the deceptive way in which language has been used to privilege the pervasiveness of meaning,
order, linearity.
The absence of a named speaker in Worstward -o naturally directs the reader's attention to the
role of language in this text. Bpening with a linguistic reference back to Ill 0een Ill 0aid, it
establishes within the first paragraph a new pared down syntax that is simultaneously
demanding and rewarding? )Bn. 4ay on. Be said on. 4omehow on. Till nohow on. 4aid nohow
on.) That last sentence is also the sentence with which this piece ends. It incorporates the
paradoxical nature of Beckett's last major attempt to force language to express the
inexpressible, non linguistic void. +is object is to use language to negate its signifying
properties, something that he knows is ultimately unattainable. But he can at least )=f>ail
better,) rob words of their positive semantic value by creating neologisms that draw attention
to their deceptive nature. )%hat words for what then, +ow almost they still ring.) To take the
ring out of them Beckett employs double and treble negatives? )-nlessenable least.) )2ohow
naught.) )-nmoreable unlessable unworseable evermost almost void.) Beckett turns words on
themselves, compelling them to acknowledge their inade*uacy, using their negation to
accommodate the presence of true formless being. Fet even the radical antilanguage he forges
in this text cannot always prevent the old ring from seeping through? )@asts apart. At bounds
of boundless void.) Beckett announced at the start of his writing career his program? )An
assault on words in the name of beauty.) +is last major text takes this assault to its furthest
point even as it produces the esthetic effect in the name of which he conducted his lifelong
verbal war on words.
Copyriht! Brian Finney! "##$. By permission: Columbia %ni&ersity Press.
5irst published in The 'olu#bia -istory of the .ritish ,ovel. (d.!ohn 3ichetti. 2ew Fork? <olumbia -A, .//;. :;6"JJ.7