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Beckett

Post 1

Recumbentman

I've just finished reading James Knowlson's wonderful biography of Sam Beckett. An exemplary life, facing down the outrage of existence.

He preached and lived the precept "less is more", a phrase which he may or may not have originated.

I was thrilled when he published his last prose work, Stirrings Still. It came out simultaneously in a de luxe edition costing hundreds of dollars, and (in full) at the bottom of a page in The Irish Times (and no doubt other newspapers).

At the end though, it seems his score was:

Questions one
Answers nil.


Beckett

Post 2

Gnomon - time to move on

I was listening to a work by Berio last night on CD: Sinfonia. The middle movement of five is a reworking of a movement of a Mahler symphony, with lots of quotes from 20th century works. It's sung by the Swingle Singers, with orchestra, and on top of it is a monologue which is mainly taken from a work by Beckett, about someone sitting in the audience and wondering has the show started, is this the show, is this all there is going to be?


Beckett

Post 3

Recumbentman

Most curious. Beckett worked with composers he got on well personally with, including his cousin John Beckett.

I studied with John in the Academy, he had a weekly Baroque chamber music class during the seventies. Rather like Sam (as he comes across from the book) John is a mixture of the terrifyingly scathing ("Are you doing it like that because you like it that way, or out of sheer incompetence?") and the incredibly soft-hearted: he took several lame ducks under his wing and nurtured them to everyone else's consternation.

I landed the role of continuo bass viol, and got to play all evening while others had to queue up for their turn. He hardly addressed a word to me--he would hold out a sheet for me to play and then hold out a hand for me to give it back afterwards. But I learnt all about his phrasing simply from the way he played; the harpsichord is such a flexible, expressive instrument, in the hands of such a player.


Beckett

Post 4

Recumbentman

Another Sam Beckett story that I love concerns The Great Book of Ireland. This is a manuscript written on vellum, an idea of poet Theo Dorgan's that was completed in 1991. It was designed to be a modern Book of Kells: "a single volume containing work by 140 poets, 120 painters and 9 composers . . . All the contributors worked directly onto the large vellum pages, handmade by Joe Katz, and their work was unified by a calligrapher, Dennis Brown, aided by design consultant Trevor Scott S.D.I. The Book is bound by Anthony Cains and housed in a box by Eric Pearce with a silver clasp by Brian Clarke." -- http://www.poetryireland.ie/irishpoetry/thegreatbook.html

Dorgan apparently hoped that the then Taoiseach Charles Haughey would buy the book for a million euro! That was when people still believed that he had money. It subsequently came out that he only had heroic debts; he lived it up on gifts from businessmen, which will never be repaid. I don't know whether anyone did buy the Book, or where it is now.

Naturally the writers who contributed excelled themselves in their neat and presentable handwriting-for-posterity. "It was often nerve-wracking - one poet is remembered for his nervous habit of getting up from his writing each time he completed a line and walking around until his agitation had subsided." http://www.poetryireland.ie/irishpoetry/thegreatbook3.html

There was one exception, though. Samuel Beckett wrote a line, or half a line, in his spidery scrawl, then--





crossed it out and started again smiley - tongueout


Beckett

Post 5

Recumbentman

Make that a million poinds. The Euro didn't come till later.


Beckett

Post 6

Recumbentman

Pounds, right. IR£. What the English used to call punts.


Beckett

Post 7

frenchbean

I've never read any Beckett. I wonder if I should do so - and where I should start. Any recommendations? You've inspired me smiley - smiley


Beckett

Post 8

Gnomon - time to move on

I've never read any Beckett, but I did see a production of Waiting for Godot, which I enjoyed immensely.


Beckett

Post 9

Recumbentman

Beckett is mostly famous for "Waiting for Godot" which was first produced in 1953. Before that he wrote novels which are very quirky and at first taste gobsmackingly weird. My first reaction to Watt was "How did this get published?"

Here is a snatch of the song Watt heard in his imagination while lying in a ditch:

Fifty two point two eight five-seven-one-four-two
Eight five-seven-one-four-two
Miss oh Miss Magrew
How do you do
Blooming thanks and you
Thanks blooming too

It's not that simple, each voice has different words as though they represented different generations, so the soprano sings:

Fifty two point two eight five-seven-one-four-two
Eight five-seven-one-four-two
Great-grandma Magrew
How do you do
Blooming thanks and you
Drooping thanks and you
Withered thanks and you
Forgotten thanks and you
Thanks forgotten too
And the same to you

It's funny, but grim; Beckett always reads (to me) as though he is very aware that the funny is also the ghastly.

I worked it out that the number in the song is the number of weeks in a leap year, that is to say 366 divided by seven. If anyone is interested.

His most famous novel is Malone Dies; this is short and manageable, and has the same gallows humour as the rest.

While cycling with my brother in France (the first of our long trips) we were asked about Beckett and Dublin by a gîte-owner's wife who had studied French literature in university. She told us that Beckett is taught as "un écrivain Français".

Which gives credence to the story that Sam, visiting London for some production, was asked by a friend "Do you regard yourself as a British writer?"

To which he replied: "Au contraire" smiley - smiley


Beckett

Post 10

Recumbentman

This is interesting; "less is more" is generally attributed to the architect Mies van der Rohe or to Buckminster Fuller, but it comes from a poem of Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto".


Beckett

Post 11

Recumbentman

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