A while ago I promised to update my blog with words from The Great Samuel Beckett, form his trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies, and of course, the Unnamable.
Through my reading of the Trilogy, there were times when I thought, ‘hey, what exactly is going on? where is where, and who is what?’ who exactly should be considered as the viewpoint character – namely, the character who also occurs to incorporate the main narratorial voice of the ongoing narrative?’
Anyway, I could manage the hardest: reading the texts – all three of them, and making plausibly pertinent links with that one tough philosophical theory I picked as my thesis conceptual theory! The path was hard, yet the result happened to be acceptable enough!
Samuel Beckett’s prose oeuvre, to critic’s consent, is an amalgam of severe sense of characters’ individualism presented through the odd narrative of individuals’ dysfunctional mind, and the way they present their past deeds!
It was quite a struggle to stick to the main narrative – that in fact functions as a metanarrative itself, and not get distracted by the labyrinth of voices.
Well, through my super-duper re-readings of the texts! I found sentences, statements, and phrases which were priceless; words which transcend time. I thought I would share a few here.
Before I direct quote the following sentences, I should note that some of these selected phrases may sound offensive and/or obscene – thanks to Beckett’s literary merits!
You were warned, henceforth!
“How difficult it is to speak of the moon and not lose one’s head, the witless moon. It must be her arse she shows us always. (39)”
“What I liked in anthropology was its inexhaustible faculty of negation, its relentless definition of man, as though he were no better than God, in terms of what he is not. (39)”
“The Times Literary Supplement was admirably adapted to this purpose, of a neverfailing toughness and impermeability. Even farts made no impression on it. I can’t help it, gas escapes from my fundament on the least pretext, it’s hard not to mention it now and then, however, great my distaste. One day I counted them. Three hundred and fifteen farts in nineteen hours, or an average of over sixteen farts an hour. After all it’s not excessive. (30)”
“Certainly questions of a theological nature preoccupied me strangely. As for example.
- What value is to be attached to the theory that Eve sprang, not from Adam’s rib, but from a tumour in the fat of his leg (arse)?
- Did the serpent crawl, or as Comestor affirms, walk upright?
- Did Mary conceive through the ear, as Augustine and Adobard assert?
- How much longer are we to hang about waiting for the antichrist?
- Does it really matter which hand is employed to absterge the podex? (this is my favorite one??? hahaha)
- What is one to think of the Irish oath sworn by the natives with the right hand on the relics of the saints and the left on the virile members?
- ….
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- ….
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- What was God doing with himself before the creation? (another favorite!)
- ….
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- What if the mass for the dead were read over the living?
Our Father who are no more in heaven than on earth or in hell, I neither want nor desire that thy name be hallowed, thou knowest best what suits thee. (167)”
“The search for myself is ended. [...] the catalepsies of the soul. (199)”
“Nihil in intellectu (218)”
“If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window. But perhaps it is the knowledge of impotence that emboldens me (218)”
“to live is to wander the last of the living in the depths of an instant without bounds. (233)”
“Sine qua non, Archimedes was right. (254)”
“For we shall soon die, you and I, that is obvious. (261)”
…
Samuel Barclay Beckett: April 13,1906- Dec., 22, 1989
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Tags: literature, Malone Dies, Molloy, Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
