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210th out of 263 books
—
152 voters
Mercier And Camier
One of the most accessible examples of Samuel Beckett’s dark humor, Mercier and Camier is the hilarious chronicle of its two heroes’ epic journey. While their travels are fraught with complications and intrigue, Mercier and Camier at least �did not remove from home, they had that good fortune.”
Paperback, 128 pages
Published
January 20th 1994
by Grove Press
(first published 1946)
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Call it Beckett's version of "Bouvard and Pecuchet" with choreography by Buster Keaton - philosophical slapstick spiced up with some orgies and a brutal murder. This series of set pieces is somewhat slight by design, but the writing is fast paced, gorgeously wrought, and often laugh out loud funny. It's Mr. B having a lark - even dropping in guest appearances from Watt and Murphy - which is half the fun in itself.
This is just as much a precursor to South Park as to Godot. Beckett’s absurdist novel caught me off guard with the directions the characters took; I would have to pause and laughingly rereading passages over again. The author displays a fine sense of both the oddities of life, as well as a keen understanding of psychology. One to reread.
No sooner was he alone than Mercier went. His path crossed, at a given moment, that of an old man of weird and wretched aspect, carrying under his arm what looke...more
Jul 19, 2009
Buck
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
slackers; those who find Waiting for Godot too maudlin.
A living room. Conventional bachelor-pad squalor. Two listless figures are sprawled on the leather couch, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos lying open between them. End of exposition.
Wanna play Wii? asked Camier.
Mercier brightened momentarily before relapsing into his accustomed hebetude.
I lack, he said, the vigour.
Come, come, said Camier. Why this pose of senescence? You’re a young man yet.
A gross libel, said Mercier. I was never young. I fell wizened and arthritic from my mater’s dusty womb.
On a su...more
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Sep 20, 2011
Nate D
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
collapse
Recommended to Nate D by:
ruin
Shelves:
france,
postwar-re-de-constructions
Now we must choose, said Mercier.
Between what? said Camier.
Ruin and collapse, said Mercier.
Could we not somehow combine them? said Camier.
Dominated as it is by its despairing comedic dialogues and voyages to nowhere, I took this (seeing the 1970 publication date) to be something of a Godot rehash. On the contrary, its a pre-hash, composed just after Watt in 1946, Beckett's first in French, with the goal of erasing style. Yet the mastery of style seen in Watt was part of what drew me to it. Merci...more
A gem from the master of metaphysical and absurd-ism lit, this short and delightful novel was written by Beckett when he was just cutting his teeth on the style that would become his hallmark. I wonder how many times Stoppard read this before writing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Funny, brutal and original throughout.
I picked this up at Powell's in Portland over the weekend. For my Goodreads friends that haven't heard of this greatest of bookstores, it is a beacon of light in a world of...more
I picked this up at Powell's in Portland over the weekend. For my Goodreads friends that haven't heard of this greatest of bookstores, it is a beacon of light in a world of...more
خیلی عجیب!
خیلی جالب!
خیلی نو و تازه!
و خیلی چیزای دیگه ه.من سه کتاب پس باد همیه چیز را نخواهد برد اثر براتیگان،سفید برفی اثر دونالد بارتلمی واین کتاب رو رو پشت سرهم مطالعه کردم و در انتها به این نتیجه رسیدم که این کتاب از همه اونا تو ساختار پست مدرنسیتی تازه تره با اونکه خیلی قبل تر از اونا تو دهه 40د نوشته شده.شاید به خاطر نابهنگام بودن این اثر باشه که بکت اونو تودوره اوج رمان پست مدرنیستی تو دهه 70 چاپ کرد. یه جورایی نسخه دستنویس اولیه در انتظار گودو به نظر میاد.یه جورایی هم شبیه رمان مورد علاقه...more
خیلی جالب!
خیلی نو و تازه!
و خیلی چیزای دیگه ه.من سه کتاب پس باد همیه چیز را نخواهد برد اثر براتیگان،سفید برفی اثر دونالد بارتلمی واین کتاب رو رو پشت سرهم مطالعه کردم و در انتها به این نتیجه رسیدم که این کتاب از همه اونا تو ساختار پست مدرنسیتی تازه تره با اونکه خیلی قبل تر از اونا تو دهه 40د نوشته شده.شاید به خاطر نابهنگام بودن این اثر باشه که بکت اونو تودوره اوج رمان پست مدرنیستی تو دهه 70 چاپ کرد. یه جورایی نسخه دستنویس اولیه در انتظار گودو به نظر میاد.یه جورایی هم شبیه رمان مورد علاقه...more
originally written in French as a sort of unconscious warm-up to Godot. Undderrated for its sort of lost status within the Beckett constellation. Satire for its peckish, peevish, acid humor(s).
It's got a little bit of the 'big dumb, rather guileless guy' w/ 'short, fat, sharp, rather amoral guy' dynamic we see so often in narratives across the board- Flaubert's "Bouvard et Pecuchet", "Dumb and Dumber", Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", Laurel and Hardy, Ralph Cramden and Norton, R2D2 and C3PO,...more
It's got a little bit of the 'big dumb, rather guileless guy' w/ 'short, fat, sharp, rather amoral guy' dynamic we see so often in narratives across the board- Flaubert's "Bouvard et Pecuchet", "Dumb and Dumber", Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", Laurel and Hardy, Ralph Cramden and Norton, R2D2 and C3PO,...more
this book felt at times filthy and yet innocent. still, it often left a bad taste in my mouth, forcing me to take a week to finish its 130 pages. certainly humorous. so many levels; so much happening at once. I should probably read this 10 times. When I read that Beckett claimed that Waiting for Godot meant nothing, I stopped reading it immediately and enraged. that was Florida..
what you lack is a sense of perspective.
what you lack is a sense of perspective.
I was so happy I found this book. It's definately one of my favorites now. You only hear about Beckett being this hard core existentialist. No one talks about his position as a humorist. There are very few authors who can make me laugh out loud. This one made me laugh days later when I remembered certain scenes. I can't read this in public. Molloy is the same way.
Vladimir and Estragon are here in the shadows, experiencing and expelling life, bandying and bawdying about. Beckett is beginning to blow away the "stink of artifice," to get to the core. Yet he can't help himself in some of the beautifully descriptive lines. What's that smell?
Enormous fun, verging on slapstick (including a bit of the old slapstick ultraviolence), and very much in the same stylistic territory as Murphy, who himself makes a passing appearance. Lovely to revisit this after nearly 20 years.
If this was not on the 1001 list, I would have stopped reading after page seven. But since it was only 97 pages, I struggled through it. Not my style of writing.
You hinder me more than you help me, said Mercier.
I'm not trying to help you, said Camier, I'm trying to help myself.
Then all is well, said Mercier.
I'm not trying to help you, said Camier, I'm trying to help myself.
Then all is well, said Mercier.
Impressions on finishing it - thoroughly absorbing, language to savour, captivating characters, sad, funny, unique.
I don't think I was made to appreciate Beckett. Sorry, library recommendation shelf.
A predecessor to Waiting For Godot. Absurd, wayward, winsome.
Brilliant.
Feb 08, 2011
Deanne
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001bookstoreadbeforeyoudie
Very quick and quirky read.
Strikes a perfect balance of funny and pedantic.
Some people say this is very similar to "Waiting for Godot." Similar, perhaps, but not at all the same. Both are about inertia, but this is more a personal, absurdist inertia, whereas "Godot" seems to be a parabolic (like a parable), existential inertia.
See review of The Road...
The early Beckett I like: a lovely, ironic novella that prepares the way for Godot (and happens to be much more explicit on the "Godot=God+Dieu" stuff). Makes me want to check out Buster Keaton.
Sep 08, 2007
Sarah
added it
samuel beckett is tha bomb! also, i hear he was schizophrenic. and born in 1906. i LOVE 4EVA writers born in 1906 who use the word cunt with great regularity.
Underrated comic masterpiece. Not his best, but still ranks highly amongst his work.
Not an important work in the Beckett canon, but delightful none the less.
Excellent novel. Funny in a way I was not used to in Beckett's work.
I prefer Beckett's novels to his plays.
Fascinating, but haunting.
very strange!
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Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in France for most of his adult life. He wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced...more
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Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced...more
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