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Watt
In prose possessed of the radically stripped-down beauty and ferocious wit that characterize his work, this early novel by Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett recounts the grotesque and improbable adventures of a fantastically logical Irish servant and his master. Watt is a beautifully executed black comedy that, at its core, is rooted in the powerful and terrifying vision t...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
June 16th 2009
by Grove Press
(first published 1953)
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If I could give this 6 stars I would. My favoritist-favorite of Beckett. I reread this one quite often.
'No symbols where none intended.' So runs Beckett's oft-quoted post-scriptual warning to readers of this unique, flawed masterpiece. Apt, if useless, advice too, in a novel in which everything from the dog's dinner to the layout of the garden is already analysed and contra-analysed to infinity by its ever-questioning protagonist, who must be one of the most enigmatic (read baffling, alien, other-dimensional) characters ever to have served as the lynchpin for a game-changing work of literature. A...more
view all 4 comments
Ha!
Think I will have to buy a copy. It will replace Wittgenstein, all existentialists, Augustine, Aquinas, T.S. Eliot and manuals on dog husbandry. Also, most economically, it will dispense with all tomes of psychoanalysis. Even though I can sometimes only read a paragraph a day, for hilarity and joy in excess can be exquisitively painful, I do believe I will also dispense with my Dhamapadda.
What a glorious piece of writing.
Ha! Just read an amazon review: "Anyone who claims they enjoy reading t...more
Think I will have to buy a copy. It will replace Wittgenstein, all existentialists, Augustine, Aquinas, T.S. Eliot and manuals on dog husbandry. Also, most economically, it will dispense with all tomes of psychoanalysis. Even though I can sometimes only read a paragraph a day, for hilarity and joy in excess can be exquisitively painful, I do believe I will also dispense with my Dhamapadda.
What a glorious piece of writing.
Ha! Just read an amazon review: "Anyone who claims they enjoy reading t...more
Jun 23, 2007
Matthew
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Go fish. I've had the same card since Wednesday.
Aug 28, 2007
Lin
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Beckett-enthusiasts
Shelves:
owned
A typical Beckett book, this one is not an easy read, but an interesting read most definately. Did I enjoy it - 'enjoy' would be a big word. It is not that I did not enjoy it at all, because I certainly did. I have always had a huge appreciation for Beckett’s work, and Watt only emphasized once again why that is. The capacity to make something very simple, very complicated, and in that way to offer a new look at things we might be taking for granted is a trait I have always admired. Yet this is...more
(New York: Grove Press, 1959)
The incident of the Galls, on the contrary, ceased so rapidly to have even the paltry significance of two men, come to tune a piano, and tuning it, and exchanging a few words, as men will do, and going, that this seemed rather to belongtosome story heard long before, an instant in the life of another, ill told, ill heard, and more than half forgotten. (74)
But what was this pursuit of meaning, in this indifference to meaninG? And to what did it tend? These are delicat...more
The incident of the Galls, on the contrary, ceased so rapidly to have even the paltry significance of two men, come to tune a piano, and tuning it, and exchanging a few words, as men will do, and going, that this seemed rather to belongtosome story heard long before, an instant in the life of another, ill told, ill heard, and more than half forgotten. (74)
But what was this pursuit of meaning, in this indifference to meaninG? And to what did it tend? These are delicat...more
Beckett's power comes from his language. This novel is indecipherable at times, likely with the intention of being so. Of all the confusion and frustration though, two aspects make the struggle worthwhile. The first is the very rhythm and poetry of Beckett's diction. He is crass but gorgeous in his descriptions, dull but engrossing in his pacing and opaque yet straightforward in clarity. These contradictions belie the greatest aspect of this piece--it is pure empathy to his dark and nihilistic w...more
Among other things Beckett's most Proustian book: a treatise on desire or exercise of it or exorcism from it (apologies for the ripoff Wattean syntax, but that's what you get after beating your head through this miraculously-tedious book for a month). That all three of these goals are impossible to meet and Watt therefore a failure should be no surprise to anyone who keeps in mind Beckett's's famous dictum, which could sell Pepsi: try again. Fail again. Fail better. Fail at what? Well, how about...more
Second novel of Samuel Beckett, it represents the author’s exercises in writing and a stage in the development of writing for Beckett. The story is of Watt, a man who is traveling towards a job as servant to Mr. Knott and then his employment as Mr. Knott’s servant and then his leaving employment. Watt is obsessed with exhaustive logic. Pages are dedicated to this obsession. Beckett uses multiple unreliable narrators in this story that really isn’t a story so much as an exercise. I’ve read Waitin...more
Nov 05, 2012
Slávek Rydval
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
irish-authors,
read-2012
Samuel Beckett. Beckett Samuel. Chm. Tso k tomu povědět? Nitz? Ne, to asi ne, zvážíme-li možnost, že něco přeci jenom, pokud jsme toho schopni, tak můžeme, uvést.
Tso. Poslední román, který Beckett psal v angličtině a pak jej dlouhá léta překládal do francouzštiny. Původní název Watt (výslovnost shodná s What) byl přeložen jako Tso, druhá důležitá postava, pan Knot (opět výslovností stejné jako Not), pak jako pan Nitz. A byť Tso u Nitze slouží, nepadne mezi nimi jediného slova. Proč také. Otázka...more
Tso. Poslední román, který Beckett psal v angličtině a pak jej dlouhá léta překládal do francouzštiny. Původní název Watt (výslovnost shodná s What) byl přeložen jako Tso, druhá důležitá postava, pan Knot (opět výslovností stejné jako Not), pak jako pan Nitz. A byť Tso u Nitze slouží, nepadne mezi nimi jediného slova. Proč také. Otázka...more
I'm going to make a mysogynystic statement, but if I state it is mysogynystic does that mean it isn't mysogynystic or is it only mysogynystic if I'm a male and therefore not mysogynystic if I'm a female and what about the reader are they mysogynystic if the read the statement but only if they are male and not if they are female. Samuel would allow this thought process go for page after page to the point were one is tempted to skim read but then you would miss the gem hidden within . This book is...more
Any time someone claims to be a realist writer, I direct them to this book to show them what a "realistic" book would actually be like.
I laughed out loud in the library. Ennoble-ing and pathetic at the same time.
Watt. What?
Knott. Not!
Having read Waiting for Godot many times, finding it hilarious and disturbing and always fresh, I was looking forward to reading my first novel by Beckett. As you can see from my rating, I really liked Mr. Watts stay in Mr. Knott's house, but I would have to be a masochist to say that I enjoyed it exactly. For starters, I don't think it was written with anything in mind as concessional to the reader as providing simple enjoyment. However, in constant cycles whilst reading i...more
Knott. Not!
Having read Waiting for Godot many times, finding it hilarious and disturbing and always fresh, I was looking forward to reading my first novel by Beckett. As you can see from my rating, I really liked Mr. Watts stay in Mr. Knott's house, but I would have to be a masochist to say that I enjoyed it exactly. For starters, I don't think it was written with anything in mind as concessional to the reader as providing simple enjoyment. However, in constant cycles whilst reading i...more
Jan 31, 2012
Vincent Abbin
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
post-modernism
When you put Watt down, you will have a headache. Several times between the moment that you pick it up and the moment that you put it down, you will have a headache. If you finished this book without a headache, then you probably didn't do it right. Surely, several options may arise at the end of the journey. Perhaps you will come out understanding what may have been Samuel Beckett's intentions in creating this book, but not the content. Or perhaps you will understand neither the intentions nor...more
Any review of Beckett's novels is as much referendum on Beckett as response to the book in question. When I first encountered his fiction in a graduate seminar, I pretty much dismissed it as an exercise in solipsism. While that's no entirely inaccurate, it totally missed the point. Beckett's not indulging, he's excavating, and he's doing it in a hilarious manner. (Nod to Hugh Kenner for the title of his book The Stoic Comedians, about Sam, Joyce and Proust.) I'm not sure I ever would have recogn...more
Blech! Watt is a novel about the loss of absolutes, but the narrative strategies make it incomprehensible. Beckett once referred to several of his stories as “my little turds.” Well, Watt is the big freaking deuce in the bowl.
He wrote this in the south of France while on the run during the latter half of World War II as an “experiment.” I just don’t get it, but then I didn’t care much for James Joyce, whom Beckett worked for and was influenced by, either.
At least one literary scholar as referre...more
He wrote this in the south of France while on the run during the latter half of World War II as an “experiment.” I just don’t get it, but then I didn’t care much for James Joyce, whom Beckett worked for and was influenced by, either.
At least one literary scholar as referre...more
Read it aloud, quickly. Pause only to catch your breath or turn the page or to laugh along with your audience. Try to have an audience.
I'm going through Beckett slowly, at a rate of just about one novel per year. Otherwise, perhaps, it may be too much. Watt is nearly too much, nearly. It falls just short of too much, just on this side of it, so that instead, it's just enough.
Except maybe the bottom of page 203 into all of 204.
That might be too much.
Otherwise, though, delight in it.
I'm going through Beckett slowly, at a rate of just about one novel per year. Otherwise, perhaps, it may be too much. Watt is nearly too much, nearly. It falls just short of too much, just on this side of it, so that instead, it's just enough.
Except maybe the bottom of page 203 into all of 204.
That might be too much.
Otherwise, though, delight in it.
Oh, again, I can't say enough about Beckett. MY 2nd favorite writer after Kafka. This guy is -funny-. Irish...a tad easier to follow than Joyce. He strips the human condition down to it's bare essentials and then laughs at how we try to still keep on, keeping on. Living is absurd, but dying is just giving up. "I can't go on, I will go on."
Maybe the funniest book ever written. Beckett's humor during this phase of his career comes from the limited emotional responses of his protagonists. They become automatons, slave to their own desires of which they are unaware about the origins. The butler in the narrative is a brilliant invention, too.
The first and last chapters read like the first and last acts of a strange, sad, often hilarious, always absurd play. And in-between there is much strange, sad, often hilarious, always absurd inner and outer monologue, including loads of repetition and circumlocution and repetition.
There are pages that you'll be tempted to skip. Beckett, I imagine, offered this temptation for a reason; a reason that rests, I hope, in his grave (or in the "grave" of a rarely read book of literary criticism). But...more
There are pages that you'll be tempted to skip. Beckett, I imagine, offered this temptation for a reason; a reason that rests, I hope, in his grave (or in the "grave" of a rarely read book of literary criticism). But...more
I found that this book was much more enjoyable when listened to...like a background hilarious commentary while doing a tedious chore. I went through most of it as I sorted out some photos for a website. Beckett left no thought unwritten.
I wouldn't recommend listening to it while driving!
I wouldn't recommend listening to it while driving!
It's sometimes baffling, often funny, quite monstrous and sad. True, it's not in Beckett's major league of MOLLOY, THE UNNAMABLE, MALONE DIES...etc, but it's thoroughly entertaining. And you'll learn the meaning of the word 'sigmoidal' if you don't already know it (I didn't).
very hilarious in parts, depressing in other parts. prose is impressive as always with beckett. has moments of rare, subdued tenderness that are all the more beautiful for being few and far between in beckett's work.
"Aresene'nin söylevini Watt'ın azar azar anımsadığını bir düşünün" ekteki bu yazı iyi güldürdü beni.Beckett amca kılı kırk yaran açıklamalarıyla,her olasılığı üşenmeden tek tek yazmasıyla beni zaman zaman bezdirse de genel olarak eğlendim kitabı okurken.eyvallah Beckett amca.
Dec 31, 2010
Kelly
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Kelly by:
Dr. Carl Malmgren
Shelves:
fiction
This book dismantled me. I hated it. I threw it across the room more than once. It was wonderful. I can't recommend it, but read it anyway. Maybe you'll see what I mean.
Not for everyone. Like a lot of Beckett, this book strips humanity to its core and sees if there's anything left. One of my favorites.
Really funny and inventive and just captivating in all its detail and excentricity. The best place to start on Beckett's longer prose.
Took me a long time to read this one. Beckett really punishes the reader, which is fine because for the most part it's a pretty funny novel. I spent most of it shaking my head in wonder. Almost the entire thing is written in an obsessive-compulsive fever that goes on for scores of pages at a time.
However, the ending struck me as much too weak. After all the time and effort I put into keeping up with Beckett's hyper-logic prose, I expected a satisfying payoff, or at least a damn good punchline....more
However, the ending struck me as much too weak. After all the time and effort I put into keeping up with Beckett's hyper-logic prose, I expected a satisfying payoff, or at least a damn good punchline....more
The definition of digressive and permutational. "Watt" = power of illumination or else "What?!?!?" For me it was more of the latter. The sarcastic superiority of the narration rubbed me somewhat (or somewatt) of the wrong way.
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| 90outloud video for Watt | 1 | 5 | Mar 12, 2013 09:20am |
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
More about Samuel Beckett...
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced...more
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“Personally of course I regret everything.
Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need,
not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy,
not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust,
not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear,
not a name, not a face, no time, no place...that I do not regret, exceedingly.
An ordure, from beginning to end.”
—
16 people liked it
Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need,
not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy,
not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust,
not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear,
not a name, not a face, no time, no place...that I do not regret, exceedingly.
An ordure, from beginning to end.”
“Here he stood. Here he sat. Here he knelt. Here he lay. Here he moved, to and fro, from the door to the window, from the window to the door; from the window to the door, from the door to the window; from the fire to the bed, from the bed to the fire; from the bed to the fire, from the fire to the bed.”
—
4 people liked it
More quotes…
