Molloy was written by Samuel Beckett initially in French; only later was it translated into English. It was published shortly after World War II an...
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Apr 30, 2008
Brent
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I had this book with me while at the beach. The beach was cold. It was mid-spring and it was New England. I stood and I looked at the sea. The sea looked grey.
First, I put the book in my front-right pants pocket. Then I took it out, transferring it to my right shirt pocket. I then removed it and put it in my left-front pants pocket. I let it sit there for a minute while I measured the waves and then I took it out and again put it into my right-front pants pocket. Then I immediately p More...
First, I put the book in my front-right pants pocket. Then I took it out, transferring it to my right shirt pocket. I then removed it and put it in my left-front pants pocket. I let it sit there for a minute while I measured the waves and then I took it out and again put it into my right-front pants pocket. Then I immediately p More...
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Sep 07, 2008
Bob
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finished Molloy earlier today. One of the strangest books I’ve ever read yet utterly compelling and fascinating. Somehow Beckett tapped down into somewhere in the psyche no one had ever done before, and in a way unique up until that moment. Well, Watt came before I guess. And in easy hindsight we can now say, well, you can see him moving to the perfection of Waiting for Godot. Maybe but that seems both too easy and wrong too. Yes and no. Yes of course but without these earlier works he wo
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Aug 29, 2011
Zach
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Molloy is a book of little moments and large discomfort. On the whole, I'm not sure what to make of it, though judging by the number of tabs I used to mark passages that I like, I enjoyed myself along the way. The discomfort comes from the nature of the two narrators who, to me, remain separate though the case could be made for their sameness. The first, Molloy himself, is a dirty and destitute man, a creature of muck, his thoughts as stuttering as his crippled walk. The second, Moran, is an
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May 13, 2011
Kevin
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I just finished Molloy yesterday, and am eagerly moving on to the next two books in Beckett's trilogy (Malone Dies, and The Unnameable). This is my second go at the trilogy, or thirteenth depending on how you count false starts. The many years have made a difference.
I think Molloy is a book you have to be ready for in some important way--at least this is true for me. The style is daunting --one 87 page paragraph; a sharp break in scene and story, related only tenuously. I understand w More...
Apr 15, 2011
Alex
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I've been meaning to read "the trilogy" (Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable) for years with a couple false starts but never managed to get through any of them until now. Molloy is funny in the flattest possible way. Bike tire flat. Like, "the idea of a joke is itself a joke" sort of funny with which you can curl up for a long night of starring at the darkened wall of your empty soul. A little like a pratfall except you get to watch the damage of the fall slowly spread unt
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Dec 11, 2010
Monthly Book Group
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Most found this book totally irritating and frustrating – just completely aggravating - and one reader had vowed never to read Beckett again. The book was not hateful, but it was repetitive and rambling, with no beginning or end, and nothing achieved. Its lack of structure meant it was very difficult to read in small chunks – and one member had regularly fallen asleep in trying to read Part 1 at night.
One member, who claimed the eccentricity of always finishing a book once started, f More...
One member, who claimed the eccentricity of always finishing a book once started, f More...
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Jul 21, 2010
Adam
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Section 1- Paragraphs? I don't need no stinkin' paragraphs! How about an 84 page stream of consciousness from a seemingly autistic leper who constantly needs to correct his own text because Language can NOT accurately describe reality and all literary conventions NEED to be deconstructed.
Section 2- Impressions upon starting it: Hoorah, paragraphs! Hoorah, short simple sentences. Double Hoorah, there WILL be an explanation of Molloy! Impressions upon finishing it: Boy was I wro More...
Section 2- Impressions upon starting it: Hoorah, paragraphs! Hoorah, short simple sentences. Double Hoorah, there WILL be an explanation of Molloy! Impressions upon finishing it: Boy was I wro More...
Jun 23, 2010
Daniel
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What a book! Seriously…I need to read the next two within this trilogy, for I am now intrigued.
The book has two main characters. First is a vagrant named Molloy who is trying to reach his mother's place. The other is a private detective named Moran who is very obsessive and loathing.
The first part of the book is from Molloy's perspective and is only two paragraphs long, which spans for over 100 pages. In it, his legs change shape, he sucks on stones, he becomes imprisoned More...
The book has two main characters. First is a vagrant named Molloy who is trying to reach his mother's place. The other is a private detective named Moran who is very obsessive and loathing.
The first part of the book is from Molloy's perspective and is only two paragraphs long, which spans for over 100 pages. In it, his legs change shape, he sucks on stones, he becomes imprisoned More...
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Jun 16, 2010
Lostinanovel
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Feb 01, 2010
John
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This is part of a three book series that I purchased over three years ago (which includes Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable)of which I just completed the first of the three. Having never read Beckett before, but having heard his many praises I was eager to start. His style is dense with digressions and the narative tone takes some getting used to. Once into the swing of things his distinctive style grows on you, and by the end the multitude of digressions no longer bothered me. This
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Aug 29, 2009
Jeff
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i LOVED Molloy but haven't been able to get myself past the first 20pp of Malone Dies and i doubt i'll ever read The Unnameable. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe there's something objectionable about the 2nd piece of this trilogy. Maybe you will yell at me if i say it is too bleak, too cerebral, too divorced from life, whereas Molloy contains some playfulness, some vivacity, some direct connection to the novel proper.
"I would recommend this book to lovers of metafict More...
"I would recommend this book to lovers of metafict More...
Jun 23, 2010
Jim
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Little did I know when I started this book on Sunday that it would loom so large in my mind. (I had started several times before, but I wasn't ready for it until now.)
The narrative is divided into two roughly equal parts, of which the first is incomparably better. It follows the peregrinations of one Molloy as he lives the life of a lowly, semi-demented (but not entirely) derelict in some Irish market town, possibly called Bally. The first paragraph is roughly normal in size; the se More...
The narrative is divided into two roughly equal parts, of which the first is incomparably better. It follows the peregrinations of one Molloy as he lives the life of a lowly, semi-demented (but not entirely) derelict in some Irish market town, possibly called Bally. The first paragraph is roughly normal in size; the se More...
Sep 11, 2011
Jamie
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I'm very glad to have gotten in touch with this book again. I last met it 20-odd years ago after I'd performed in Beckett's Waiting for Godot in college. I had to immerse myself in the rest of his writings for a period of months.
Despite that, I could recall no details of Molloy. The 20-year-old version of myself didn't get it, I think. Not that I entirely do today, but it has some heft to it now.
The book is divided into two sections. First, Molloy rambling, lost intellect More...
Despite that, I could recall no details of Molloy. The 20-year-old version of myself didn't get it, I think. Not that I entirely do today, but it has some heft to it now.
The book is divided into two sections. First, Molloy rambling, lost intellect More...
Dec 16, 2010
Slávek
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Po prvních přibližně deseti stranách jsem chtěl knihu odložit. Ne odložit, odhodit. No, dobrá, vyhodit. Co to je, tohle? říkal jsem si. Jenže poté to všechno začalo dávat smysl. Pokud tedy Molloy nějaký smysl dává. Ne, asi nedává. Vlastně, měli byste si nalézt ten svůj. Tohle totiž není novela, jak je možné znát z jiných případů. (Zde jde prý dokonce o antinovelu, ale to nechme akademikům, my si chceme hlavně číst.) Při čtení dostáváte často záchvaty zuřivosti, potřeby souhlasit nebo pocit nutno
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Jan 15, 2012
Emmett
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I'm re-reading this b/c I read the trilogy a decade ago and was ultimately underwhelmed by it...in the interim I've become a huge Beckett fan largely b/c of many of his later, shorter prose texts (How It Is, The Lost Ones, First Love, etc.), which has made me suspicious of claims for the trilogy as Beckett's masterwork. As of being 75% done, I must say my original feelings are confirmed. There are tons of brilliant passages, but also some fairly laborious, explicit "philosophical" mome
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Jan 13, 2010
Bondama
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I love Samuel Beckett -- He was one of the most unique writers ever to write in the (sort of) English language. Most of us are more familiar with his plays, "Waiting for Godot," "Endgame," and so on.
But Molloy is different. It's a wandering, wondrous jewel of a book. There are sections that have stayed with me since I first came across this book, at least twenty years ago. And I assume they will stay.
Please don't let the "strangeness" o More...
But Molloy is different. It's a wandering, wondrous jewel of a book. There are sections that have stayed with me since I first came across this book, at least twenty years ago. And I assume they will stay.
Please don't let the "strangeness" o More...
Jun 28, 2011
yay
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Was definitely a struggle to conquer at first, but glad I kept butting my head against it because on a particular night of alertness and lucidity it finally clicked with me that I had become enough accustomed to the author's style that I began to experience an onslaught of gems tumbling one after another. Hilarious and horrifying at once. Sanity in insanity. A couple examples:
"For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay wher More...
"For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay wher More...
Sep 20, 2011
Laura Jean
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Oct 14, 2010
Adam
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The human Self is not an unvarying thing, not a single unity. It is a synthetic whole, a synthesis synthesizing itself from disjoint elements of perception, body, state of mind, self-consciousness. The synthesis is effected by the continuity of memory and action, by transcendental apperception of self, by one’s conscious idea of oneself, by reification in the gaze of the Other, and by a unifying conceptual framework, both one’s own and that of the social whole. Beckett examines this synthesis by
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Dec 04, 2009
MG
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Someone asked me about the relationship between the two parts of the novel Molloy. This is my answer, which feels very tautological. It's posted in other places but I'll post it here as well. Overall, what is typical of any work of Beckett is the apparent absence, impossibility, or instability of real connections: relationships are flawed and imperfect, goals are impossible to achieve, words no longer signify anything, actions are devoid of any real intent. Molloy and Moran are similar to each o
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Oct 04, 2011
Oscar
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Cuando empecé a leer ‘Molloy’ pensé que me iba a aburrir, sobre todo por la primera parte que es bastante dura; Beckett nos introduce en la mente de un tipo bastante trastornado, y eso resulta una experiencia cuanto menos curiosa y desquiciante. Pero según vas leyendo y le das una oportunidad a la historia y sigues los pasos de Molloy, termina arrastrándote en su vorágine de sinsentidos, absurdos y paranoias varias.
‘Molloy’ es el primer libro de una de las trilogías mas importantes del More...
‘Molloy’ es el primer libro de una de las trilogías mas importantes del More...
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Aug 26, 2009
What I have "learned from this book" is that it has no paragraphs. I have been reading this book in French for about 2 years. I've taken numerous breaks to wolf down mindless page-turners. Yes, this book is kind of great, with hilarious shifts of diction mid-sentence (looooong sentence). The narrator slides into flowery pomposity and then suddenly says something abrupt and rather Anglo-Saxon (in French). But you know, I can't discuss the content, because Sparrow is reading these p
Oct 24, 2011
Rob
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I finished this book in one day. Well no, that isn't quite true. I did finish it - mostly - but it took me nearly 3 days to read. Understand? Well that is a different order of things completely. The more I read the less I knew until I was left with only and echo of Joyce and some faint smell of Kafka. Not that I'm averse or even obverse to either Kafka or Joyce (either their smell nor sound). Beckett for me is a fun-drunk version of Kafka and a bad-ass, funhouse reflection of Joyce.
Jul 20, 2009
Sullivan
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The first several pages were nothing short of a trip; they put me in my intellectual place, sort of speak. I had to set the text down every 4 or so pages, take a break, and return. That's how thick it was.
Eventually the rhythm picks up and you can plow straight through to the end on this feces-drenched, crippled schizophrenic narrative, that plays with the value of talk and teaches you how to arrange sucking stones in your pockets.
Eventually the rhythm picks up and you can plow straight through to the end on this feces-drenched, crippled schizophrenic narrative, that plays with the value of talk and teaches you how to arrange sucking stones in your pockets.
Oct 15, 2009
Matthew
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This was a very, very good read; should have expected that, which how much I've loved Beckett's plays so far. Really just two memorable characters (one in the first half, the other in the second) but you're never going to forget Molloy's sucking stones or Moran's instructions to his son about buying a bicycle. Lots of great stuff in here that reminds me of so many books that came after: "Confederacy of Dunces," a little Bolano, and even some DFW echoes in here. Recommended for pretty m
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Jul 31, 2008
Jessie
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C'etait l'ete passe quand j'ai lu Molloy, et j'avais vraiment trop peu de temps pour un roman de cette qualite. Molloy etait un ami qui demandait une grande periode, des apres-mids etouffants, sans engagements et sans soucis. Le lire a l'ecole etait un crime - le roman demandait moins de structure, moins d'obligation erudit.
Molloy c'est l'histoire d'un voyage, et c'est un voyage de le lire. L'avantage de le lire pour les devoirs c'etait que j'etais assuree que mon voyage terminerait. Avec More...
Molloy c'est l'histoire d'un voyage, et c'est un voyage de le lire. L'avantage de le lire pour les devoirs c'etait que j'etais assuree que mon voyage terminerait. Avec More...
Aug 05, 2011
Samuel Beckett creates characters who are at once brilliant, idiotic, and utterly insane. Molloy's stream-of-consciousness leaves you marveling at the ridiculousness of it all while still feeling a familiarity with his insanity. Moran's relationship with his maid Martha was absolutely hilarious. Beckett requires that the reader allow things to happen without necessarily understanding them immediately or ever, but if you are able to do that and are a little crazy yourself, you will enjoy this boo
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Apr 11, 2011
Ke
rated it:
The story seems to be like any thing Beckett came up with and he decided to write it down on paper.
To his credit, I found his points about religion quite interesting.
There were times when I thought it was boring and repetitive. I didn't see the point of the division of the novel, really.
I don't know why someone should care about these characters.
To his credit, I found his points about religion quite interesting.
There were times when I thought it was boring and repetitive. I didn't see the point of the division of the novel, really.
I don't know why someone should care about these characters.
Mar 14, 2010
Lindsey
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A lenghty dramatic monologue divided in half by two distinct characters. I didn't like this novel, but I didn't hate it either. In fact, I feel so neutral and apathetic about it. Perhaps because that's how the characters feel about virtually everything in life. I understood much more of this exploration of consciousness than I ever did reading _Ulysses_ which alone made it more enjoyable.
Aug 11, 2011
Lolo
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Dans la peau de deux personnages, Molloy puis Moran, chacun à leur manière dans une forme de déambulation, de quête. Le livre est très difficile à résumer, mais il m'a bien plu. Je doute d'avoir saisi la majeure partie des intentions de l'auteur.
