The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940

The Letters #1

by Samuel Beckett, Lois More Overbeck (editor), Martha Dow Fehsenfeld (editor)

The letters written by Samuel Beckett between 1929 and 1940 provide a vivid and personal view of Western Europe in the 1930s, and mark the gradual emergence of Beckett's unique voice and sensibility. The Cambridge University Press edition of The Letters of Samuel Beckett offers for the first time a comprehensive range of letters of one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Selected for their bearing on his work from over 15,000 extant letters, the letters published in this four-volume edition encompass sixty years of Beckett's writing life (1929-1989), and include letters to friends, painters and musicians, as well as to students, publishers, translators, and colleagues in the world of literature and theater. For anyone interested in twentieth-century literature and theater this edition is essential reading, offering not only a record of Beckett's achievements but a powerful literary experience in itself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Literature, Ireland, Irish Literature, France

782 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2008

About the author

Novels of Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish writer, include Murphy in 1938 and Malone Dies in 1951; a wider audience know his absurdist plays, such as Waiting for Godot in 1952 and Krapp's Last Tape in 1959, and he won the Nobel Prize of 1969 for literature.

Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.

People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.

People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".

In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.

Reviews

[Buck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Samuel Beckett was so full of shit. I say this with all due respect, but I’m not kidding. How else would you characterize a writer who gloomily intones, ‘There is no communication because there are no vehicles of communication’ – and proceeds to test drive every ‘vehicle of communication’ on the lot? Or who constantly bitches and moans about the ‘torture’ of writing a ‘simple sentence’, yet somehow manages to squeeze out eight novels, dozens of dramatic works and about 15 000 letters in his career? To say that Beckett’s theory was at odds with his practice is putting it mildly; they could hardly stand being in the same room together.

Maybe it was a mistake to try and read The Letters of Samuel Beckett at the same time as I was reading Into the Whirlwind, Evgenia Ginzburg’s memoir of the gulag. The contrast is not very flattering to Beckett. Ginzburg’s book, for all its horrors, ends up being oddly inspiring; Beckett’s correspondence, for all its wit, has the oppressive ambience of a nightmare.

Although officially I’m still a Beckett fan, I’ve been nursing a vague animosity towards the guy for a while now, and I think it’s time the two of us stepped outside and settled this thing once and for all. Of course, in a fair fight I wouldn’t stand a chance against Big Sam and his unassailable reputation, so I’m going to come in with a low blow right off the bat (that’s not a mixed metaphor; it’s a cocktail). On the dust jacket of the letters, following a friendly little puff from Tom Stoppard, there’s a truly nauseating pronouncement from a certain Professor Jean-Michel Rabaté, beginning: ‘Knowing as we do that Samuel Beckett is the only writer who can sum up the agonies and ecstasies of the twentieth century…’

As Orwell might have said, only a professor could be that stupid. Overlooking the unfortunate invocation of Irving Stone, let me just say that this statement, apart from being vulgar, is simply untrue. I know it’s not Beckett’s fault that he’s been blurbed by an idiot, but Rabaté’s sloppy wet ass-kissing is symptomatic of the awful academic piety that gathers around certain names and ideas, nullifying the possibility of serious discussion at the outset.

I’m not disputing Beckett’s genius, and I won’t deny that this volume contains a good dozen phrases that’ll stagger you with their brilliance, but philosophically and temperamentally, I just can’t get behind Beckett anymore. His Eeyorism is relentless, implacable, exhausting. On an intellectual level, I can admit we’ve all been flung irredeemably into a vast cosmic shithouse, but at the same time, something emotional and histrionic inside me is shouting, ‘No, damn you! I want to live! Why won’t you let me LIVE?’

Considering the mature Beckett’s laconism, what’s surprising is how over-written and clever-clever a lot of these letters are. Granted, Beckett was still a young man and still trying to ‘find his voice’ (hint: it’s in the library) but what kind of jerk-off writes to a girl he wants to screw in the following terms:

...I shall content myself with remarking that the various eviscerations characteristic of my distemper are at the very top of their form. Can you imagine a quarry in ebullition? I have now ceased to wish to amuse you. Forgive me. Now whereas this interesting neolithic effervescence had hitherto been so forgiving as to wish to confine itself roughly to my centre of inertia and environs, it has lately begun to embrace me without fear or favour from sinciput to planta.

Um, yeah, it pretty much goes on like that for another couple of pages. And this was supposed to be a love letter? Huh? (As an aside, how come these pathetic emo boys get all the chicks? Not that I’m bitter or anything.)

Being a good Canadian, I’m not cut out for iconoclasm and, believe me, I’m as horrified at my own impertinence as you are. If it’d make you feel any better, you can go ahead and accuse me of aesthetic inadequacy or spiritual embourgeoisement or whatever. You won’t get much of an argument from me. The fact is, I just don’t have the energy to be a nihilist anymore. At least not while 30 Rock is on.

Jesus, next thing you know, I’ll be standing up for family values, balanced budgets, SUVs and a well-regulated sex life. Middle age, ce n’est pas drôle du tout.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

You have to love, or at least be profoundly intrigued by, Beckett to take on the (projected) four volumes of his letters. If you are, you have two choices. Start with volume 2, which covers the period when Beckett's genius took form, or start with volume 1 and know that you're in it for the intimations of what's to come. For me, it was worth it. There are a dozen or so letters--msot of them written to Tom McGreevy (Beckett's friend and minor writer) but also a terrific letter (9 Juoy 1937) written to a German friend Axel Kaun in which Beckett provides a near-fully articulated reflection on the aesthetics of separation and solitude. There's more here about "ordinary" social interactions--especially his difficult relationship with his mother--than I'd expected; some glimpses of the literary world he was on the fringes of, including some fun commentary on James Joyce. While I'm not conversant enough with painting to follow the hundreds of references to the museums Beckett visited in London, Paris and Germany, the equivalent on literature and music were frequent enough to keep me in the loops. He's particularly insightful (and quirky, surprise surprise) thinking about Dante, Sarte, Cezanne and Beethoven. One major surprise to me was his love for Beethoven's 7th Symphony (my personal favorite), which doesn't seem at all Beckett-like to me. As always, reading Beckett's a vocabulary builder for damn near everyone. My list of words to check out includes: ebullition, isonomy, tetrakyt, conarium, caecum, canular, esquivent, trovata, astuce, ahuris and suilline. Just sayin'. At times I got irritated with Beckett for his near perfect ability to ignore the socio-political world. But being in Paris during World War II would change that, which will be one of the major stories of volume 2.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Pochi minuti di riflessione hanno messo i pro e i contro in così esatto equilibrio che come al solito mi sono visto costretto a non fare nulla." (p. 101, lettera a T. McGreevy, 3 novembre 1932)

"Ho fatto sforzi inauditi per scrivere ciò che nessuno vuole sentire." (p. 148, lettera a Morris Sinclair, 2 agosto 1934)

"Leggo una media di un’ora al giorno – dopo un’ora l’illusione di comprendere finisce." (p. 472, lettera a George Reavey, 27 settembre 1938)

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a complete and comprehensive collections of letters in terms of biography. I'm not sure I've read a better treatment of subject through letters. They concern the young Beckett, up to the age of 34 or so. As letters they're fun because Beckett was an amusing and playful correspondent. His letters are full of puns and gossip verging on cattiness, often about people who've become almost legendary in 20th century literature. The years covered here are those in which he was beginning to write. He published a couple of novels--one a favorite of mine, Murphy--and some poetry. The wranglings and agonizing with agent and publishers is detailed. In depth discussion of the content of his works, however, isn't an ingredient of his correspondence here. Of interest to me is his relationship with the Joyces. He was an intimate of the Joyce family during the Paris years, an assistant of Joyce during the composition of Finnegans Wake, and a romantic interest of Lucia, Joyce's daughter. What Beckett has to say about them is fascinating. This is immensely perceptive material for those interested in Beckett, and there are 3 more volumes to come. Life is good.

[Geova]

striking insights into the pre-fame Beckett; priceless background

[Paul Besley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 1 finds Samuel Beckett (SB) setting out in the world, college, studies and a supportive family, builders in Dublin. He is young in this decade and finding his feet amongst some very illustrious company, Joyce, Guggenheim, Yates, all quite astonishing when most of the time he seems to live hand to mouth, despite being able to move around the continent at will and cost.

His preoccupation is to be published with certain works and his letters detail the many many rejections as publishers take one look at the new writing and rush down to lock the doors. You feel a writers life is a hard life, not for the sensitive or easily discarded.

The one surprising element is the lack of any real mention of the preliminaries to WWII, it only makes an appearance at the last moment with the invasion of Poland and Chamberlains humiliation.

The notes are extensive and shed further light on this period. I advise to read the extensive introductions (100 pages) this helped enormously in understanding the collection of letters and the reasoning behind their selection against this left aside.

I look forward to Vol II, probably next year.

[Robert Docking · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. This volume covers the years of More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy and the early poetry. More importantly, it cover the years when Beckett suffered the tortured process of becoming the writer who could produce Godot and all the other masterpieces. There is an almost unrelenting struggle to free himself from the ties of his mother, and Joyce and Ireland, the struggle, too, to get beyond or beneath the surface of literature, of language, of life itself, to express what he later referred to as "fundamental sounds". It was a noble struggle and resulted in great art.

The apparatus is exemplary, with extensive , informative notes, brief biographies of Beckett's main associates, and a thorough introduction that admirably establishes the context for the volume and the entire collection.

There will be much great matter in future volumes, but this one sets a high standard. It's magnificent.

[Sean Masterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

And you thought his literature was bleak...

There are phrases, a few passages and a thought or two in here so far that I've felt compelled to immediately scribble into a notebook. Beyond that, I don't see myself reading this straight through.

[Lawrence Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

see Book page

[Sam Schulman · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are surprisingly tedious - arch, juvenile, and concerned with second-rate people. I read and read on thinking I would find something wonderful - but never did. A waste of time, alas.

[William Dearth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for the Beckett aficionado.

[Mills College Library]

846.914 B396L