همچنان به هیچ وجه

by Samuel Beckett, وحید منوچهری‌واحد (Translator)

Collected here in one volume, Samuel Beckett’s three novels, which are among the most beautiful and disquieting of his later prose works, come together with the powerful resonance of his famous Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable.
In Company, a voice comes to “one on his back in the dark” and speaks to him, describing significant moments in life, and yet we are told it is all a fable, memories or figments devised or imagined for the sake of company. Ill Seen Ill Said focuses attention on an old woman in a cabin who is part of the objects, landscape, rhythms, and movements of an incomprehensible universe. And in Worstward Ho, Beckett explores a tentative, uncertain existence in a world devoid of rational meaning and purpose. Here is language pared down to its most expressive, confirming Beckett’s position as one of the great writers of our time.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Irish Literature, Literature, Ireland, Classics, Novels

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

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

[فرشاد · Rating 1 out of 5]

بکت در این کتاب سعی دارد خواننده را متقاعد کند که اگر حالا بمیرد، از لحظه آتی بهتر است. او مخاطب را همچون جوجه تیغی تنهایی که در سرمای بیابان حرکت میکند، شکار می‌کند و آن را درون جعبه مقوایی در کمد دیواری تاریکی نهاده و با قادر مطلق خود تنها میگذارد تا هر دو به خزیدن در تاریکی مأیوس کننده ای مشغول باشند. تفاوتی ندارد که شما یک دختر زیبا باشید یا یک پسر عادی یا یک زنبور عسل پیر. بکت برای شما همواره یک سرنوشت را در نظر گرفته است. او، با نبوغ وافر خود، مخاطب را افسون بیهودگی نوشته هایش میکند. در زیبا ترین شکل ممکن، این پوچی را بیان کرده و سپس در نهایت خونسردی به استهزاء مخاطب میپردازد و با تجربه سالها زندگانی در آن سطح، سعی در به تباهی کشیدن امید خواننده دارد. او در این حالت به تعبیر حافظ، دیو و شیطانی است که نگین را از دستان سلیمان خارج کرده است، غافل از این که به تلبیس و حیل، دیو سلیمان نشود. بکت مخاطب را به درک تاریکی بزرگی که در روز برفی روشن وجود دارد فرا میخواند و آرمان های وی را با امید و یاس های متوالی در هم میکوبد. با این که مطلقا عقیده ای به وجود خالق ندارد در در انتظار گودو، جمله ای از انجیل نقل میکند که امیدی که در آن تعویق باشد موجب بیماری دل است، با این شیوه سعی میکند که انتظار بیهوده انسان برای سعادت زندگانی اش را موجب خسران سرانجام او قلمداد کند. بکت توانی برای تحمل زیبایی انتظار ندارد. او از درک زیبایی ویرانی بزرگ عاجز است و در فهم لذت آن تاریکی سهمگین که بر روشن ترین روزهای زندگی بشر سایه افکنده، فرو می‌ماند. او تلاش میکند که مرگ و پوچی سکوت و سکون آن را مرهمی بر بیچاره گی زندگی آدمی قلمداد کند، چیزی که خود از مواجهه با آن وحشت دارد. وقتی او را با همینگوی قیاس میکنیم، فرومایگی بکت بیشتر نمایان میشود، همینگوی با آن که در پیرمرد و دریا، به شیوه ای استادانه، تلاش دو موجود برای زنده ماندن را تا سرحد آن شرح میدهد، خود از مواجهه با مرگ هراسی ندارد و با اسلحه با زندگی وداع میکند و به استقبال مرگ میرود. اما بکت در انتظار مرگی مضحک، که پارکینسون آن را برایش به ارمغان می آورد، در نکبت زندگی باقی میماند، او مانند ژان پل سارتر، بعد از ابتلا به نابینایی گریه های کودکانه سر میدهد و از نوشیدن می مرگی که آن را مرهم میخوانده، سر باز می‌زند. او با این روش مضحک بودن زندگی اش را در معرض نمایش عموم قرار می دهد.

این کتاب برای من از این جهت خاص بود که حس بی تفاوتی ای که این ماهها نسبت به کتاب خوندن داشتم رو به یه حس تنفر تبدیل کرد. دلم میخواد این آخرین کتابی باشه که امسال میخونم یا حتی بهتر از اون آخرین کتابی که در همه عمر میخونم.

[Katia N]

Moran, a character from Molloy said about the dance of the bees: “Here is something I can study all my life, and never understand." I am not sure whether he was aware that in Ion: Plato compared poets to bees:

the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as the bees do honey, flying like the bees. …for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy…

Though I hardly could imagine Beckett as a winged thing, “Nohow On” trilogy is a very poetic work in this sense: it has been brought from some place to which is impossible to get a direct access to. A luminously dark place.

As a result, I’ve got a similar problem to Moran: not in a sense that I cannot understand this text (understanding comes in different shapes); but in a sense that I can "study" this work for a very long time. I can read and re-read it. And each time Beckett’s bee keeps bringing me a new portion of metaphorical honey. Knowing his distaste of metaphors, he would probably hate this comparison. Nevertheless, I seem unable to leave this slim book for about a month already.

I keep reading these pieces by itself consisting of fragments of text. Each of those fragments...I need to think of an image but instead i just imagine a sound. The sound of a crystal bowl: I read a fragment and it suddenly chimes with me as if i hear the sound. This moment combines sort of both my admiration of the beauty but also a sparkle of understanding. I read the same fragment again and it does not work: it does not “sound” anymore. But this time another fragment starts to sing. This is as far as i can describe it. I cannot do better with words, but it is an unique experience.

The book is comprised of three distinct works: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said and Worstward Ho. Initially, i could not move beyond “Company”.

First reading: Someone is lying on the back in the dark. Sentences, threads of images: fall into snow, did it happen? A fall from a tree? A hedgehog? Then: a child. Waiting for a lover: not a child anymore? Someone else? Sun. Shades of dark.

I realise that two threads are intertwined throughout the piece: one is memories or imaginings. And the second is more abstract, more formal playing with the voice but i am not quite sure what it does. I need to come back to the beginning.

Second time: I need to put the book down. He stands in the doorway before starting a walk across a snow field; a walk he has done so many times before that he knows the number of steps it takes. For now he just stands. But the fragment of the text is piercingly overwhelming somehow. And I need to stop reading, put the book down. I raise my eyes from the page but i still see him standing there.

And again i need to put the book down after reading this:

You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at right angles propped on her elbows head between her hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your faces are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other’s eyes you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade.

“Knowing something through words that could not be put into words.”. That was how a character Stoner by John Williams referred to the state I have experienced just now.

Third reading: What is “company”? I’ve finally understood! It seems the “setting” (an absurd term considering) of this work is a mind. It does not matter who possesses this mind. And “company" is the voices within this mind in different persons: initially just third singular “he”; then he hears second singular. They keep each other company. They are the “figments” of the mind:

Use of the second person marks the voice. That of the third that cankerous other. Could he speak to and of whom the voice speaks there would be a first. But he cannot. He shall not. You cannot. You shall not.

The hearer is not allowed to be certain that the voice addresses him. He is not allowed to acknowledge having an “I”, to “speak” to “remember”: “To murmur, Yes I remember. What an addition to company that would be!” There is this lodging for an “I”, for someone to take the possession of a set of memories. But this possibility is categorically dismissed. “For the first personal singular and a fortiori plural pronoun had never any place in your vocabulary.”

Why isn’t “I” allowed?

According to Deleuze, “Literature begins only when a third person is born in us that strips us of the power to say “I”.” If one strives for creating something viable from an artistic point of view “the self must be destroyed”. It seems that is what Beckett does here. He wants to show his readers the workings of an abstract mind stripped of what we would call “self”, or at least his own “self”. It is not dissimilar to his earlier work in The Unnamable when the creature was assigned different sets of stories to “try on” and to be taken away from him later like in a dress rehearsal. But in Company, the set of memories (or imaginings) are reoccurring and very personal. The voice tries to pin them on the hearer, but the hearer does not have a capacity to possess them. This unresolved conflict drives the narrative forward. “I” is not allowed, deliberately kept out of bounds, which would be unnatural for a mind. But Beckett needs this. It seems he wants to achieve this detached gaze which is not possible with “I”. As Celan said: “Art makes for distance from the I”.

There might be another reason. If this mind would acknowledge “I”, resolve the conflict between the “figments" and the memories, this would inevitably bring “company” to its end. “Deviser of the voice and of its hearer and of himself”: all three of them is just this single mind, a single “I”. And this would made him feel incredibly alone. Again. So not to face this loneliness, to delay this inevitable recognition, Devised deviser keeps going devising it all for company. Not to be alone as long as he can.

It seems at the end that this text is a depiction of a mind stripped down to the bare minimum of external sensations fighting loneliness with the language.

On the later readings, i would start noticing the connections between the three texts, how they reverberated with each other through images; how it seems, they share this setting: a single mind. Company is dealing with “hearing” while the second piece, Ill seen, Ill said is dealing with “seeing” or rather “ill seeing”. In that novella, everything is appearing and fading from the view of an eye. One can say that the second piece is less abstract then the first: there is a presence of an old woman throughout; the images her house, the surrounding fields and a landscape of white stone reminiscent of a burial site. There is even a presence of twelve “still or receding” watchful men. However, all of this is not shown to the reader directly - it seems it is experienced by someone’s consciousness that is barely there. It might be the fading mind of the person who was searching for company in the first piece. Magic dreamy effect:

Day no sooner risen fallen. Scrapped all the ill seen ill said. The eye has changed. And its drivelling scribe. Absence has changed them.

I would start to notice how these texts dealt with time. My initial impression was there was no sense of time: the memories and images did not follow any timeline or a pattern. They are just there. And that was so in spite of a watch constantly present on the background. There was this hypnotic fragment in “Company” (slightly reminiscent of Molloy and his stones) when “the eyes instead of reading the hour follow round and round the second hand and its shadow” methodically and obsessively analysing the cyclical distance between them. However on later reading, the sense of time would seem more subtle to me: time would be more dynamic. It was fading, it moved in lapses and circles, controlled only by the imagination of this mind. It was also more important to the mind: he wanted to stop paying attention to it but found it inescapable, the same like language. In “Ill seen Ill said”:

Times when she is gone. Long lapses of time. At crocus time it would be making for the distant tomb. To have that on the imagination! On top of the rest. Bearing by the stem or round her arm the cross or wreath. But she can be gone at any time. From one moment of the year to the next suddenly no longer there. No longer anywhere to be seen. Nor by the eye of flesh nor by the other. Then as suddenly there again. Long after. So on. Any other would renounce. Avow, No one. No one more. Any other than this other. In wait for her to reappear. In order to resume. Resume the- what is the word? What the wrong word?

Here it is appeared to be the first signs of not trusting the words that gains an incredible power in “Worstward Ho”, the last piece. The inability of language to express this internal world of seeing, hearing, sensing. The world that is sealed from the outside if there is any “outside”.

I would also start to notice the beauty on the sentence level. Any single sentence radiates: Some soft thing softly stirring soon to stir no more. By the voice a faint light is shed. Dark lightens while it sounds. Deepens when it ebbs. Lightens with flow back to faint full.

Beckett moves between the poetic visual prose and the abrupt sets of sentences as if the words pop out of the page into my face:

The need to hear that voice again. If only saying again, You are on your back in the dark. Or if only, You first saw the light and cried at the close of the day when in darkness Christ at the ninth hour cried and died.

Professor Renton reffered to this “it is as if the written has become three-dimensional”.

I would start to pay attention to some intertextuality. In his letter to his biographer Beckett has written: 'I simply know next to nothing about my work in this way, as little as a plumber of the history of hydrology. There is nothing /nobody with me when I'm writing, only the hellish job in hand.” He concluded that any possible references in his work “are just bits of pipe I happen to have with me”. And it is true that the echos of the other writers in these texts are practically invisible to an untrained eye. Besides, I didn’t feel any need to get through his “pipes”. However, it was one beautiful case in “Company” that made me look up:

So sat waiting to be purged the old lutist cause of Dante’s first quarter-smile and now perhaps singing praises with some section of the blest at last. To whom here in any case farewell.

The lutist is appeared to be Belacqua from The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso. He was apparently stuck at purgatory. However, it seems Beckett believed he would get to Paradise eventually. Beckett has had an affinity for Belacqua and used his name for a character in the earlier stories.

The inability of a language to properly express the interiority of an “I” was lurking in the previous two texts. However, it has got into a full spotlight in “Worstward Ho.” And the result is a sheer riot.

While composing this text, Beckett wrote to his collaborator, Alan Schneider: “Struggling with impossible prose. English. With loathing.” One can feel his frustration but also his determination. According to Deleuze, “A great writer...makes the language itself scream, stutter, stammer, or murmur”. And here Beckett does just that.

He wages a war on language with language. Just over 400 words are used. No commas. Minimal tools and the main ones are purely linguistic: he creates his own derivative words, uses archaisms, breaks syntax rules. The text is trying to destroy itself, it seems. Affirmation seemingly is followed by negation:

Said is missaid. Whoever said said said missaid. From now said alone. No more from now now said and now missaid. From now said alone. Said for missaid. For be missaid.

But when you look more attentively it is not the case. And somehow the result is far from an absurd or a constrained linguistic puzzle: it is a profound if painful philosophic inquiry and it is also a beautiful one. You start noticing it only after you spend time with it.

Beckett remembers the lines by Edgar from Shakespeare King Lear: "And worse I may be yet. The worst is not 
So long as we can say 'This is the worst."

The text is trying to catch the moment when this “worst" will be finally said: "No worse again. The vasts of void apart. Of all so far missaid the worse missaid. So far.. As another layer, the old woman, the old man and a child, the “figments” of the mind also present in the previous two pieces and initially faintly visible, start to disappear:

More back gone. Greatcoat cut off higher. Nothing from pelvis down. Nothing but bowed back. Topless baseless hindtrunk. Dim black. On unseen knees. In the dim void. Better worse so.

“Better worse” but not yet “the worst”. "The worst" is appeared to be out of reach like a horizon on a clear day. Achieving “the worst” would mean ending the mind all together. Would the words stop then? Nohow on? But even before that moment, are those words “said” or always “missaid”?

And it seems Beckett eventually concludes: “Enough to know no knowing. No knowing what it is the words it secretes say. No saying. No saying what it all is they somehow say.”. It might sound rather pessimistic. Wittgenstein has been there as well with his silence. Beckett cannot even reach silence. But Walter Benjamin seems to give more optimistic spin on the same phenomena:

The language is not only the communication of the communicable. It is at the same time a symbol of what is impossible to communicate.

I am with him on that. I’ve certainly got a fair portion of the admirable “that” which "could not be put into words" through Beckett’s torrent of words. I’ve read an anecdote in this article that a Beckett’s “superfan” has learned big chunks of his novels by heart but later “had begun to worry about having adopted some of their character traits and attitudes”. I do not think i am at risk of that, not at least because I have not memorised any of the prose just yet. Borges believed “the enthusiasts who devote themselves to a line of Shakespeare are literally Shakespeare in that moment.”. I do not believe i was Beckett even for a second in spite of reading repeatedly many of his lines in this book. I might continue my experiments with him and see where it would get me. But one thing is true: it would be quite hard now to find a book to read next after this one.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Έχοντας αποκηρύξει τον λογοτεχνικό νόμο θεών και ανθρώπων, ο Μπέκετ προχωρά ακόμα ένα βήμα με την "Τελευταία τριλογία". Το να είσαι καινοτόμος προϋποθέτει να ομνύεις εις το "καινό", ταυτόχρονα όμως να είσαι εσαεί έτοιμος για το άλμα στο κενό - και ο Ιρλανδός δεν υπήρξε ποτέ φειδωλός και οκνηρός στα εγχειρήματά του. Η ασύμμετρη απειλή της τέχνης του δεν έπαψε να προκαλεί τα ειωθότα και να γελοιοποιεί τις δήθεν πρωτοπορίες, αναλώνοντας σπάταλα, κάθε φορά, τη φλόγα της ιδιοφυίας του.

"Η τελευταία τριλογία" υπολείπεται κατά τι τής πρώτης αριστουργηματικής, τούτο όμως όχι γιατί της λείπει η ουσία, το όραμα και η μυθική πνοή. Ο Μπέκετ ωθούσε αδιάλλακτα τα όρια της τέχνης του μέχρι τέλους, προτού εγκαταλείψει τον ελλιπή για το τιτάνιο μέγεθός του κόσμο. Πιστός στον στόχο του να προσδώσει καλλιτεχνική υπόσταση στη σύγχυση, να μορφοποιήσει το χάος που ενοικεί στο κέντρο της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης και να το αναδείξει δημιουργικά, παρακάμπτει συχνά τους περιορισμούς της γλωσσικής έκφρασης, καθυποτάσσοντάς τη στη φαντασία του.

Η ελατή γλώσσα, η δημιουργική αναρχία στον γραπτό λόγο, αποτελεί προνόμιο και ταυτόχρονα κατάρα για εκείνους που η πρωτοπορία δεν αποτελεί διακύβευμα ή σκοπιμότητα. Είναι προνόμιο αρχικά που αναμέλπεται λυτρωτικά εκ των ένδον για να εκφράσουν το χρονίως κοινολεκτούμενο, αυτό που οι πολλοί βίωσαν, αλλά οι λίγοι συνέταξαν με ρυθμό και αρμονία. Είναι ταυτόχρονα κατάρα, γιατί ωθεί συχνά σε αφηγήσεις αυτοκαταστροφικές, αυτοαναφορικές και αυνανιστικές όπου η ουσία του έργου τέχνης υποκύπτει στην αναπόδραστη βαρύτητα του αποπνικτικού, εγωτικού ύφους. Το αποτέλεσμα στην πρώτη περίπτωση είναι εμφανές στην 1η Τριλογία, την ίδια στιγμή που η "Τελευταία τριλογία" εμπίπτει -σε σημεία έστω- στην επόμενη κατηγορία.

Ας γίνω όσο πιο σαφής μπορώ. Η σκοπιμότητα του τρόπου που επιλέγει ο συγγραφέας είναι προφανής και έχει αναλυθεί ενδελεχώς από κριτικούς και ακαδημαϊκούς -σαφώς πιο αρμόδιους- να εξηγήσουν το πώς και το γιατί. Η απουσία χώρου, χρόνου, ταυτότητας, η σταδιακή αποχώρηση του πρωταγωνιστή των μονολόγων από τα ανθρώπινα πεπραγμένα, η φυσική και πνευματική υπόστασή του που στο εν εξελίξει έργο γίνεται ολοένα και πιο φασματική, απορρίπτοντας τμηματικά αναμνήσεις, απόψεις, χαρακτηριστικά και κομμάτια του εαυτού, σπεύδοντας πλησίστιος προς το μηδέν, ένας νόστος από καιρό προαποφασισμένος… όλα τούτα -και ακόμα περισσότερα- απαιτούν τον απολύτως συγκεκριμένο τρόπο αφήγησης.

Και ποιος είναι αυτός; Η απάντηση δεν είναι απλή, αλλά εν τάχει συγκλίνει στα εξής: Καθώς η συνείδηση του εαυτού, η προσωπικότητα διασπάται σε νήματα το ίδιο…νηματική γίνεται και η αφήγηση. Ο Μπέκετ επιχειρεί να αποδώσει λεκτικά την εξάχνωση του χαρακτήρα, αφαιρώντας στρώματα περιττών εκφραστικών μέσων, απογυμνώνοντας την εμπειρία, αποκόβοντας στιγμές και επενδύοντας ως αντίβαρο στις σιωπές, τις νύξεις, τις υπεκφυγές, τις επαναλήψεις. Αυτό που απομένει είναι ο σκληρός πυρήνας της απουσίας ζωής. Οι σελίδες είναι ένας τοίχος που κλείνει αργά και ασφυκτικά προς τα μέσα και οι λέξεις αντηχούν τρομακτικά στις επιφάνειες, καθώς η ηχώ τους επιστρέφει διαμέσου του πρωταγωνιστή στον αναγνώστη αποσπασματικά, ακατάληπτα, φοβικά.

Αυτή πιστεύω πως είναι η γοητεία και ταυτόχρονα η αδυναμία του έργου αυτού. Καθώς ο Μπέκετ εγκυμονεί μια νέα αισθητική έκφραση, αποδομώντας την υπάρχουσα, παρασύρεται σε αχαρτογράφητες κελεύθους (παράλληλες με εκείνες του Τζόυς στους "Φίνεγκαν"). Το αποτέλεσμα στον αναγνώστη (εκείνον που δεν τον φοβίζει ο δίχως πυξίδα διάπλους της Μπεκετικής terra incognita) είναι μια θεμιτή αίσθηση απώλειας προσανατολισμού, ενός λεκτικού ιλίγγου στον οποίο ναι μεν υποβάλλεται εκουσίως, συχνότερα δε αδυνατεί να ισορροπήσει και εξοκέλει, αδυνατώντας να παρακολουθήσει σε όλη του την έκταση τη Μεγάλη Πορεία προς τη λογοτεχνική Θέωση.

Ας είναι. Ακόμα κι έτσι, η Τριλογία αυτή περικλείει, έστω εν σπέρματι, το σύμπαν του δημιουργού της, το άχθος των καλλιτεχνικών και υπαρξιακών του επιλογών, το όριο της έμπνευσής του και ταυτόχρονα τα όρια της προσωπικής μας συμμετοχής. Εν ολίγοις, όλα εκείνα που καλούμε Τέχνη.

https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2020/05/...

[Ben Winch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rarely impressed by 'encyclopaedic' novels or 'maximalism'. The truth is I don't know if we have the luxury of them - or rather, we do, but for how long? The success of McCarthy's The Road convinces me that I'm not alone in this. What will happen if there's a nuclear war, if societies break down, if schools and computers and language don't function, except for the sake of the privileged, and the privileged are few? 'Fear the man of one book,' the saying goes, but what if one book is all you can carry? The novel, in its brick-like nineteenth- and twentieth-century form, is suited to the settled house-dweller, who need only carry it from the bookcase to the armchair. But what of the man or woman or child on the road? I sometimes imagine an anthology for those unfortunates, made up of stories from across the world: a bag of seeds, a literary Noah's ark, to keep imagination alive in that place of harsh realities. Beckett, without a doubt, would be central to that anthology, and any one of the three pieces in Nohow On could suggest the scope and thrust of his achievement. True, by this stage his characters are rarely on the road, but surely in the dark time maybe-to-come not everyone will be traveling; as Ian Curtis sings in Joy Division's 'Ice Age', they may 'live in holes and disused shafts / hopes for little more'. Beckett is the great celebrator of 'hopes for little more'. The critic A. Alvarez called him (I'm paraphrasing) a cultivator of what would grow in a void, but crucially this void is something not just described, but that his prose embodies. Perhaps by virtue of its having been written in French and translated by its author into English, there's a sense that, however contorted it becomes, this prose is as close to universal as is possible - as shorn of adornment and as streamlined as an arrow that must pass through the skins of cultures. And it isn't shot from a void, obviously, but the void is all around and edging closer, as the circle of given words and actions ever narrows. I'll confess to being baffled that this near-to-terminal (ie: near impossible-to-follow) work should be called 'modernism' while work which seems nostalgic and retrograde, centred on a reinvocation of pre-modern forms, is called 'post-modern'. Still, in a sense the term 'post-modern' suggests a turning back, because what else is there to do after the new? Or so it may seem. Beckett proves the lie to this, though, by gazing over the precipice of the collapse of culture that almost was and could be and documenting what small beauty he finds there. As timeless as any art can be, his brand of modernism may well be something that (like rock 'n' roll?) never dies, and cannot be limited by any movement that supposedly supercedes it. Trust me, when it's dark and you're footsore and the lantern is almost out of oil but you want a human voice to ease you into sleep, he won't let you down. Maybe the post-modernists are right, and the world will keep ever-complicating itself as we hide away in our loungerooms with walls of books and computers and flat-screen TVs being bombarded by information. But just in case, there is Nohow On. There it is, there it will always be, a life in a few short pages, eternity in a grain of sand.

[Mahdie · Rating 4 out of 5]

هشدار :این کتاب روانتون رو زیر و رو میکنه و آرامشتون رو بر باد میده،با احتیاط خونده بشه

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess the draw here for one-stop shoppers is really the prefatory essay by __________. (You think I remember their fucking name? No. Immaterial, really.) It’s a solid enough précis on the state of Sam around the writing of the three novels herein (I believe I’ve reviewed those elsewhere on here some years ago. Immaterial, really.) Whoeverthepersonis makes a case that these ‘closed space’ novels should be considered of a piece, though not to the same degree as Beckett’s other trio of self-referential works. This position hinges on the supposed lack of contiguity within the later three, something I disagree with completely. If there’s no character referentialism, that’s sorta the point, no? Beckett had left all that behind, and this fantastic triad (not saying the other fucking ‘t’ word) has a shared axis of freedom from narrative constraint. Character, plot, arc; while all are virtually unaccounted for, so too all indebtedness to the history implicit with those conventions (to say nothing of the historicity of the conscious novel). To which, I can only say ‘amen.’ So take that, Mr/s Academic Introduction person. This triptych doesn’t require explanation—it defies it.

Maybe I’d remember your name had you said anything original. We’ll never know.

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the Beckett I have read is long overdue for a reread. This one which I was ill-suited for on first encounter, now in mid-life, this may well be a favourite. I will have to revisit it again in a month or two. Whether or not Beckett wanted this to be seen as a trilogy, the pieces work well together with Worstward Ho simply a harsh, sharp and devastating finale—choked poetic wordplay at its best.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The spare, mesmeric beauty of Samuel Beckett's late prose is simply shattering.

[Sini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik hou erg van het proza en toneelwerk van Samuel Beckett. Toch kon ik nooit chocola maken van zijn drie op late leeftijd geschreven novellen 'Company' (Gezelschap), 'Ill seen ill said' (Slecht gezien slecht gezegd) en 'Worstward Ho' (Ten slechtste gekeerd). Het volkomen minimalistische toneel van de late Beckett vond ik altijd enorm aangrijpend, juist omdat ik niet kon parafraseren wat ik zag, maar het ongrijpbare minimalisme van zijn latere proza kwam gewoon nooit echt bij mij binnen. Maar daar heb ik iets op verzonnen: ik kocht "Nohow On", waarin deze novellen als kleine trilogie zijn gebundeld, ik las de Engelse teksten en tegelijk de bewonderenswaardige vertalingen van Karina van Santen en Martine Vosmaer, en ik genoot. Uitbundig. Die vertalingen had ik vaak wel nodig om te begrijpen wat er in het Engels stond. Maar die Engelse teksten had ik nog meer nodig, om ten volle de virtuositeit, het stuwende ritme, de poëtische kracht en de borende pregnantie te ervaren van Becketts taal. Want Beckett was een enorme taalvirtuoos, in het Frans en in het Engels, en heeft vaak zijn Franse werk zelf in het Engels vertaald en omgekeerd. De ware Beckettiaan leest dus Beckett in beide talen. Maar ik kan dat niet, want mijn Frans is niet goed genoeg. Hem in het Engels lezen kan ik echter weer wel, en dat is wat ik nu gedaan heb en in de nabije toekomst nog meer ga doen. Ook de boeken die ik lang geleden in Nederlandse vertaling las ga ik in het Engels herlezen.

Want Becket is echt uniek en onuitputtelijk. Elk werk van Beckett dompelt je onder in een nooit eerder zo doorvoelde ervaring van woordloosheid, en in een nooit geziene wereld waar alles slecht is gezien en gezegd en die van totale vergeefsheid is doorregen. Je geboorte is al je dood, volgens Beckett: je wordt zonder reden geworpen in een wereld zonder enig waarom, en wel als sterfelijk en tot verval gedoemd wezen dat nooit zijn eindigheid overstijgt. Je kent de wereld buiten jou bovendien alleen via jouw eigen vervormde waarneming, dus als fictief beeld in je hoofd, en ook van je eigen hoofd begrijp je niets. Want alles wat je van jezelf meent te weten ken je alleen maar via de woorden en concepten van je eigen taal, die er al was voordat jij er was en waar je dus nooit voor hebt gekozen. Zelfs het woord "ik" is maar een generaliserend concept, dat er al was voordat jij er was en dat net zo goed (of net zo slecht) van toepassing is op anderen die zich "ik" noemen of over hun eigen "ik" nadenken en spreken. Dus elk woord over je eigen ik of elk beeld van je eigen ik is een drogbeeld, een schim, een hol geluid, een spookachtige schemering. Die nooit enige kern raakt, want er is geen kern. En elk woord over de wereld is een fout woord voor een al even fout beeld. Dus we dolen allemaal doelloos rond, zonder iets te begrijpen van de wereld of onszelf, zonder te weten wie we zijn of waar we zijn of wanneer we zijn, en ook zonder ooit te kunnen zeggen "waarom" wij of de dingen er zijn en zelfs niet DAT ze er zijn. Onder alle beelden die wij menen te zien (of die wij denken te kunnen ontwerpen in ons eigen hoofd) gaapt een leegte. Onder alle woorden die we gebruiken gaapt een woordloze stilte. Zeker is slechts de dood, de leegte, het niets. Maar ook dat begrijpen we niet.

Aldus Beckett, even kort in eigen woorden uitgelegd. Maar Beckett zelf legt helemaal niks uit, en filosofeert niet: hij roept ervaringen op, enerverende ervaringen vol leegte en woordloosheid. Wat hij dan uiteraard doet in woorden en beelden, maar dan wel zo dat je bij benadering de stilte en de leegte daaronder voelt. Of voor even een glimp denkt op te vangen van die enorme leegte en stilte waar woorden en beelden geen vat op hebben. Dat zijn, in mijn beleving althans, niettemin toch herkenbare ervaringen: we hebben immers allemaal momenten waarop de woorden ons totaal tekort schieten en waarin we onze indrukken nauwelijks meer kunnen ordenen in een coherent en scherp beeld. En precies dat soort ervaringen weet Beckett ongelofelijk indringend op te roepen. Juist ook in het gefragmenteerde en uitgebeende proza van "Nohow On": proza dat de woordloosheid heel erg nabij brengt, op in mijn beleving heel aangrijpende wijze, door zijn gestamel, door zijn cryptische en schimmige onafheid, en door zijn poëtische kracht.

"Company" begint, op even krachtige als raadselachtige wijze, als volgt: "A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine". Na een stuk wit (misschien de symbolische markering van een leemte, een pauze, een leegte) gaat het als volgt verder: "To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said. But by far the greater part of what is said cannot be verified. As for example when he hears, You first saw the light on such and such a day". Een tamelijk raadselachtige passage: een stem (van wie? Waarvandaan? Waarom?) spreekt in het donker, tot ' een iemand' (wie?) die in het donker op zijn rug ligt, en die iemand kan - zo wordt tot twee keer toe gezegd- niet verifiëren of het waar is wat die stem zegt. Zodat alles wat gezegd wordt misschien een verzinsel is (maar van wie?), een verzinsel dat wellicht de ondraaglijke leegte, verlatenheid en eenzaamheid (maar van wie? ) moet opvullen met schimmige verhalen en herinneringen en beelden. Opvallend is tevens dat er sprake is van een "hij" en een "jij": de hij die in het duister op zijn rug ligt wordt door de stem mogelijk met "jij" aangesproken. Maar waarom en waarover? Een iets latere passage vergroot het raadsel nog: "That then is the proposition. To one in the dark a voice tells of a past. With occasional allusion to a present and more rarely to a future as for example, You will end as you now are. And in another dark or in the same another devising it all for company. Quick leave him".

Een stem vertelt dus 'iets' aan 'iemand' in het donker, iets over een verleden, soms met toespelingen op een heden of een toekomst. Maar dat donker (maar welk donker? Zijn er misschien meerdere vormen van donker en duisternis?) is dus wellicht verzonnen. Net als misschien dat hele verhaal van 'de stem' over heden, verleden en toekomst. Maar over wie gaat dat verhaal, en aan wie is het gericht? Daarover worden alleen cryptische tipjes van raadselachtige sluiers opgericht, bijvoorbeeld in passages als deze: "Use of that second person marks the voice. That of the third that cankerous other. Could he speak to and of whom the voice speaks there would be a first. But the cannot. He shall not. You cannot. You shall not". Ook hier weer de raadselachtige wisseling van een duistere - hij naar een duistere - jij. Maar daar bovenop komt nog de suggestie dat het gebruik van de eerste persoon onmogelijk of verboden is. Kunnen de - hij en de - jij niet over zichzelf spreken en denken in de ik- vorm? Is het voor de stem in het donker onmogelijk de ik- persoon te hanteren? Of gaat het hele verhaal "Company" wellicht over een ik- figuur die zichzelf niet kan zien als ik- figuur? Die zodanig van zijn eigen ik is vervreemd dat hij alleen in de - hij en - jij- vorm kan vertellen? Of, misschien beter misschien slechter gezegd: die alle verhalen over zijn eigen leven ervaart als verhaal van buitenaf, komend van een anonieme stem in het donker, verteld aan iemand liggend in het duister op zijn rug? En die zich trouwens vaak afvraagt of de stem die hij hoort wel tot hem is gericht, en soms zelfs of die stem wel echt bestaat? Wat zijn enorme vervreemding nog verder vergroot? Terwijl het misschien zijn eigen stem is die hij hoort, een stem die niettemin niet tot en over een 'ik' kan spreken en dus tegelijk de stem van een vreemde is? Ook al komt hij uit zijn eigen ik-loze ik? En uitgerekend die van zijn eigen ik vervreemde stem zou dan het enige gezelschap zijn dat hij heeft..... Maar ja, het kan volgens mij ook zijn dat er helemaal geen ik is in "Company", zelfs geen van zichzelf vervreemd ik....... En dat er alleen een stem is, zonder identificeerbare eigenaar, doelloos sprekend in de leegte.

Hoe dit ook zij, zeker is dat Beckett hier alle verhaalwetten ondermijnt. Normale verhaalelementen als 'de verteller', 'de hoofdpersoon' en 'verleden, heden en toekomst van die hoofdpersoon' worden door hem immers volkomen onderuit gehaald. Zodat je als lezer alleen maar meer en meer in duistere onbepaaldheid wordt meegezogen. Tegelijk maakt precies dat de enorme vervreemding van de hij- jij (-ik?)- figuur fraai voelbaar. Soms in hakkelende, onaffe, uitgebeende en juist daardoor enorm rake zinnen: "Mental activity of a low order. Rare flickers of reasoning of no avail. Hope and despair and such barely felt. How current situation arrived at unclear. No that then to compare to this now. Only eyelids move". Die voorlaatste zin (in het Nederlands: 'Geen "dat" toen om te vergelijken met "dit" nu', oftewel: verleden en toekomst hebben nauwelijks een kern, nauwelijks een grijpbaar 'dit' of 'dat') raakt wel heel prachtig de nulgraad van een sprakeloze geest. En dat geldt naar mijn smaak ook voor de tweede zin, die over "rare flickers of reasoning' gaat en door zijn onaffe vorm zelf een 'rare flicker' is. Terwijl ook de zin daarna, die iets hakkelt over nauwelijks gevoelde hoop en wanhoop, zelf nauwelijks een zin is. En dus nauwelijks iets zegt over nauwelijks gevoelde hoop en wanhoop.

En even prachtig en vervreemdend zijn de herinneringsflarden van de ik- hij- jij- figuur, zoals verwoord door de stem die in het donker tot hem spreekt. Bijvoorbeeld: "You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at right angles propped on her elbows head between hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your eyes are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other's eyes you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade". Een scene vol verstilling, onder meer door de trillende en zacht ruisende bladeren, de ogen die kijken in andere ogen, de schaduwen, het murmureren, de klankassociaties tussen "stirring" en "still". Maar ook een verhaal over het verleden in de tegenwoordige tijd verteld, door een - mogelijk verzonnen of ingebeelde- stem in het donker aan een 'jij' of 'hij' op zijn rug. Is dit een herinnering van die jij/hij- figuur? Dat zou kunnen, maar die herinnering heeft dan de vorm van een verhaal van een ander dat hem door een ongrijpbare stem verteld wordt. Zodat het misschien ook niet zijn eigen herinnering is, of toch zijn eigen herinnering die niet meer als zijn eigen herinnering voelt. Een flard, een droombeeld, een verzinsel, en misschien tegelijk toch de vage herinnering aan een voorbije liefde. Ooit heel wezenlijk en intens, misschien, maar nu toch niet meer dan een gefluisterde flard. De nulgraad dus van een ooit intense maar nu vervaagde liefde, wellicht. Een vervaging die ik, als zestig plusser, zelf ook wel voel bij eigen intense maar slecht herinnerde - en wie weet vertekende, deels verzonnen- belevenissen van ooit. En precies die vervaging maakt Beckett naar mijn smaak aangrijpend voelbaar door zijn unieke stijl en zijn al even unieke vorm.

De novelle "Ill seen ill said" is anders opgebouwd: daarin volgen we een oudere, tussen zijn en niet- zijn zwevende vrouw. Haar stasis en hulpeloosheid zijn manifest: "She sits on erect and rigid in the deepening gloom. Such helplessness to move she cannot help. Heading on foot for a particular point often she freezes on the way. Unable till long after to move on not knowing whither or for what purpose. Down on her knees especially she finds it hard not to remain so forever". Haar vage gestalte volgend zien we met haar de wisselingen van dag en nacht en de wisselingen der seizoenen. Maar dat alles zien we slecht, en wordt slecht gezegd, want zowel de vrouw als (in mijn beleving) de verteller zien slecht en zeggen slecht wat zij zien. De vrouw kan niet anders, en de verteller kan of wil niet anders. Bovendien, de wereld die beschreven wordt is mogelijk zelf al opgetrokken uit zwakke schaduwen en mist. Dus een wereld waarin je alles slecht ziet, en alleen maar foute woorden hebt voor wat je slecht ziet.

Dat alles maakt de fragiliteit van de vrouw en haar wereld nog extra pregnant. "But she can be gone at any time. From one moment of the year to the next suddenly no longer there. No longer anywhere to be seen. Nor by the eye of the flesh nor by the other. Then as suddenly there again. Long after. So on. Any other would renounce. Avow, No one. No one more. Any other than this other. In wait for her to reappear. In order to resume. Resume the- what is the word? What is the wrong word?". Alsof ze zich op de rand tussen leven en dood steeds weer herpakt, zonder te kunnen benoemen wat ze dan herpakt. Alsof ze steeds op de rand van het niets beweegt, in een toestand en een belevingswereld die je alleen maar slecht kunt zien en slecht kunt zeggen. Soms is er sprake van een nauwelijks definieerbaar verdriet: "Riveted to some detail of the desert the eye fills with tears. Imagination at wit's end spreads its sad wings". En soms ook van een angstige hunkering naar het niets: "Dread of black. Of white. Of void. Let her vanish. And the rest. For good. And the sun. Last rays. And the moon. And Venus. Nothing left but black sky. White earth. Or inversely. No more sky and earth. Finished high and low. Nothing but black and white. Everywhere no matter where. But black. Void. Nothing else. Contemplate that. Not another word. Home at last. Gently gently." En, later: "Farewell to farewell [...]. One moment more. One last. Grace to breathe that void. Know happines".

Is het inademen van het niets dus volgens Beckett een vorm van geluk? Of (zoals aan het eind van het vorige citaat gesuggereerd werd) een soort thuiskomst? Misschien. Hoe dan ook is het niets (de leegte van onze beelden, de stilte onder onze woorden, het machteloze dolen in een doelloze wereld) wel iets waar Beckett ons steeds in onderdompelt. Zodat ook de lezer deze nog sterker doorvoelt, waardoor hij zich zelf ook beter tot dat niets weet te verhouden. Of zich in elk geval wat minder vaak baadt in de illusie dat zijn leven zich alleen maar kenmerkt door zinvolheid, succes en betekenis. Zodat hij zich wellicht minder laat begoochelen door dat soort vormen van geluk. Of door de aanname dat succes en geluk de kern is - of zou moeten zijn- van ons bestaan.

Zo ook in het briljante "Worstward Ho", waarin o.a. staat "All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better". Zinnen die volgens mij niet alleen suggereren dat we steeds opnieuw falen, maar ook dat we moeten leren steeds beter te falen: niet door dit falen te overwinnen, maar door het steeds bewuster te doen en te ervaren. Wel wetend dat alles wat we over dat falen weten slecht is gezien en slecht is gezegd. In "Worstward Ho" wordt bovendien gespeeld met de gedachte dat de hele wereld alleen maar bestaat in ons hoofd, en dat we tegelijk niets weten over dat hoofd. Ook ons beeld van ons hoofd is immers niks meer dan een beeld in ons hoofd. Een welbekende, zij het duizelingwekkende filosofische gedachte. En die wordt in Becketts poëtische taal nog duizelingwekkender: "On back better worse to fail the head said seat of all. Germ of all. Of all? If of all of it too. Where if not there it too? There in the sunken head the sunken head. The hands. The eyes. Shade with the other shades. In the same dim. The same narrow void. Before the staring eyes. Where it too if not there too? Ask not. No. Ask in vain. Better worse so". Of in de volgende passage, waarin de naakte schedel en de starende ogen alleen zichzelf zien, en uiteraard slecht zien: "In the skull all save the skull gone. The stare. Alone in the dim void. Alone to be seen. The staring eyes. Dimly seen. By the staring eyes." Bovendien staat "Worstward Ho" vol met passages waarin getast wordt naar ervaringen voorbij de woorden en voorbij de door woorden gedicteerde waarneming: "Less. Less seen. Less seeing. Less seen and seeing when with words than when not. When somehow than when nohow. Stare by words dimmed. Shades dimmed. Void dimmed. Dim dimmed. All there as when no words. As when nohow." Door hun elliptische vorm en hun klankassociaties staan deze zinnen bovendien zelf ook op de rand van betekenisloze klank, en dus van de woordloosheid. Zo ook in zinnen als "Dim hair. Dim white and hair so fair that in dim light dim white": zinnen die naar mijn smaak bijna pure klank zijn, en die bijna afzien van betekenis.

Veel mensen vinden Becketts toneel en proza vreselijk deprimerend. Maar ik vind het fascinerend, en soms zelfs bevrijdend. Bij deze novellen had ik zelfs voor even de sensatie dat ik een glimp opving van het naakte zijn, zonder enige betekenis, en van het naakte niets onder de zogenaamd betekenisvolle woorden. Ik voelde mij daardoor voor even bevrijd van alle overbodige franje en schijnzekerheden. En ik genoot enorm van Becketts volkomen unieke stijl en vorm. Dus ben ik blij dat ik deze late novellen nu in het Engels gelezen heb. En ik wil nog meer lezen en herlezen van die geniaal zwartgallige Ier.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Add a-----? Add? Never.

That’s now two in a row, this one and Les Guérillères, two in a row of the taker=outer variety, the paring down, the smudging out and erasing, the foreshortening variety ; celebrating the 0 or O (better ; ‘o’) ; the minimalist, the micro, the anti-, the flash variety ; the reign of the white space and set=apart paragraphs ; the suspicion of language (that it is ‘inadequate’?) ; of the unsaid and unsaying, the leaving out, the knot=saying ; the variety of one=sitting novel and/or triptych ; the less is more school ; the spare and the sparse variety ; the no narrative (know=narrative!) and enemies of fiction school (please take your seats!). Now back into what can’t but have too many words -- Siebenkäs or, Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces; or, The Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkæs, Parish Advocate in the Burgh of Kuhschnappel..

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I understand any of it? Yes. No. Eh. Did I go on? On.

Sometimes I wonder if it's Beckett's intention to make you feel like a worm, crawling in the dirt, talking to its own ass. You are burrowing through, making progress, doubting yourself, moving forward, not making any progress at all. I never know what to make of his prose, and often I finish his non-tales feeling a little depressed. But they get me thinking. And they are original. Ruthless. Is that the right word?

[Maryam · Rating 3 out of 5]

روشنایی می‌آمد و می‌رفت. می‌آید و می‌رود. همیشه و همیشه-در همه جا و همه مکان‌ها. انسان ها‌یی که سخت کار کردند، جنگیدند و رفتند. و آدم‌هایی که سخت کار می‌کنند، می جنگند و می روند  در همان جا و همین جا. در این و آن. بدون هیچ اثری. همیشه و همیشه. و چشم. چشمی که می‌تواند؟ چرا نمی‌تواند؟ چشمی که اشک می ریزد برای پاک کردن آخرین آثار و نشانه‌ها. از آنچه که بوده، هست و خواهد بود. و گفتن کلمه خداحافظ یا خدانگهدار. خدانگهدار. و این تنها نشانه‌ای است که باقی می‌ماند.

[Mahmood666 · Rating 2 out of 5]

ترجمه فاجعه بود . دو امتیاز رو هم به خاطر اون سوژه درخشان بهش دادم وگرنه عملا با گوگل ترنسلیت ترجمه شده بود

[Ali Noroozian · Rating 3 out of 5]

زمان گذشته بود ولی همچنان به هیچ وجه
فرم و محتوی در خدمت هم قرار گرفته تا پوچی را معنا کنند . بکت دست مخاطب را می گیرد و با خود به جاده ای مبهم و مه آلود می برد اما در پایان داستان او را در گیجی و گنگی به حال خود رها می کند . هرچقدر هم که سعی کنی با دقت سر نخ های کوچکی را که در داستان وجود دارند ، دنبال کنی تا شاید به سرانجامی برسی اما می بینی که در هزارتوی پیچیده ای که نویسنده ای باهوش پیش تر ساخته گیر افتاده و راهی به بیرون نداری
بکت با قلم خود ( هم چون رضا براهنی ) فضا را به مدد کلمات خلق می کند . یعنی اینطور نیست که با کنار هم قرار دادن کلمات معنایی ساخته شود ، بلکه هدف آفرینش فضایی وهم آلود می باشد که مفهوم اثر است . پس برای درک بهتر باید ترجمه ای دقیق از آنرا " صحیح " خواند ! و من فکر می کنم شاید این دلیلی بوده که بکت بیشتر داستان هایش را به زبان غیر مادری اش ، فرانسوی نوشته چراکه برای او آوای کلمات اهمیت بیشتری داشته اند
بکت در جایی گفته بود
چیزی که می توانم بگویم بیش از هرچیزی درکش میکنم دردهایم است
نویسنده تمام تلاشش را به کار می گیرد تا در ذهن مخاطب فرو کند زندگی و قواعد آن بازی مسخره ای است که هیچ ( تاکید میکنم ) هیچ معنایی ندارد! و همان قدر پوچ است که در بازی های کامپیوتری زندگی یک کاراکتر را دنبال می کنیم . و به تعبیر او جز درد و رنج چیزی عاید انسان نخواهد شد . و شاید برای تجربه ی بهتر زندگی یا بهتر بگویم درد ها ، در کودکی اش بازی " سقوط آزاد " را برای خود دست و پا کرده بود تا بالاترین حد درد را در اثر پریدن از درختی 2 متری تجربه کند
اما اگر جهان به همان اندازه که نویسنده تاکید دارد ، پوچ است چرا باید داستانی نوشت تا این پیام پوچ را به گوش جهانیان ابلاغ کرد ؟ وقتی همه چیز پوچ است چه " معنایی " دارد آگاهی مان از این حقیقت پوچ ؟ بکت می گوید
" هیچ چیز حقیقی تر از هیچ نیست "
اما من فکر میکنم تنها حقیقتی که می توانیم از آن بگوییم و کلام مشترک تمام موجودات جهان می باشد ، مرگ است . اما باز فکرمی کنم هرچه که بگوییم هر استدلالی که بیاوریم چه معنایی می تواند داشته باشد ؟ آیا می تواند تلخی مرگ را به کام مان شیرین کند ؟ یا اینکه از چنگال آن فرار کنیم ؟ و خیام چه رندانه می گوید
گفتند فسانه ای و در خواب شدند

در تاریکی محض ، ناقوس مرگ به صدا در آمد . صدایی که تا به حال ادامه دارد و آخرین بارش اولین بار خواهد بود . و تنها یک لحظه کافی است برای بلعیدن همه چیز . نوعی شکم پرستی . آسمان ، زمین و هرچیزی که در آن است . همه چیز و همه کس . حتی ریزترین اجسام و موجودات . نه یک لحظه بیشتر یک آخر . یک پایان . یک مهلت برای کشیدن نفسی بیهوده
" همه برای هیچ فرسوده شده بودند برای هیچ "

نمونه هایی از داستان ( به فضا سازی جهت خلق فضایی کسالت بار و پوچ دقت شود )

شما پیرمردی هستید که به سختی و هن هن کنان در کنار یک جاده ی باریک و خاکی روستایی در حال راه رفتن هستید . از صبح زود تا حالا که عصر است . شما به راحتی صدای قدم های خسته تان را می شنوید و از اینکه این همه راه آمده اید و هنوز به مقصد نرسیده اید احساس ناراحتی می کنید . صدای هر قدم مثل پتک در سرتان می پیچد و شما آن ها را در ذهنتان ثبت می کنید . احساس می کنید که باید در کنار جوی آبی که در امتداد جاده در جریان است بنشینید و کمی استراحت کنید . همین کار را می کنید و جزو تیرک های کنار راه می شوید . از صبح زود تا آن موقع فقط راه رفته اید و راه رفته اید . دیروز هم همین کار را کرده اید . و همین طور روزهای قبل و قبل تر از آن . کیلومترها راه رفته اید . کیلومترها . کیلومتر ها در روی زمین . در این لحظات به یاد پدرتان می افتید و به سرعت می فهمید که او هم همین کار را می کرده . آن هم با لباس هایی کهنه تر از لباس های خودتان . می فهمید که دوباره باید از هیچ شروع کنید

پیرزنی فقیر با در باغ ور می رفت . پیرزنی تقریباً کور . پیرزنی کر ولی عاقل . کسی که دوست صمیمی مادرتان است . پیرزن می گفت که بالاخره روزی در آسمان پرواز خواهد کرد و همین کار را هم کرد . او خودش را از پنجره ی خانه اش در طبقه اول ساختمان به بیرون پرتاب کرد و شما این منظر�� را بر روی دوچرخه ی کوچکتان در حالیکه مشغول برگشتن از کودکستان بودید ، دیدید و به کمکش شتافتید و او با بدنی رنجور و دردمند دعایتان کرد . کلماتش چه بودند ؟ خدا خیرت بدهد آقای جوان . پیر شوید . و کلماتی از این دست و در آخر خدا نگهدارت باشد ، پسرم

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am stuck on Beckett. I can't get enough of the man. When I read this, though, it made me stop and think really seriously of Beckett himself and what actually he believed to be true about life (and the rest of us in his estimation). Nohow On is the logical conclusion of Beckett's worldview. Most shockingly, it is completely absent of humour. The old Beckett is here making a horrifying statement about the human condition. Language doesn't even work the same anymore. The stripped and bared words so typical of Beckett's fiction are clipped even further to an almost-nonsense where communication is only just possible, the extreme of which is Worstword Ho where only words with one or two syllables were admitted. The despair of this human being is painfully apparent on these pages. I want to write that I wished I could've given the man a hug, but I know that in this man's understanding of the world that hardly would've been enough - there is no consolation, there is no hope.
The introduction is an interesting read, but I believe misleading on some points. I'd be happy to hear what some Beckettians think about these texts.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

so, i didn't quite know where to start with beckett, and though i hear the major novel trilogy is worth all the time, i picked up this slimmer collection first. the second story, "ill seen ill said" is my favorite of the collection, but the contrasting starkness and richness of the other two is really dynamic and heartbreaking. not the easiest read for me, and i think i attribute that to the brevity of the sentences, the hinging on every word. these are really considered, etched stories that wrestle for your attention or push you away if you're not up for them. i was moved in many ways by these, and i look forward to delving further into his world.

[BaHaR]

به این کتاب امتیاز نمیدم
فقط میخوام بگم «بِکِت» جان، میشه یه جوری بنویسی که ما هم بفهمیم چی میخوای بگی در کل؟؟ !!

یه قسمت‌هایی از کتاب رو میزارم خودتون قضاوت کنید!!:

--- پیرزن در حال مرگ بود. و مرد. در تیمارستان و نه در هیچ کجای دیگر. بدون احتیاط. محلی برای استراحت. اتاقک و سنگ‌ها. سرنوشت. و چشم. به همین سادگی. اگر همه میتوانستند به توهم ناب برسند. بدون تغییر جهت و حضور. با ملایمت و مهربانی. با دقت زیاد.


--- باید چشم‌هایش را می‌بست تا می‌توانست او را ببیند. تا زمان مرگش. بدون تغییر. در آلونک روی سنگ‌ها. در دشت. پشت سرش. آرامش. برای همیشه و همه چیز. برای مرگ. بستن. بستن. بستن. آینده. توهمی جدید. بستن چشم‌های ناپاک برای همیشه. جسم. چه چیز می‌تواند جلوی همه چیز را بگیرد؟

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beckett's terse prose, incomplete sentences bitten off and cast adrift in a jumble, envelops you like wispy detritus trickling down from a dark cloud. This bundle compiles three poetic stories - 'Company', 'Ill Seen, Ill Said' and 'Worstward Ho', each offering a peek into a masterfully cratfted microcosm that's as suffocating as it is inhabited.

The first one is an interrogation of poles - narrator and narrated, body and world, consciousness and nothingness - choreographed in the form of a foetal shape groping in the muddy dark. By way of measuring distance with their limbs, the protagonists seeks to trace experience back to its prime mover; an impossible task, which is inevitably interrupted by bouts of confusion and whimpering, grovelling and re-straightening. 'Ill Seen Ill Said' is at the same time the most worldly and the most difficult story to grasp; a dreamlike and uncanny fairytale of an old crone in a lonely house in the winter forest, confronting sunrise and sunset, impenetrable boulders and graves mixing with footfalls which the snow quickly erases. Standing at twenty-eight pages, 'Worstward Ho' is the shortest of Beckett's rambles: through semiotic sedimentation, words, wordlets and wordclumps coagulate in thitherlesses, leastenings and so-missaids, and "the dim", "shade", "skull" and other terms become resting spots for meanings that are never spoken unless only of. The story - essay? Poem? Freely associated concept-dream jotted down in ink? - is dense, but rather than burying comprehension its layers serve to progressively etch out an understanding, as if the negative space (and mostly negative it is, saying becoming missaying, seeing misseeing and even flaws the want of flaws) molds the reader's perspective like ever-shifting gelatine.

Beckett - in my experience - doesn't require his readers to draw upon knowledge of the literary canon to understand his prose; the words' referentiality is mostly limited to the the extremities of the body, unrefined emotions and the damp muck that clings on beneath fingernails after the hand relaxes once more. As with Joyce, reading aloud sometimes helps to fit otherwise dislocated phrases in an instinctive framework. Oftentimes, though, passages speak for themselves in a way that's wholly unparallelled:

"The odd sound. What a mercy to have that to turn to. Now and then. In dark and silence to close as if to light the eyes and hear a sound. Some object moving from its place to its last place. Some soft thing softly stirring soon to stir no more. To darkness visible to close the eyes and hear if only that. Some soft thing softly stirring soon to stir no more" (15)

or

"Smell? His own? Long since dulled. and a barrier to others if any. Such as might have once emitted a rat long dead. Or some other carrion. Yet to be imagined. Unless the crawler smell. Aha! The crawling creator. Might the crawling creator be reasonably imagined to smell? Even fouler than his creature. Stirring now and then to wonder that mind so lost to wonder. To wonder what in the world can be making that alien smell. Whence in the world those wafts of villainous smell. How much more companionable could his creator but smell. Could he but smell his creator." (42)

or

"On back to unsay void can go. Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go. All not already gone. Till dim back. Then all back. All not still gone. The one can go. The twain can go. Dim can go. Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go." (109)

All I know is that my volume deserves and requires a few more goes to suggest strands, enchant with eeriness and nudge towards an unspecified place that's dimly lit, framed by roots and mud, lit by Venus and quenched by brittle squiggles. Highly recommended.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

These three short works are almost like the Molloy trilogy in miniature. As each one increases in its spareness, so does it increase in its opacity. Company contains the clearest narrative, while still planting the seeds for the unyielding repetition that is to come. Beckett plumbs the depths of existence and the inevitable approach of death in a personal way while resisting the first person perspective ("he speaks of himself as of another"). In Company he vacillates between second and third person. Ill Seen Ill Said is told in third person alternating with a speakerless narration. The final text, Worstward Ho is completely told in the speakerless narration and resembles The Unnamable in its descriptions of body failing and the void that awaits. Recommended for those already familiar with Beckett's prose stylings.

[Michael Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words that claw, like he said . . .

[Ιωάννα · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beckett is never late. Not one truant word here.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as I can tell, this is Beckett's final book. As with the so-called trilogy, he wanted them published together but forbade it be titled as a trilogy, and like the previous three they have been constructed as a unit (although all of Beckett's work is tightly interlinked). They are three 'novels', each about thirty pages and written in short paragraph units with double line breaks between, like How It Is.

The first is "Company", a tale about a man lying in the dark and entertaining a guest while remembering memories of childhood, which are in effect Beckett's own memories, and also present the child's prespective of an early story where a child asks his mother how the sky was possible and the mother replies Fuck off. As the tale progresses it becomes clear that the narrator is alone, and that the guest & perhaps his memories are inventions created to stave off loneliness and despair, as in Malone Dies; the tale concludes as the narrator begins to cast off the pretense of believing in his delusions and degrades into a mostly insane state of obsessive watching of his clock and desperation to continue his literary efforts, acknowleding at the very end that he is, and has always been, alone. While I found this one of the most bleak tales of Beckett, a mini verison of How It Is stripped of its more austere setting, the tale starts to hint at the main contention of these three stories, namely, that a tale by default has at least two characters which are the narrator and the reader, and that while the reader lapses in and out of identification with the narrator he or she is reading, there is some degree of company and solace between these two, even if to one another they are mere illusions at the time of reading and writing.

The second story, Ill Seen Ill Said, is about an elderly woman living alone in a cabin and observing nearby farm animals, sunlight, and stones which are gradually understood to be the graves of her family. The woman is more autistic and less self-aware than the narrator of Company, likely senile, and the tale mostly relishes in the geometrical arrangement of the world around her and her companion, who is nakedly understood to be the reader attempting to observe her through the intransigent fluctuation of the narratorial presentation. The tale does not really develop, other than in decreasing lucidity about its subject matter, until the point where the theme of the story is dissolved into vague ruminations on the acceptability of life concluding on the phrase "Know happiness" (read aloud, indistinguishable from "no happiness"). It is not radically different from the first story, but only more intensely abstracted.

The final tale, Worstward Ho, is I believe Beckett's final writing and more abstract than anything he wrote, including the Unnameable and Ping. It is devoid of subject and and setting, merely the obsessive reflections of a narrator reflecting on the necessity of writing and imagined motion, which he is barely able to express beneath the obessive variations of a couple of phrases to the point of literal unrecognizeability and incoherency, the ultimate distillation of the abstracting process that took place in his previous writings. While the narrator is obsessed with finding a way forward, to figure out how to continue to Fail Better, the tale like the others verges towards a disillusion about the possibility of solace and begins to embrace the silence (ie the blank space) between paragraphs. The final moral of Beckett's work is that there is "Nohow on", and in saying this implies that the conclusion of the book is the initiation of the silence that Beckett exuded for the remainder of his life and has continued to now that he is dead.

The preface to this book seemed to hint at the optimistic elements of the reader-writer solidarity that the book does imply, but I think it is better to view this aspect as simply another mechanism in the agonized machines that people Beckett's work; behind it is a clear and distinct fixation with an almost unbearably pessimistic message that life is nasty, brutish, violent and short, and that its conclusion is that of its elderly, abandoned characters, doomed to lapse between insanity and intense suffering. In many ways this book made me think of the bizarre irony that the influence of Beckett's minimalism has been to excite authors with its technical possibilities, and that its overweening intention (the expression of intense, unspeakable emotional pain) is often forgotten by those infected with the same morbid glee its characters take in neurotic machination. In all events these are beautiful tales, and I rate them four stars only to highlight how they function as a coda to Beckett's best book, How It Is.

[B. Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μπεκετικό σύμπαν
Χρόνος ; Άχρονος
Τοποθεσία ; Άγνωστη
Πρωταγωνιστές; Περιορισμένη κινητικότητα η ακίνητοι
Στόχος; Η λογοτεχνία της μη γλώσσας (the unword)

1) Company
Another trait the flat tone. No life. Same flat tone at all times.
For its affirmations. For its negations. For its interrogations. For its exclamations. For its imperations. Same flat tone. You were once. You were never. Where you ever? Oh never to have been! Be again. Same flat tone.
……..
Nowhere to be found. Nowhere to be sought. The unthinkable last of all. Unnamable. Last person. I. Quick leave him.
……..
And you as you always were

Alone

2) Ill seen Ill said

Already all confusion. Things and imaginings. As of always. Confusion amounting to nothing. Despite precautions. If only she could be pure figment. Unalloyed. This old so dying woman. So dead.
………
Was it ever over and done with questions?
…. Over and done with answering. With not being able. With not being able not to want to know. With not being able. No. Never. A dream. Question answered.

3) Worstward Ho

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
…….
Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Still sick for good. Throw up for good.
………
Longing that all go. Dim go. Void go. Longing go. Vain longing that vain longing go.
………
Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. ……Best worse no further. Nohow less. Nohow worse. Nohow naught. Nohow on.
Said nohow on.

ΥΓ Εξαιρετική εισαγωγή και επίμετρο από τον μεταφραστή Θωμά Συμεωνίδη

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

revolutionized everything i thought i knew about form and writing!

[Kristopher Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read? Somehow read. Seen? Say seen. Somehow seen. Say book. Say book where no book. Say hands. Say hands where no hands. Say hands where no hands hold book. Say book in hands. Say words in book. Say stare. Say stare. Say stare on. Be stared on. Say stars. Words. Stare at words. See words? Say see words. Say ill seen words with stare. Say stare on. Say stare on until no stare on. Ill stare on. Understand? Say understand. No. Not understand. The book? The stare? The hands? Say one. Now two. All three. Or none. Say three. Three stars. Until no stars. Said three stars until no stars. Best worse no better. Somehow none. Somehow all. Somehow three. Either or none. Does it matter? Say so. Be said so. Read on. Until no read on. Until no book in hands.

[Alaa]

Before I decided to indulge myself in this book, I saw the ratings and read some reviews. The results and what most people thought of it were astonishing. Now I feel as if it's safer to give this book a good talk, otherwise, there has to be something wrong with the way I understood it. Honestly, despite the short pages, this is a difficult read. There is no plot. No fixed paragraphs and the words are scattered brilliantly. Perhaps that's the beauty of it; in its mystery; in the fact that only few of us will be able to understand the meaning of the story, if there is any. All in all, it's worth giving it a shot.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

These three short works are part of what are called Beckett's "closed space" works. As with "The Unnamable" and "Malone Dies", the narrator is set in a featureless, barely described, indeed scarcely extant landscape, or confined to bed in a barren room. Even more radically than those two, where each almost disembodied consciousness delivers a torrent of words, there is an economy of means here that is more minimal - particularly in "Worstward Ho", where the author seems to have intentionally limited himself to an inventory of only a couple of hundred words.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know everyone is all about late Beckett these days and the prose found in these novellas is occasionally luminous but I just can't get into this "closed space" period. I did really like Company, but Ill Seen Ill Said didn't do much for me. worstward ho I have to keep thinking about. I might have to rate these separately.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Beckett. Each story gets more abstract. I read the last one while landing in turbulent weather, and it was the PERFECT read. My favourite quote: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.