Beckett was here

by Samuel Beckett, Roswitha Quadflieg

1936/37 unternahm der dreißigjährige Samuel Beckett eine Reise durch Deutschland, vornehmlich, um Kunst zu betrachten, aber auch, um seine Deutschkenntnisse zu verbessern. Seine erste und längste Station im Spätherbst 1936 war Hamburg. Die German Diaries, die er während der gesamten Reise schrieb, wurden erst nach seinem Tod 1989 gefunden. Nur das Hamburg-Kapitel durfte 2003 in einer limitierten Auflage von 150 Exemplaren von Roswitha Quadflieg in ihrer Raamin-Presse gedruckt werden. Abgesehen von den eigenen Graphiken, die sie ihrem 28. und zugleich letzten Druck beigab, versah sie den Text mit Marginalien, in denen die Ergebnisse ihrer eigenen intensiven Recherchen rund um das Tagebuch nachzulesen sind. 2006, zum 100. Geburtstag Samuel Becketts, veröffentlichte Roswitha Quadflieg die Ergebnisse ihrer seit 2003 noch ergänzten Recherche unter dem Titel "Beckett was here" bei Hoffman und Campe in Hamburg und erzählt darin zudem den Inhalt des Tagebuchs, entsprechend Becketts eigenen Eintragungen, nach – gewürzt mit Originalzitaten (die Menge der Zitate war von dem Rechteinhaber der German Diaries vorgegeben). Zudem zeigt der Band zahlreiche, zum Teil erstmals veröffentlichte Fotos

223 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2006

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

[Lily Smalls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waiting for Godot is the only Beckett I have read so far. It's a long time ago but I remember liking the play a lot. So, I don't know why I actually didn't continue my Beckett reading. Over so many other interesting authors I must have lost sight of him. Owing to Roswitha Quadflieg's wonderful book about Beckett's Hamburg experiences while spending a couple of months there in autumn 1936, I have rediscovered the Irish author and already added some of his works to my to-read list. At the same time I'm looking at Hamburg from a new perspective.

Beckett was very unresting during his sojourn in Hamburg and made a lot of acquaintances, interestingly quite a few artist and barely any authors. Art must have been his subject at the time. He visited the museum of arts eleven times and again and again tried to get entry to its magazine to view the 'entartete Kunst' that was seized by the Nazi government.

Roswitha Quadflieg has done a brilliant research job. She tried to trace everyone Beckett talked to or at least their offsprings and relatives. Moreover she reconstructed the routes of his long walks and gives detailed background information of all the places Beckett stopped by.

Even though the book is a comment on Beckett's Hamburg diaries and bears Roswitha Quadflieg's signature you can still hear Beckett's voice on every page - laconic, sloppy, moody, sometimes even nasty but always very subtle. This book is a must for Beckett and Hamburg enthuthiasts.