Rockaby and Other Short Pieces

by Samuel Beckett

Rockaby and Other Short Pieces brings together four recent works by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Waiting for Godot . We find in Beckett’s masterful, exquisite prose, the familiar themes from his earlier works here expressed in the anguished murmurings of the solitary human consciousness. Published for the first time, Rockaby is a dramatic monologue of a woman sitting in a rocking chair. Directed by Alan Schneider, Rockaby was performed at the State University of New York at Buffalo’s Beckett Festival in 1981. Also published for the first time, Ohio Impromptu explores the poignant inter-dependency of its two characters, Reader and Listener, who, in reading and listening to the story of their relationship, buoy each other up, temporarily, against “terror of the night.” Ohio Impromptu premiered at the Ohio State University at Columbus’s 1981 Beckett Festival. All Strange Away is a haunting prose work centering around a figure confined in a small rotunda, buried in his/her “profounds of mind.” Written especially for the actor David Warrilow, A Piece of Monologue features a white-haired man in a nightgown who, in the terrible solitude of the night, agonizes over remembrances of loved ones.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Classics, Irish Literature

80 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2007

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

[mack s · Rating 5 out of 5]

beckett u outdid yourself with this one

[Zach]

This is an incredible collection. Rockaby and A Piece of a Monologue were new to me and each divinely Beckett. 


Summarizing Beckett always seems inappropriate, so suffice to say that Rockaby explores a woman's self-reflective longing to see another's face while also longing to cease the longing. A Piece of a Monologue explores the continually perishing existence we each enjoy or endure. 


The collection as a whole, with Ohio Impromptu & All Strange Away in between, is sublime. Each of the pieces speak to each other in unique ways. This is my penultimate book to read (for the first time) by Samuel Beckett, and it did not disappoint. 

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music, pure music as only the Wake also is.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becket is easily my favorite read, though I will admit to finding him endlessly challenging, extremely opaque, and often nonsensical to no end save that he can be.
This short book contains 4 works by Beckett: Rockaby (play), Ohio Impromptu (playlet), All Strange Away (prose piece), and A Piece of Monologue (play).
I was first introduced to Beckett's work while listening to the CD "sound for spaces" by Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), where "A Piece of Monologue" was backgrounded by music. I immediately fell in love with Beckett. I was amazed and listened to this track over and over. After reading more of Beckett's works, I realized something else, his shorter prose and (obviously) his plays are magisterial when read aloud. I have come across no other writer that has such an impact on my. Sure, one gets the odd stare when reading anything out loud in public, but even at home the cats are looking at me with these "who else is here?!?" stare.
I find Beckett's plays a challenge, more so than usual (I have a hard time reading any play, I don't do voice changes and back-and-forth dialogue can be a strain). Add in his endless stage directions and interruptives and one's mettle is surely tested.
"Rockaby" is typical of his plays, employing such offputting simplicity and spare writing yet evoking such powerful emotions.
"Ohio Impromptu" works amazingly well, as it incorporates action to emphasize the morose dialogue.
"All Strange Away" is stellar. It brings to mind some modern dance routine set to stage direction with interjections of speech.
"A Piece of Monologue". Exquisite, simply quintessential Beckett prose. I have read this piece more than a hundred times at least. It never ceases to amaze me.
All Beckett is essential reading fo me. Forget trying to understand or master his work. I doubt any of it was written to that end anyway. Just read it. And then read it again.

[Lee Foust · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my ongoing reading of Beckett from start to finish in order... I had thought to exclude the theatrical writings--not because I have a bias against them or anything, but just because I wanted to go in order and the dating of all of these short and fragmentary texts got a bit complex. Anyway, picked this volume up because it includes one of the shorter prose pieces from what I've come to think of as Beckett's dry period (in terms of prose and novels particularly) from '57 to '77, "All Strange Away." As I've written elsewhere, these short prose texts of the period work pretty well on their own as brief beginnings--maybe false starts best describes them--that one can enjoy here and there. Taken together, however, they give the impression of a restless writer looking for a new kind of experimentation but failing to find a way beyond what he'd already accomplished and seeming to tire quickly with his new voices and approaches.

Better here are the three theatrical pieces marking the author's return to composing his texts in English in the late 1970s. They work as a kind of preface to the three exquisite novels of the early 1980s, also written in English and, like these, returning to that language with a very heightened sense of rhythm and assonance rarely found in prose. I really love this last period of Beckett's, with its deeply poetic language and usual bleak landscape and indifferent lost personalities. "Rockaby" itself is particularly rhythmic and perfect for performance--as are "Ohio Impromptu" and "A Piece of Monologue." All first rate performative poems (in both verse--the first--and prose--the two latter).

[Will_Crimble · Rating 3 out of 5]

The theme of this neat little booklet is primarily age. These snug shorts are particularly remarkable due to the relative nearness of his death to when these were written (more or less an average length of 8 years for each).

But all I can say is, the final short piece featured in this collection, A Piece of Monologue, hit me like a bloated frog of profundity tossed weakly at the back of my head, causing me to look at the bloated and wise frog for a perhaps unhealthy length of time, poking it with my index finger every now and then but generally leaving it alone, letting its frog-juices settle to the bottom of its huge belly.

But you can't take a bloated frog home with you. What would your spouse say? You'd have to get rid of it right then and there anyway, so what's the point of carrying it along with you?

Secondly, you can't convincingly carry it along for noble reasons of charity, because you're not sure that the thing's even alive. And there's nothing noble about toting a puffed-up frog corpse door to door. In most cases, at least.

So curiosity eventually gives way to fatigue, and you leave behind the mutant amphibian, however fascinating and incredible it may be, to inevitably roast in the sun or get eaten by local dogs.

I loved that piece, and all the others, but I won't paste them on my wall and rub my forehead against em when I get lonely. I'll find the book again eventually, poke it for awhile, and walk off again. And all this isn't just because I may be too dumb to decipher it or whatever. I just feel this way's all.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I do feel that Beckett is the more superior existentialist over Sartre, as Beckett took the concepts of existentialism down even as far as studying its implications on the very medium he was writing in, I also think Beckett was quite masterful at studying the idea of regret. These particular pieces seem to dwell more on the latter, though I think their punch gets a little lost in how often Beckett resorted to this method of people trying to avoid thinking about what they can’t help themselves from thinking and remembering. The more formal play scripts here seem like exercises that would build up to something magnificent like Krapp’s Last Tape, but as works themselves they only posit a notion and don’t really follow through on it. As always, there is a joy in reading Beckett for me, so I did take some pleasure from particular moments, but overall this felt like more of a book for a completist wanting the full Beckett oeuvre rather than work that’s intriguing to read on its own.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only word I can thing of to describe this work is existential horror. Gesturing into the abyss; and not even being the certainty the the abyss is looking back at you. I say this in all sincerity: if you are depressed you should 'steer' clear of this work - the riptide of meaninglessness can take you away quickly - past any shore of solace, into the deep sea of nihilism.

[Τρύφωνας Γέσιος-Κρανιώτης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rockaby 5/5
Footfalls 3/5
Nit I 5/5

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deliciously quirky and wonderfully sublime. Classic Beckett.

[Harrison Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

The measure of all that our life is worth contained within a singular grain of sand. We must get out of our own way.

[RebeccaErGlad MegetGlad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I only read Rockaby, as I actually read a compilation of Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby.

All three plays were not clear, but the message gets through even though you aren't completely clear on what exactly happened.

I watched the plays before reading them, which was slightly confusing, since the monologue in Not I is uttered at thought speed. Very fast, especially if it has a stream of consciousness (read: fragmented) way about it.

I digress:

Not I: The weirdest of the three, and the least accessible. I had the feeling, even after reading the play, that I was missing out on a lot. Still very powerful.

Footfalls: My favorite. Very sad, emotional. Somehow you get a better impression of the characters. There's a bit of relationship in there too. All good. Creepy, of course. The play had very little lighting, so you were constantly straining to see this ghost like figure on stage. I didn't get the 'message' if, indeed, there was one. (I find, like in Godot, that SB often is saying something along the lines of "Life is meaningless!!") The story, though, is great, and I felt as if I gained something by watching it, though I'm not entirely sure what.

Rockaby: Without doubt the creepiest. Wow. In stead of telling us (students) again and again: modernism means that life is meaningless because A, B, C, you should just have us watch this. It drives the point home like nothing else I've ever encountered. The isolation, the emptiness, the meaninglessness. It's downright terrible. In an awesome way.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not to say it did not achieve it's desired effect of freaking me out. I just did not like it.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

More poetic than the other works I've read (for a class, not to torture myself).

[William Dearth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd as usual, but great as usual as well.

[Jangal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would give ~3.5. The pieces here are hits and misses: either the really good sort, or the absolutely missable.

Rockaby is haunting.

[Alex Rankine · Rating 2 out of 5]

had 0 clue what was going on but was still kinda liking it until the end

[jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

favourite line is 'fuck life'

[Fangtooth]

rating this with stars seems absurd