"Ping" is a short story written by Samuel Beckett in French (originally "Bing") in 1966. It was later translated into English by Beckett and published in 1967. The French version was set to music by the composer Jean-Yves Bosseur with the aid of Beckett in 1981 and redone in 2001.[1]David Lodge has described "Ping" as: "the rendering of the consciousness of a person confined in a small, bare, white room, a person who is evidently under extreme duress, and probably at the last gasp of life."[2]
"Ping" is a very compact short story with no punctuation other than periods. The story is barely two pages but is usually presented in a justified alignment to heighten the feeling of claustrophobia. As noted by Dan O'Hara,
"The density of Ping's prose style is its most immediate and most intriguing aspect; it seems condensed or undiluted. Like César's compressed sculptures of crushed cars, all the constituent elements are squashed into an uncomfortable proximity [...] In Ping, all the spaces between, the gaps, have been forced out; no air flows around the words. Read aloud, Ping enacts this asphyxia."[3]
Interpretations
The interpretation of "Ping" has been heavily debated ever since its publication. Interpretations have ranged from Jesus Christ in the tomb to a person in a hospital bed post-surgery to "the first act of creation."[4] Because the story is so basic and repetitive there is a wide range of possibilities, but the standard interpretation is that "Ping" covers the last minutes of a person's life.
Additional discussion has originated on the meaning of the onomatopoeiaping scattered throughout the story. The pings could suggest the character's shifting mindset from optimism to despair.[2] O'Hara speculated that the use of ping, a specifically metallic onomatopoeia, may call back to Beckett's medical history. Beckett was hospitalized prior to the writing of "Ping" in 1964 and 1965. He was then diagnosed with double cataracts in 1966 and a number of people in his life either died or became extremely ill. O'Hara posits that the pings may be the sounds of an electrocardiograph machine.[3]
↑ Gass, William H. (1989). "Philosophy and the Form of Fiction". Fiction and The Figures of Life: Essays. Nonpareil books (3. printed.). Boston: Godine. ISBN978-0-87923-254-2.
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic experiences of life, often coupled with black comedy and nonsense. His work became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of stream of consciousness repetition and self-reference. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd.
The theatre of the absurd is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator.
Absurdist fiction is a genre of novels, plays, poems, films, or other media that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.
Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Spiel on 14 June 1963 at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany, directed by Deryk Mendel, with Nancy Illig (W1), Sigfrid Pfeiffer (W2) and Gerhard Winter (M). The first performance in English was on 7 April 1964 at the Old Vic in London. It was not well-received upon its British premiere.
David John Lodge CBE is an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge has also written television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T. S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View, The Stream of Consciousness and Interior Monologue, beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.
Ohio Impromptu is a "playlet" by Samuel Beckett.
Ping may refer to:
Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is a short story collection by American author John Barth. The postmodern stories are extremely self-conscious and self-reflexive, and are considered to exemplify metafiction.
A Piece of Monologue is a fifteen-minute play by Samuel Beckett. Written between 2 October 1977 and 28 April 1979 it followed a request for a “play about death” by the actor David Warrilow who starred in the premiere in the Annex at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York on 14 December 1979.
20th-century French literature is literature written in French from 1900 to 1999. For literature made after 1999, see the article Contemporary French literature. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts. For more on this, see French art of the 20th century.
The Lost Ones is a novella by Samuel Beckett, who abandoned it in 1966 and completed it in 1970. It was then first published in French and translated into English by the author himself the following year.
Company is a novella by Samuel Beckett, written in English and published by Calder Publishing in 1979. It was translated into French by the author and published by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1980. Company was Beckett's first work of prose in over 30 years that was originally written in English.
From An Abandoned Work, a "meditation for radio" by Samuel Beckett, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Third Programme on Saturday, 14 December 1957 together with a selection from the novel Molloy. Donald McWhinnie, who already had a great success with All That Fall, directed the Irish actor Patrick Magee.
The Art of Fiction is a book of literary criticism by the British academic and novelist David Lodge. The chapters of the book first appeared in 1991-1992 as weekly columns in The Independent on Sunday and were eventually gathered into book form and published in 1992. The essays as they appear in the book have in many cases been expanded from their original format.
Stories and Texts for Nothing is a collection of stories by Samuel Beckett. It gathers three of Beckett's short stories and the thirteen short prose pieces he named "Texts for Nothing" (1950–1952). All of these works are collected in the Grove Press edition of Beckett's complete short prose. They were originally written in French and published in 1955 by Les Éditions de Minuit as Nouvelles et Textes pour rien, with a second edition illustrated edition published by the same publisher in 1958.
Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as "Henry", Kathleen Michael as "Ada" and Patrick Magee as "Riding Master" and "Music Master". The play was translated into French by Beckett himself and Robert Pinget as Cendres and was published in 1959 by Les Éditions de Minuit. The first stage production was by the French Graduate Circle of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival, 1977."
Rough for Radio II is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in 1961 as Pochade radiophonique and published in Minuit 16, November 1975. Beckett translated the work into English shortly before its broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 13 April 1976. Martin Esslin directed Harold Pinter, Billie Whitelaw (Stenographer) and Patrick Magee (Fox). The English-language version was first published in Ends and Odds as Radio II.
Cascando is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in December 1961, subtitled Invention radiophonique pour musique et voix, with music by the Franco-Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici. It was first broadcast on France Culture on 13 October 1963 with Roger Blin (L'Ouvreur) and Jean Martin. The first English production was on 6 October 1964 on BBC Radio 3 with Denys Hawthorne (Opener) and Patrick Magee (Voice).
Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century.
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