 First edition (French) | |
| Author | Samuel Beckett |
|---|---|
| Original title | L'Innommable |
| Translator | Samuel Beckett |
| Language | French |
| Series | The Trilogy #3 |
| Publisher | Les Éditions de Minuit |
Publication date | 1953 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1958 |
| Preceded by | Malone Dies |
The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later translated by the author into English. Grove Press published the English edition in 1958.
Following the completion of Malone Dies in 1948, Beckett spent three months writing Waiting for Godot before beginning work on The Unnamable, which he completed in 1950. [1] The Unnamable is the final volume in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy and continues with Malone Dies. As Benjamin Kunkel observes, "The trilogy proceeds by way of collapse. Beckett’s successive monologuists, confined to a series of small rooms, try and fail to tell their stories; and each narrator is then revealed to be the alias, and each story the alibi, of its successor, until, pulling all of Beckett’s earlier creations down upon its nonexistent head, there is only the disembodied voice of the Unnamable." [2] In this way, according to Gabriel Josipovici, "Beckett’s trilogy returns us to oral literature, to an art more honest and more immediate than that of the novel." [1] More so than elsewhere in the trilogy, the themes of The Unnamable are explicitly spiritual, concerned with the search for the self, the meaning of existence, and the cause and cessation of suffering. [3] [4]
...now it comes back to me, what it can possibly be, and where it can possibly come from, since all is silent here, and the walls thick, and how I manage, without feeling an ear on me, or a head, or a body, or a soul, how I manage, to do what, how I manage, it's not clear, dear dear, you say it's not clear, something is wanting to make it clear, I'll seek, what is wanting, to make everything clear, I'm always seeking something, it's tiring in the end, and it's only the beginning, how I manage, under such conditions, to do what I'm doing, what am I doing, I must find out what I'm doing, tell me what you're doing and I'll ask you how it's possible, I hear, you say I hear, and that I seek, it's a lie, I seek nothing, nothing any more, no matter... [5]
The Unnamable consists entirely of a disjointed monologue from the perspective of an unnamed (presumably unnamable) and immobile protagonist: the narrator’s body is successively described as curled in the fetal position, as a limbless body stuck in a deep glass jar, and as a featureless egg-like creature. [3] [4] There is no concrete plot or setting, and it is debatable whether or not the other characters ("Mahood" [formerly "Basil"], "Madeleine" and "Worm") actually exist or whether they are facets of the narrator himself. The protagonist also claims authorship of the main characters in the two previous novels of the trilogy, as well as Beckett's earlier novels Murphy , Mercier and Camier , and Watt . The Unnamable is a mix of recollections and existential musings on the part of its narrator, many of which pertain specifically to the possibility that the narrator is constructed by the language he speaks: "I’m in words, made of words, others’ words, what others, the place too, the air, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, all words, the whole world is here with me, I’m the air, the walls, the walled in one, everything yields, opens, ebbs, flows…" [5]
Similar to the structure of Molloy, the first book in the trilogy, The Unnamable begins with what the narrator describes as a "preamble" of about 13 pages, which is then followed by a single extended paragraph that comprises the remainder of the novel. [5] According to Paul Foster, "The long paragraph that constitutes this novel is a form that reflects this relentlessness, an uninterrupted determination to bring the whole intractable [existential, spiritual] dilemma forward into the light and to reveal it for what it is." [4]
Luciano Berio's musical work Sinfonia uses sections of The Unnamable, along with the music of Gustav Mahler and quotes from many other famous compositions, for its third movement.
Earl Kim's musical work, "Exercises en Route," composed 1963–70, sets passages from The Unnamable in its final movement, "Rattling On". [6]
A reading of selected passages from The Unnamable was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 19 January 1959, and repeated on 10 February. Beckett selected the passages, which were read by the actor Patrick Magee, and incidental music for strings was composed by Samuel's cousin John S. Beckett. The producer was Donald McWhinnie. [7]
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish-born existentialist writer of novels, plays, short stories and poems. 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 a key figure in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd.
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. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which is disjointed or has irregular punctuation. The term was first used in 1855 and was first applied to a literary technique in 1918. While critics have pointed to various literary precursors, it was not until the 20th century that this technique was fully developed by modernist writers such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf.
Film is a 1965 short film written by Samuel Beckett, his only screenplay. It was commissioned by Barney Rosset of Grove Press. Writing began on 5 April 1963 with a first draft completed within four days. A second draft was produced by 22 May and a 40-leaf shooting script followed thereafter. It was filmed in New York City in July 1964. Beckett and Alan Schneider originally wanted Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel and Jack MacGowran; however, they eventually did not get involved. Beckett then suggested Buster Keaton. James Karen, who was to have a small part in the film, also supported having Keaton. The filmed version differs from Beckett's original script but with his approval since he was on set all the time, this being his only visit to the United States, as stated in the script printed in Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett.
Happy Days is a play in two acts, written by Samuel Beckett first performed in 1961. Viewed positively by critics, it was named in The Independent as one of the 40 best plays of all time.
Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction, and is best known for issuing the first printed edition of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
Act Without Words II is a short mime play by Samuel Beckett, his second. Like many of Beckett's works, the piece was originally composed in French, then translated into English by Beckett himself. Written in the late 1950s it opened at the Clarendon Press Institute in Oxford and was directed by John McGrath. London premiere was directed by Michael Horovitz and performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, on 25 January 1960. The first printing was in New Departures 1, Summer 1959.
How It Is is a novel by Samuel Beckett first published in French as Comment c'est by Les Editions de Minuit in 1961. The Grove Press published Beckett's English translation in 1964. An advance text of his English translation of the third part appeared in the 1962 issue of the Australian literary journal, Arna.
Not I is a short dramatic monologue written in 1972 by Samuel Beckett which was premiered at the "Samuel Beckett Festival" by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York.
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.
Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951, in French, as Malone meurt, and later translated into English by the author.
Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett first written in French and published by Paris-based Les Éditions de Minuit in 1951. The English translation, published in 1955, is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.
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 more than 30 years to be originally written in English.
Footfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. Billie Whitelaw, for whom the piece had been written, played May whilst Rose Hill voiced the mother.
Seán Justin Barrett is a British actor.
Mercier and Camier is a novel by Samuel Beckett that was written in 1946, but remained unpublished until 1970. Appearing immediately before his celebrated "trilogy" of Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, Mercier et Camier was Beckett's first attempt at extended prose fiction in French. Beckett refused to publish it in its original French until 1970, and while an English translation by Beckett himself was published in 1974, the author had made substantial alterations to and deletions from the original text while "reshaping" it from French to 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.
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).
Richard Woodward Seaver was an American translator, editor and publisher. Seaver was instrumental in defying censorship, to bring to light works by authors such as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Hubert Selby, Eugène Ionesco, E.M. Cioran, D.H. Lawrence, Jack Kerouac, Robert Coover, Harold Pinter and the Marquis de Sade.
The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction is a list of the 100 best English-language books of the 20th century compiled by American literary critic Larry McCaffery. The list was created largely in response to the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list (1999), which McCaffery considered out of touch with 20th-century fiction. McCaffery wrote that he saw his list "as a means of sharing with readers my own views about what books are going to be read 100 or 1000 years from now".
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