I Shall Live On

Fizzle 4 is another of Beckett's "ars poetica" moments. While framed as the discussion of someone's death, I think Beckett, as he is wont to do, is actually examining what he thinks will happen to his work after his death. He clearly knows that what he's doing is intellectual fodder, ripe for constant investigation. After all, if you spend your life constantly plumbing the depths of your own psyche in such an intense way as he did, people will take notice.

I started the semester wondering how it was possible that Beckett could so accurately capture that which happens inside the human mind, how he could seemingly render the ineffable thought processes we all experience so beautiful and tangible. I still haven't figured it out. None of us have and it's likely that none of us ever will. That doesn't mean, however, that we will not try. Fizzle 4 is Beckett predicting how hard we will all try, sympathizing with our futile attempts. He personifies his own writing in this little excerpt and challenges the artistic notion that art lives within he artist. Rather, Beckett posits that art houses us like a shell full of stuff. Once we discover the stuff, we interpret the stuff. Art is not something we channel, it's something we exist within.

It is in this way that Beckett is immortal. All authors are immortal.

Is Nothing Something?

New coat of paint on this nothing.

After reading Texts for Nothing, I wrote and recorded a song that borrows some lines from Chapter 13 of the aforementioned work. Here it is:

curtains - song for nothing

The lines I borrowed from are

"get out of here and go elsewhere, go where time passes and atoms assemble an instant, where the voice belongs perhaps, where it sometimes says it must have belonged, to be able to speak of such figments."

As someone who writes (songs, not literature) and creates constantly, I find Texts for Nothing very comforting. These lines in particular, however, ring exceptionally true. I take them to be the ultimate challenge any artist finds him or herself negotiating: how do I make new what's already been done time and time again? Because there's no way to answer this question, creation of all art, especially writing, ultimately becomes an exercise in futility.

However, it is because this very nature of futility that Beckett's musings in Texts for Nothing becoming so comforting. He never stopped writing. He wrote about futility, about the futility of examining futility, about the idea that nothing is something, and about writing itself. Because there isn't a way to present new ideas, we must always figure out new ways to approach old ideas. Nothing is futile because everything is futile. Everything is futile because nothing is.

Therein lies the beauty of Beckett: failing better is not the same as failing. If we are doomed to constant failure and our only method of combat is to fail better, do we really fail? If we get closer and closer to describing an idea with each attempt, can we still say that we've failed at describing said idea?  If we're trapped in nothingness, left alone with our thoughts, we're in hell. But if we analyze those thoughts and draw conclusions from them, we transcend. When we stop failing better, we've failed. Until then, engaging in the artistic process is the most meaningful thing we can do.

As Michael Gira, leader of the brutally transcendent bands Swans, says,

"I learned from experience that you can never really look at a song as being finished. In most cases, it starts out on acoustic guitar even if it's just a rhythm idea with some vocal ideas, or it's a so-called finished song on acoustic guitar and starts out that way. That's one version. Another version is when I start working on it with people in a room and it becomes something and then maybe I go into the studio and record it and then I do all the overdubs and then it reaches this chaotic stage where I have to sort out all the overdubs afterwards and then it's mixed and that's another version. And then, when we go to play it live, I don't at all try to replicate what's on record because to me those are completely different worlds. And then it just transforms from there or it gets discarded, one of the two. I like to be in a position where nothing's ever settled and it's always kind of uncomfortable…like standing on a bridge made of sand. That makes me happiest when things are not sure."

 Nothing is ever finished. No idea is ever fully explored. Believing in ultimate futility is futile.

Hell is yourself.

I can't stand the sight of you.

Presumably, as literature students taking a class on Samuel Beckett, we are all familiar with the famous quote from Sartre's No Exit, "hell is other people." After reading a number of Beckett's plays, all of which seem to depict various kinds of existentialist crises or moments, we arrive at Happy Days, a play that presents the audience with another harrowing Purgatory scenario. The sizeable difference between No Exit  and these two plays is that instead of three characters forced to interact with one another for eternity, there is only a single character interacting with him- or herself, allowing for Sartre's most famous existential statement to be rewritten as "hell is yourself."

Much like Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days presents a single character waxing nostalgic and poetic on her life, wondering how she got to where she is. And, similarly driven through constant monologue, the play relies upon the actors' facial expressions and calculated reactions to tell their stories of inner turmoil.

Stuck in the middle with nothing.

When one is stuck in a hole, like Winnie in the earth or Krapp in his study, and the only company is a person one cannot interact with, like Willie or Krapp's former self, all one has left are thoughts and memories. All one can do is analyze the moments that led up to the current, the define the current, that predicted the current. How is this not completely torturous? How does this not represent Hell? If there is no hope for a future, if nothing ever changes and all that's left to examine is one's past, who could truly claim a happy existence? By putting these characters in such awful situations, Beckett creates for them a Sisyphean being where one is forced to relive the past over and over without ever coming to any kind of conclusion. Without reprieve, without catharsis, without epiphany, Krapp and Winnie will never grow, change, develop, or understand. Thus, to be stuck with yourself for eternity is the ultimate definition of hell.

Existing is not enough.

Existential crises happen when one realizes that mere existence is not the same as living. Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin recognizes this in Gogol's story, "The Overcoat," and the Underground Man of Dostoevsky arrives at the same epiphany in Notes from the Underground. To be an exist-er is simply to function as a mass of biology, but to live is to introduce the nuance of emotion, thinking, and, perhaps most importantly, reaction. I think Krapp realizes this crucial difference during the course of Krapp's Last Tape, but is deeply troubled by said realization because it comes so late in life.

What's a more brutal way to understand how you've wasted your life than to listen to your younger self casually describe a happier time? Especially when said happier time did not continue past that documented moment? I think Beckett's ultimate point with Krapp's Last Tape is that of a warning: documenting every action, thought, love, sexual desire, or feeling is not the same as experiencing them and revisiting said documents only drives the point home. One cannot live if one constantly removes oneself from life. 

I always wonder how the people who film concerts remember those shows. I went to see Spiritualized earlier this year in Carrboro and the man standing in front of me filmed the band's entire set on his iPhone. Instead of watching the band, he watched the band through his phone. 

* * *

Seeing the play performed (by the great John Hurt, no less) truly drives this point home. Reading the play is a harrowing experience all its own, but because the action consists simply of a man listening to his past on reel-to-reel tape and occasionally shuffling off to guzzle some sort of booze, the impact of Beckett's vision cannot be fully experienced without seeing a great actor's face he hears his character recount painful memories. Perhaps this is the reason that Beckett chose to tell this story in dramatic form.

Thinking hard.

Here are some thoughts:

1. I wrote this after finishing The Unnameable when I thought I'd write my final paper on that particular novel:

The pairing down of language to its essentials helps differentiate between the separate identities. At the same time, the minimal nature of Beckett's writing complicates said identities, blurring the lines between them. In this way, the language is no longer minimal. Instead, the systematic stripping away of language reveals its complex simplicity. Similarly, the many identities at play in The Unnameable, complex in their plurality, become simple as, eventually, they all blur together into one.

2. Here are the sentences I wrote during our exercise last Wednesday:

A. An old man determined to understand his wounds, Krapp revels in recorded moments of his youth, no matter how foreign or painful.

B. Box three, spool five contains the memory of a love lost, forcing Krapp to recognize his age and mistakes.

C. Consumed by anger when thinking of his wasted life, Krapp withers in his study, searching for a glimmer in the darkness.

Samuel "Cormac" McBeckett

Cormac "Sammy" McBeckett

Reading and watching Beckett's play Endgame reminded me of Cormac McCarthy. Specifically, the sheer bleakness and utter dread the play embodies I find reminiscent of several of McCarthy's works, most notably The Road. The constant presence and/or looming threat of death worms its way into the discourse characterizing the relationship between what appears to be a father and son just as it does in The Road. In both works, one feels a palpable sense of time running out, of hope rendered a vague notion somewhere out in the cold, grey distance. 

At the heart of both works lies a desire to understand exactly what's real, what's left, and how to proceed given the circumstances. Relationships are both pointless and essential, especially those between father and son. In The Road, the father-son dynamic is rendered moot because the father cannot raise his son in a traditional role, instead assuming the only role available, protector. Because father is protector, biology plays little to no part in the man's identity. Similarly, if the audience is to assume that Hamm is Clov's father, Clov merely helps Hamm wheel about while providing an ear for Hamm's rants. Again, biology becomes moot, as anyone could step in and fill Clov's role as helper to an ailing old man. Therefore, in the new world's-end nature of both works, reality is simply whatever's the most convenient.

When nothing matters and reality becomes intensely subjective, all that's left is emotional brutality. Ultimately, in the dark, post-apocalyptic, savage terrain of both Endgame and The Road, existence can be described in Hamm's most powerful line, "you're on Earth, there's no cure for that!" (127).

Goth summer.

Identity

Weblog, I have neglected thee...

The most intriguing aspect of Waiting for Godot is the same thing I've found interesting about most of Beckett's works: the malleable nature of identity. What sets Godot's crises of identity apart from those of, say, the head in The Unnameable, is that in this play, it's mostly comic, while in the final novel of the trilogy (as with the other two novels, of course), the lack of a concrete identity is tragic, terrifying, and very confusing.

In many works, Beckett relates memory with a clear sense of identity. I wrote about this connection in a previous blog post, and I think this comparison holds true in Godot as well, specifically in the case of Estragon. His memory continuously fails him, leaving him with a constant need not only to be reminded of what has transpired, but a need to rebuild his knowledge base. Vladimir must remind him why they wait for Godot, who their miscellaneous companions are, and what names are. By constantly forgetting everything important about his surroundings, Estragon constantly forgets who he is, and thus never forms any kind of concrete identity. (It must be really, really hard to play that part on stage.)

Therefore, because the play involves a constant manipulation of what it is to be, the play becomes an existential crisis much like that of The Unnameable. The characters in Godot seem to be moving towards some kind of a conclusion, but they do not know why, how, or when such a conclusion will be reached. Similarly, in The Unnameable, the head in the jar muses about the very strangeness of being, never truly reaching any conclusion except to "go on," to keep moving.

How Strange It Is To Be Anything At All

This song played over and over as I read The Unnamable.

When I first started reading The Unnamable, I felt consumed by a dark uncertainty. It wasn't exactly depressing or terrifying, but it definitely seemed dark and confusing. The longer I read, the less sure of anything I became, but the more I allowed a kind of cold, strange beauty to wash over me. This is difficult work, but it's worth reading because, at its core, it's gorgeous. But there is a darkness. There is a deep, strange darkness to this novel that, if you let, permeates you and causes you to question things.

There's a great lyric from a Neutral Milk Hotel song entitled "In an Aeroplane Over the Sea" in which Jeff Mangum sums up the great mystery of life:

"What a beautiful face/ I have found in this place/ That is circling all around the sun/ And when we meet on a cloud/ I'll be laughing out loud/ I'll be laughing with everyone I see/ Can't believe/ How strange it is to be anything at all."

While I'm not sure that the head in the jar/Molloy/Malone/Mahood is necessarily laughing at the absurdity of existence (actually, it/he is probably crying constantly), I do believe that the inherent strangeness of living is the very thing being discussed. Existence is hard, it's terrifying, it's beautiful, it's ugly, it's meaningful, it's empty. It's everything we ascribe to it and none of those things. And perhaps there is no point. But perhaps Becket, Molloy, Malone, Mahood, the jar all believe that the point is to search for a point even if no such point exists. And thus, it is simply strange to be.

Once again, I forgot to hit "Publish." Hence, this was saved as a draft on Thursday, not published til I checked it now.

Dick Laurent is Dead

"I'm at your house right now. Call me."

When we read Michael Bengal's article, "Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable: An Overview," I was struck by the passage in which Bengal writes

"Gradually, it becomes apparent that all the voices in the trilogy are but aspects of a single consciousness, whether it be titled Molloy, Moran, Malone, Mahood, or Worm, all alter egos of the aptly named Unnamable."

 This quote stuck out to me the most, as 1) it made the most sense when considering these novels together and 2) it really reminded me of the David Lynch film Lost Highway. In his film, Lynch explores the idea of flexible identity through use of a psychological event called a psychic fugue, which is said to be not only a complete break in one's identity, but a fundamental re-structuring of said identity. In Lost Highway, Bill Pullman's character suffers some sort of psychotic break, only to wake up as a completely different person, played by Balthazar Getty. The two characters share certain characteristics, fall for a version of the same woman, then slowly begin to shift and meld into each other.

When looking at Molloy and Malone Dies, I see the same kind of psychological distortion and dissonance happening with the characters. Firstly, their names are similar, as are the names of other characters, like Moll. Details introduced in Molloy pop up again in Malone Dies, such as the bicycle, or how the titular characters seem to be laying on a bed and thinking about their and others' lives.

So, what does this mean? Is Beckett trying to explore the slippery nature of identity and how it can shift and change over time in this albeit extreme case? The malleable nature of identity could relate to Beckett's work in general, as it shifts, grows, changes, and melts into itself constantly, never allowing for one, clear, understandable, approachable definition.

Weird.

I Can't Remember, Therefore I Am Not

Though we discussed a myriad of possibilities as to the central themes of Molloy, the one that really stuck with me was the concept of unreliable memory. As anyone who has taken a Psychology 101 course knows, memory is a wildly flighty, somewhat untrustworthy mechanism of the brain. I think Beckett explores this throughout Malloy, commenting not only on how memory can act as fiction in general, but how even we, ourselves, can be fooled by our own memories.

Beckett introduces the slippery nature of memory on the very first page, when Molloy says to himself,

"The truth is I don't know much. For example my mother's death. Was she already dead when I came? Or did she  only die later? I mean enough to bury. I don't know."

Molloy is dying, and yet the details of his life have seemingly slipped away. Or, at the very least, confused themselves with other details, thus erasing this man's very personality. If one cannot remember anything, what is it one can actually know? Molloy asks the same question on page eleven when he muses,

"A and C I never saw again. But perhaps I shall see them again. But shall I be able to recognize them? And am I sure I never saw them again? And what do I mean by seeing and seeing again?" 

As we noted in the first week after reading Imagination Dead Imagine, Beckett's writing has a way of capturing the seemingly un-capturable human psyche. In Molloy, Beckett's ability to capture the flickering quality of memory allows the reader to question what we know, how we know it, and how these two questions help us form.

(This was written a week ago, but for some reason, I forgot to publish it. Thus, it was merely a draft until right now. - Sept 19, 2012 3:17 pm.)

Constant Motion

I'm really intrigued by the story, "Ding-Dong," in More Pricks than Kicks. As compared to other stories in the collection, such as "Fingal" or even "Dante and the Lobster," "Ding-Dong" moves at a near breakneck pace, refusing to sit idly and unfold in a (perhaps) more conventional way. The pacing of this story mirrors the constant movement of its subject, Belaqua, but begs for additional interpretation. Could this be a sign of Beckett's insatiable creative appetite?

I wonder how much it relates to Beckett himself because of the way we've chosen to attack his body of work. By starting at the end of his career, at his most experimental, we've spoiled the ending in a way. We know the outcome of his constant artistic output, now we must focus on the process of getting there. Thus, phrases such as "his anxiety to keep on the move and his distress at finding himself brought to a standstill" seem apropos to Beckett's perpetual creative motion.

Additionally, when the class read "Dante and the Lobster," we learned that Belaqua and Beckett share certain distinct characteristics. Therefore, could it be a fair assumption to say that More Pricks than Kicks is allegorical for Beckett's life as a writer? Is he constantly going down new roads, as Belaqua does, just to see what's there?

If we do allow ourselves such an author-centric interpretation, "Ding-Dong" seems to fit into the (narrow) framework we've created for Beckett thus far in class. I see shades of his stream-of-consciousness style creeping in during this story, especially during the second paragraph. If we do not allow ourselves such an author-centric interpretation, in what way do these moments with Belaqua exist within Beckett's oeuvre?

Communicating with the Void in sparse language.

Something that really struck me while reading Worstward Ho is Beckett's ability to pare language down to its most essential elements in order to get a point across. Beckett definitely explored this concept in Company and Ill Said Ill Seen, but he seems to really achieve this linguistic minimalism in Worstward. Take for example, this passage:

"All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

This quote encapsulates two things that I find fascinating about Beckett's writing: 1) somehow, he's able to transcribe the artistic human psyche and 2) he knows he can never transcribe the artistic human psyche. There is no way to ever succeed in documenting, making sense of, and sharing one's thoughts, but the process of doing so is a success in itself. This self-aware dichotomy is what makes Beckett so compelling; by writing about the void, one falls into the void. By falling into the void, one falls out of the void. Awareness, acceptance, and acknowledgement of the void is the same as being engulfed by it and the same as climbing out of it. Furthermore, such acknowledgement of the void gives it the power to both create and destroy as evidenced by this quote found close to the end:

"The whole narrow void. No blurs. All clear. Dim clear. Black hole agape on all. Inletting all. Outletting all."

 By writing about absence in such sparse language, Beckett allows his words to swirl around him, creating a buzzing nest of sound. One your ears are used to the sound, however, it disappears.

Gnome

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning

Once I read this piece, I couldn't get it out of my head. 

I write copy for LivingSocial.com, that site that does Groupon-like deals. One of the deals I wrote recently was for a brewery in Sylva called Heinzelmännchen, named for a race of German gnomes that come out at night to complete humans' work, allowing said humans to laze about and enjoy a sort of carefree, whimsical existence. So, when I read this poem, which essentially calls for a kind of carefree existence, the title made complete sense.

As with anything Beckett related, I wouldn't say that the poem calls for whimsy, but rather, a call to embrace nothingness. To separate, to wander, to abandon society and its constant need to teach, one learns a great deal. To embrace this nothingness, to not have a plan or distinct path, is the freedom one needs to have the openness of mind learning truly requires. This poem really reminds me of the phrase, "The more I know, the more I know I don't know." 

Additionally, the poem could be read as a call to destroy the system. Not an anarchic call, mind you, but a challenge to the reader (or the student?) to fully consider the phrase "destruction is the truest form of creation." By destroying the known system, i.e. the school system, the student creates a new system, a new paradigm by which he or she learns. As we've learned, Beckett was no champion of formal education and this poem seems to place a higher emphasis on experiential learning rather that of lectures and tests.