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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I can't remember the last time a book so effortlessly carved out my insides and left such a persistent sense of emptiness and despair. Highly recommended.
I... I am so tired.
The Unnamable is a towering achievement in deconstructing every element of the novel - character, plot, motivation, theme, setting, everything - in order to draw attention to the role of the author. Or at least that's what I think it is.
Beckett's third novel in his famous trilogy is devoid of any real narrative moorings, being essentially a long monologue by the titular "Unnamable" narrator. Who this is can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but seeing as they're consistently referring to themselves as author of other Beckett books and a conduit for other Beckett characters, it feels a lot like the narrator is just Samuel Beckett's artistic voice. Beckett uses this conceit of being a opaquely-styled narrator/author really well, but it feels like he obscures the stability of the narrator's role as much as everything else in the novel.
As far as everything else in the novel, well — there isn't much of it. There isn't really a dramatis personae to speak of, as every character that's mentioned seems like just a figment of this one voice that is simultaneously inventing and is invented by the text. There's no actual setting, just flashes of environments that quickly move away or morph into one another. There's no plot, just the aforementioned monologue that makes Portnoy's Complaint look like a Tolstoy novel by comparison, and seems to be composed of whatever came to Beckett's mind and felt associated enough to the tone of the book to be logged. As there's no plot, there's no real motivation for the narrator aside for just continuing until done. It feels like a beautiful watercolor portrait left out in the rain: there is a form underneath everything, but the presentation is melted and amorphous to the point that you can't really see it without squinting.
So, like Molloy (and very unlike Malone Dies), I feel like I saw some part of the point in this, or what lack of a point the point seemed to be. Unfortunately, The Unnameable differs from its predecessor by being an entirely obnoxious reading experience. Is sitting down and reading a 110-page paragraph that makes a point to deny you meaning or satisfaction "the point?" Sure, close enough. Does that make this "good?" I feel like that's something I can't answer. Beckett sure did make it difficult enough to supply some verisimilitude to the experience of trying to construct meaning in the world, but I don't know if I can really say it was worth it to go through.
Ultimately, I think the real takeaway I got from this novel is that sometimes "great art" isn't really "good." I don't feel enriched by this book, or even robbed. I just feel exhausted. I don't think I would recommend this for anybody but the most determined of modernism aficionados. Godspeed you crazy bastards.
The Unnamable is a towering achievement in deconstructing every element of the novel - character, plot, motivation, theme, setting, everything - in order to draw attention to the role of the author. Or at least that's what I think it is.
Beckett's third novel in his famous trilogy is devoid of any real narrative moorings, being essentially a long monologue by the titular "Unnamable" narrator. Who this is can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but seeing as they're consistently referring to themselves as author of other Beckett books and a conduit for other Beckett characters, it feels a lot like the narrator is just Samuel Beckett's artistic voice. Beckett uses this conceit of being a opaquely-styled narrator/author really well, but it feels like he obscures the stability of the narrator's role as much as everything else in the novel.
As far as everything else in the novel, well — there isn't much of it. There isn't really a dramatis personae to speak of, as every character that's mentioned seems like just a figment of this one voice that is simultaneously inventing and is invented by the text. There's no actual setting, just flashes of environments that quickly move away or morph into one another. There's no plot, just the aforementioned monologue that makes Portnoy's Complaint look like a Tolstoy novel by comparison, and seems to be composed of whatever came to Beckett's mind and felt associated enough to the tone of the book to be logged. As there's no plot, there's no real motivation for the narrator aside for just continuing until done. It feels like a beautiful watercolor portrait left out in the rain: there is a form underneath everything, but the presentation is melted and amorphous to the point that you can't really see it without squinting.
So, like Molloy (and very unlike Malone Dies), I feel like I saw some part of the point in this, or what lack of a point the point seemed to be. Unfortunately, The Unnameable differs from its predecessor by being an entirely obnoxious reading experience. Is sitting down and reading a 110-page paragraph that makes a point to deny you meaning or satisfaction "the point?" Sure, close enough. Does that make this "good?" I feel like that's something I can't answer. Beckett sure did make it difficult enough to supply some verisimilitude to the experience of trying to construct meaning in the world, but I don't know if I can really say it was worth it to go through.
Ultimately, I think the real takeaway I got from this novel is that sometimes "great art" isn't really "good." I don't feel enriched by this book, or even robbed. I just feel exhausted. I don't think I would recommend this for anybody but the most determined of modernism aficionados. Godspeed you crazy bastards.
... Huh? OK, so. Stream-of-consciousness really isn't my thing. I will say, I liked the rhythm of the writing in The Unnamable, and there were stretches of this where I was starting to form an idea of what was going on at the given moment and quite liking it -- I liked the whole part where the entity is living in a jar or pot or whatever and Madeline is the only person who knows it's there, it reminded it me of what it would be like if Small Gods by Terry Pratchett had a really directionless prequel. And then, of course, that plot is abandoned mid-thought. There are large chunks of this that I couldn't tell you anything about because they were so vague and so ill-defined that they really just went in one ear (... eyeball?) and out the other. This only earns the extra .5 stars because it's pretty short so it didn't take much just to power through it.
Hilarious and depressing perfection. I listened to the audiobook because I was afraid I wouldn't have the patience for lack of plot that I once did and wasn't sure I would stick with it. but I should have trusted Beckett not to fail me. Now I want to read it in print and absorb every glorious subtle phrase--the ones that made me laugh and the darker absurdisms.
Just finished The Unnamable seconds ago. I remember reading Godot in HS, and then later I read Malone Dies and I remember, I'm sure I remember, I must remember being blown away. There are just a handful of books by Kafka, Joyce, Pynchon, Delillo and Beckett that seem to not just BE amazing, but seem built to reach in and rewire the reader's brain. Or at least me, or at least mine.
Oh Literary Modernism, how everyone adores you, your shapeshifting, your tea soaked madelines, the ebb and flow of your seas, the sailors caught underneath of it all, little rivers running to and fro, vast libraries teaching us the fear of tomorrow in a singular image. What a great wall you have built for yourself, universities love it, can't get enough of it because isn't it so grand, such a spectacle, your such a show-off Literary Modernism, forget 'God is dead', 'Zola is dead'! You seem to disturb the temporality of the present as I hear there are still writers writing to preserve you, to reanimate you, that isn't very modernist, very gothic though isn't it meddling with the dead. And, oh, here he comes, sledgehammer in hand, he's been crawling up Rue de Martyrs naked clutching this thing and here he goes...BOOM! Take that Literary Modernism, good luck rebuilding that!
1910(or thereabouts)-1953
1910(or thereabouts)-1953
Very poor effort by Mr. Beckett :-P.
The book is essentially a monologue in which the author explores whatever strikes his fancy, be it nothing or everything. There is no plot as such, and the narrative just goes on and on, continuously, without breaks.
I think maybe war has something to do with it. This was written shorlty after the Second World War, and I think that maybe that experience has led the author to think (and consequently, write) in a non-linear, non-formatted, non-standard way and style, posing some big questions in the mean time about all kinds of things, but mostly about the individual.
I realize there may be an audience for this kind of literature, but it is just not for me.
The book is essentially a monologue in which the author explores whatever strikes his fancy, be it nothing or everything. There is no plot as such, and the narrative just goes on and on, continuously, without breaks.
I think maybe war has something to do with it. This was written shorlty after the Second World War, and I think that maybe that experience has led the author to think (and consequently, write) in a non-linear, non-formatted, non-standard way and style, posing some big questions in the mean time about all kinds of things, but mostly about the individual.
I realize there may be an audience for this kind of literature, but it is just not for me.