A review by eliza_v_paige
The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

3.0

It seems like a redundant statement to say that this book is an odd one, but for me, it is the experience of reading the novel that is actually strange. I enjoy losing myself inside the relentless prose, so whenever I put the book down I've had a good time reading it. However, despite the enjoyable reading experience, I spent most (if not all, if I'm being honest) of the novel completely confused as to the point of it all. In some ways I guess this is the point. This is Beckett's conclusion to his loose trilogy, and serves more as an overt contemplation of existentialism as opposed to the previous two that had strands of plot and character. The narrator of The Unnamable is possibly non-existent. The narrator does repeat that they are not 'I', but this is more of a characterisation of existentialism, rather than an erasure of the narrator's tangibility. As a stream of consciousness musing on existentialism, it is a superb read, though as a novel, it is lacking. I did find it enjoyable to read but the lack of anything to grasp made the book too sparse to be a good novel. The preceding novels were a better combination of existentialist musings and novelisation, though taken as a whole, they are certainly an interesting trio.