Scan barcode
A review by bgg616
A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker
5.0
A gorgeous book, splendid prose, and one I didn't want to put down. This novel tells the story of the Irish writer, Samuel Beckett, trapped in France during World War II. As the novel opens in 1939, James Joyce is still alive and living in Paris. Joyce obstinately refuses to acknowledge the war and acts as blind to it as he is in real life. Beckett worked for Joyce for a time as secretary and translator. Imagine trying to translate Ulysses or Finegan's Wake. Yet the windows of Sweney's Pharmacy in Dublin hosts groups reading Ulysses in French, Italian and even Portuguese. This leads me to believe that Beckett's efforts were appreciated by some [ I had no luck trying to embed photos so am resorting to hyperlinks]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bdegar/28813565983/in/dateposted-public
During the years from 1939-1944, Beckett shares his life with Suzanne. Suzanne observes his distractable nature, and his failure to be productive. It is Suzanne who provides an anchor for him after Joyce leaves Paris, someone who requires him to occasionally remember to be responsible to another person. When the Nazis occupy Paris, Beckett fears arrest as he has no papers. Eventually he resolves that problem, and he becomes part of the French Resistance.
Working with the Resistance, he recognizes how little worth his life as a writer has for society. Beckett's writing was continuously rejected, and for a time, he hides his inability to produce anything from Suzanne. As Baker describes here :
He stares now at the three words he has written.They are ridiculous. Writing is ridiculous. A sentence, any sentence, is absurd. Just the idea of it; jam one word up against another, shoulder-to-shoulder, jaw-to-jaw; hem them in with punctuation so they can't move an inch. And then hand that over to someone else to peer at, and expect something to be communicated, something understood. It's not just pointless. It is ethically suspect.
Here is another reference to his self-questioning about writing:
And when he surfaces to a cramped hand, a crick in the neck, the sunlight shifted across the floor, a sore blink, he knows that even to have written this little is an excess, it is an overflowing, an excretion. Too many words. There are just too many words. Nobody wants them; nobody needs them. And still they keep on, keep on, keep on coming..
This is a book for those who love literary fiction, gorgeous writing, Paris, Beckett, and even Joyce. An interest in Beckett is in no ways essential, but reading this novel helped me appreciate his writing even more. Baker believes that Beckett's war time experiences transformed his writing into the sparse style we associate with Beckett. The scenes in the book when Beckett is waiting to make contact with other Resistance fighters are very redolent of scenes in Waiting for Godot. I am itching now to watch the film version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXmdTUfsfmI
and can only imagine how stunning the premier in January 1969 at the Abbey Theater with Peter O'Toole, Eamon Kelly and Donal McCann must have been:
https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/110moments/waiting-for-godot/
I probably would have remained unaware of this book if the author, Jo Baker, hadn't read at the 2016 John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh, Northern Ireland in July. When she read from this new novel about Samuel Beckett, I had assumed the topic explained her presence. It wasn't until looking at the Author's Note at the end of the book, I discovered Baker had gotten her MA in Irish Writing at Queen's University Belfast.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bdegar/29146885260/in/dateposted-public
Thursday of that week, the reading by Ciaran Carson of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in the School of English at Queens, marked the last public appearance of a writer associated with the School before its official demise. The School of English no longer exists as of the end of July, but has been disassembled with various pieces being merged into other schools at the university. To mark the (sad)occasion, all former students of the School or its summer school were invited to stand with Carson while a uilleann piper from the band Lunasa (Cillian Vallely, who is from Armagh) played a lament (it may have been this tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEWFwBpMH38&list=PLUS0VLwMCFsQkvyyBfGoSe2GDG7PnDQ6O&index=2) . Having attended a summer school at the Heaney Centre in 2009, I was able to stand with the group. There were few dry eyes in the house.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bdegar/28813565983/in/dateposted-public
During the years from 1939-1944, Beckett shares his life with Suzanne. Suzanne observes his distractable nature, and his failure to be productive. It is Suzanne who provides an anchor for him after Joyce leaves Paris, someone who requires him to occasionally remember to be responsible to another person. When the Nazis occupy Paris, Beckett fears arrest as he has no papers. Eventually he resolves that problem, and he becomes part of the French Resistance.
Working with the Resistance, he recognizes how little worth his life as a writer has for society. Beckett's writing was continuously rejected, and for a time, he hides his inability to produce anything from Suzanne. As Baker describes here :
He stares now at the three words he has written.They are ridiculous. Writing is ridiculous. A sentence, any sentence, is absurd. Just the idea of it; jam one word up against another, shoulder-to-shoulder, jaw-to-jaw; hem them in with punctuation so they can't move an inch. And then hand that over to someone else to peer at, and expect something to be communicated, something understood. It's not just pointless. It is ethically suspect.
Here is another reference to his self-questioning about writing:
And when he surfaces to a cramped hand, a crick in the neck, the sunlight shifted across the floor, a sore blink, he knows that even to have written this little is an excess, it is an overflowing, an excretion. Too many words. There are just too many words. Nobody wants them; nobody needs them. And still they keep on, keep on, keep on coming..
This is a book for those who love literary fiction, gorgeous writing, Paris, Beckett, and even Joyce. An interest in Beckett is in no ways essential, but reading this novel helped me appreciate his writing even more. Baker believes that Beckett's war time experiences transformed his writing into the sparse style we associate with Beckett. The scenes in the book when Beckett is waiting to make contact with other Resistance fighters are very redolent of scenes in Waiting for Godot. I am itching now to watch the film version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXmdTUfsfmI
and can only imagine how stunning the premier in January 1969 at the Abbey Theater with Peter O'Toole, Eamon Kelly and Donal McCann must have been:
https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/110moments/waiting-for-godot/
I probably would have remained unaware of this book if the author, Jo Baker, hadn't read at the 2016 John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh, Northern Ireland in July. When she read from this new novel about Samuel Beckett, I had assumed the topic explained her presence. It wasn't until looking at the Author's Note at the end of the book, I discovered Baker had gotten her MA in Irish Writing at Queen's University Belfast.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bdegar/29146885260/in/dateposted-public
Thursday of that week, the reading by Ciaran Carson of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in the School of English at Queens, marked the last public appearance of a writer associated with the School before its official demise. The School of English no longer exists as of the end of July, but has been disassembled with various pieces being merged into other schools at the university. To mark the (sad)occasion, all former students of the School or its summer school were invited to stand with Carson while a uilleann piper from the band Lunasa (Cillian Vallely, who is from Armagh) played a lament (it may have been this tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEWFwBpMH38&list=PLUS0VLwMCFsQkvyyBfGoSe2GDG7PnDQ6O&index=2) . Having attended a summer school at the Heaney Centre in 2009, I was able to stand with the group. There were few dry eyes in the house.