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screen_memory 's review for:
Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho
by Samuel Beckett
One of these days I will experience that revelatory sort of euphoria I have been expecting from Beckett - I know I will. However, after an aborted reading of Dream of Fair to Middling Women months ago, and an abandoned reading of Nohow On a few days ago (the third "novel" Worstward Ho is a total throwaway), I know I will have to keep searching.
The description of "closed space novels" applied to the stories hosted in this volume piqued my interest - the promise of stories told in darkness, in silence, the characters still and in repose.
With that said, Company was great. Ill Seen Ill Said was fine, but Worstward Ho put me off of finishing the volume entirely - a rarity since I often prefer to suffer through the least satisfying novels once started than give them up. However, I'm not ready to abandon Beckett yet. I know there is still great promise within his remaining works (I would have started with Molloy from the start if any bookstore in numerous states I've gone through recently stocked the damn thing).
Company, the story which opens this collection, established an expectation I feel was not met with the subsequent stories. Company is written from a single setting, a darkened room, and could be figured to have occurred over the mere passage of a few minutes. A man simply lies on his back, playing audience to a series of childhood memories, but the faint sparks of a certain curiosity flicker briefly in the darkness: are these scenes memories, or fantasies imagined to ease the dreamer's loneliness?
The description of "closed space novels" applied to the stories hosted in this volume piqued my interest - the promise of stories told in darkness, in silence, the characters still and in repose.
With that said, Company was great. Ill Seen Ill Said was fine, but Worstward Ho put me off of finishing the volume entirely - a rarity since I often prefer to suffer through the least satisfying novels once started than give them up. However, I'm not ready to abandon Beckett yet. I know there is still great promise within his remaining works (I would have started with Molloy from the start if any bookstore in numerous states I've gone through recently stocked the damn thing).
Company, the story which opens this collection, established an expectation I feel was not met with the subsequent stories. Company is written from a single setting, a darkened room, and could be figured to have occurred over the mere passage of a few minutes. A man simply lies on his back, playing audience to a series of childhood memories, but the faint sparks of a certain curiosity flicker briefly in the darkness: are these scenes memories, or fantasies imagined to ease the dreamer's loneliness?