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A review by larkspire
Three Novels by Samuel Beckett: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I didn't get as much out of the first two books as I did out of The Unnamable, but I appreciate that by putting them in this sequence, Beckett is gradually dissolving the idea of the novel: Both protagonists in Molloy go on journeys; the first half just about has a plot, and the second half does for sure, but neither goes in the direction that every other story (okay, outside of Beckett's fellow modernists) primes us to expect and both are ultimately pointless. Malone is immobile, but experiences something like a sequence of events outside of the meandering and pointless stories he tells; he describes other characters to us, but we can never be sure whether any of them are "real" in the world around him, rather than yet more stories.
And I've never read anything like The Unnamable (maybe that's just showing that I've never read Pynchon, or any Joyce past Dubliners). It might just be Beckett's masterpiece; I don't even know how to describe it except with phrases that don't do it justice, like "plotless antinovel" and "existential grappling". Which is kind of fitting given that the futility/absurdity of language and meaning is so central to it. (I bet Beckett would have loved Godard's 3D movie, Goodbye to Language, which basically gives movies the same treatment that Beckett gave novels).
For some reason I thought that this trilogy was written decades after Waiting for Godot and was surprised to see so much of it in The Unnamable, but it turns out that Godot was written immediately before it. Although they're quite different superficially (the play at least has a plot, despite what its critics said), they touch on many of the same things. If you like Godot and haven't read The Unnamable, it'll definitely be worthwhile for you to do so - although you'll get even more out of it if you can push through the earlier two books first (and while we're at it, I often found myself wishing I'd read Murphy before embarking on this endeavour).
All three of these books were exhausting. The Unnamable, at least, is also enriching.
And I've never read anything like The Unnamable (maybe that's just showing that I've never read Pynchon, or any Joyce past Dubliners). It might just be Beckett's masterpiece; I don't even know how to describe it except with phrases that don't do it justice, like "plotless antinovel" and "existential grappling". Which is kind of fitting given that the futility/absurdity of language and meaning is so central to it. (I bet Beckett would have loved Godard's 3D movie, Goodbye to Language, which basically gives movies the same treatment that Beckett gave novels).
For some reason I thought that this trilogy was written decades after Waiting for Godot and was surprised to see so much of it in The Unnamable, but it turns out that Godot was written immediately before it. Although they're quite different superficially (the play at least has a plot, despite what its critics said), they touch on many of the same things. If you like Godot and haven't read The Unnamable, it'll definitely be worthwhile for you to do so - although you'll get even more out of it if you can push through the earlier two books first (and while we're at it, I often found myself wishing I'd read Murphy before embarking on this endeavour).
All three of these books were exhausting. The Unnamable, at least, is also enriching.