Waiting for answer

>knowing Beckett's not
I don't know what to say

>>8459802
Not exactly except perhaps on the most superficial level. Superficially, not even that much. His earlier novels (Murphy, Watt, Mercier & Camier) are absurdist, somewhat picaresque novels that show a very pessimistic Schopenhauerian attitude towards life, very funny, and somewhat Joycean, actually caring about allusions and poetic prose style, but never that surrealist.

His famous Molloy trilogy is concerned with complete minimalism, taking away the dictates of characterization, plot, prose style, allusions and themes to the utmost level, having pretty much nothing happen and nothing be certain. Molloy is the concretest, funniest, and closest to his earlier novels, Malone Dies and The Unnamable seem to be monologues by dying men/a single dying man with random stories narrated by them that probably never happened.

>>8459846
Im thinking, when nothing happens, its implying the viewer/reader take part of understanding, therefore being part of the work?
Sorry noob here.

>>8459883
Basically, it takes place in the head of a character who is effectively the same throughout and whose name changes (Molloy, Moran, Malone, finally "The Unnamable" in the last one). This probably means the character is going insane and can't be sure of reality anymore, which shows up in their narration, which is very unreliable. A lot of it is describing the immediate sensations of actually writing with a pencil, or thinking about what they're gonna write. Other parts are weird stories that they claim happened to them, mostly them walking around and seeing stuff, or to someone else who is probably just them in a different form.

The last book gets so abstract nothing really even happens, it calls into question the very idea of narration itself. Here's an excerpt from it, to get an idea for yourself:

>Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time

>>8460189
Interesting. How does it fare with Antonin Artuad?
If at all?

>>8460232
Not really, to be honest (hey, found a way to get around the desu filter). Artaud is more politically motivated and obsessed with shocking the reader. Beckett is just writing about what he perceives of as the intrinsic despair of life, a despair that inspires both dark humor and compassion

I think you should definitely try Watt or Molloy though, my personal favorites and very fun, better than his other works in my opinion.

>>8460240
Is Watt or Molloy a good start for someone who is completely new to his work? Or should I start with one of the plays?

>>8460564
Molloy is fine. Watt too but it might be a problem if you're not fluent in English.