Somehow, merely seeing Beckett - possibly - and not actually meeting him, seems so appropriately Beckettian.
What Boylan's French teacher of Happy Days is problematic:
A woman sinks slowly into the earth while reciting the inanities of her everyday life … c’est magnifique! Does anyone understand as well as Beckett does the banality of tragedy and the tragedy of banality? This woman, she could be my wife: the eternal optimist despite all the evidence. Non, mais non, c’est magnifique.
Just this morning I read The Catchphrase of the Decade by Ron Rosenbaum, in which mention is made of Hannah Arendt's lamentable formulation, "the banality of evil." Evil, whatever else it may be, is never banal, though the doer of it may be, and usually is. In reality, great criminals are unlikely to be grand Mephistophelean figures. As likely as not, they will turn out to be simply creeps (like Hitler or Goebbels or Himmler) or vulgarians (like Goering). In the same way, tragedy - genuine tragedy - is never banal, Mr. Achkar notwithstanding. Nor is the banal ever tragic - though it can be pathetic.
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