… Echo’s Bones … “plot,” is simple yet convoluted. Belacqua comes back to life, or awakens to realize that he was never exactly dead, perched on a fence smoking Romeo y Julieta cigars. He converses, in the desultory, mock-learned fashion of Irish folklore, with bizarre creatures such as the huge living-yet-impotent Lord Gall of Wormwood, who incites the dead-yet-fecund Belacqua to impregnate his wife. Belacqua also holds a rambling conversation with a flirtatious prostitute named Zabarovna Privet, to whom he remarks, in typical gnomic style, “Alas, Gnaeni, the pranic bleb, is far from being a mandrake. His leprechaun lets him out about this time every Sunday.” With appropriate finality, he meets Doyle, the groundskeeper and gravedigger who appeared anonymously in “Draff,” the final story in Pricks.
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
In the beginning …
… Samuel Beckett, the Early Years | Boston Review.
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ReplyDeleteFrank, I must tell you a brief Samuel Beckett story: When I was finishing my BA as a drama major, my senior thesis project included directing a production of Waiting for Godot. Full of youthful innocence and chutzpah, I wrote a letter to Mr. Beckett, inviting him to the performance. Believe it or not, he answered my invitation by sending a wonderful, handwritten note. He graciously said he could not attend our production but wished us well. That note, of course, became a treasured keepsake -- until a few years later when failed relationship prompted the offended women to destroy my keepsake. Sad . . . sad . . . sad . . . Now, years later, I think there must be some strange ironic connection between Waiting for Godot, the beautiful note from the author, and the vicious fury of an ill-tempered woman -- almost as if it had been scripted by Beckett; perhaps if I live long enough, I will fathom that irony. The letter is gone. The memory lives forever. Thank you, Mr. Beckett
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