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Echo's Bones
'Echo's Bones' was intended by Samuel Beckett to form the 'recessional' or end-piece of his early collection of interrelated stories, More Pricks Than Kicks, published in 1934. The story was written at the request of the publisher, but was held back from inclusion in the published volume. 'Echo's Bones' has remained unpublished to this day, and the present edition will situate the work in terms of its biographical context, its Joycean influences, and as a vital link in the evolution of Beckett's early work.
The editor, Mark Nixon, is director of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading.
The editor, Mark Nixon, is director of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1933
26 people are currently reading
445 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Beckett
914 books6,545 followersNovels of Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish writer, include
Murphy
in 1938 and
Malone Dies
in 1951; a wider audience know his absurdist plays, such as
Waiting for Godot
in 1952 and
Krapp's Last Tape
in 1959, and he won the Nobel Prize of 1969 for literature.
Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.
People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.
People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".
In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.
Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.
People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.
People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".
In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
November 14, 2015
Having a particularly awful week I wandered around our local bookstore to try and find something to lift my spirits. My brother was meandering by the new books section, and suddenly pulled a gorgeous black and white book from the shelves and showed it to me; it was Samuel Beckett's "Echo's Bones". I immediately snatched it from his hands and read the flaps, then proceeded to the register where I bought it without any further delay.
There are a few things to say about this book at the onset, for those who are curious about procuring a copy for themselves; it is a short book, 137 pages including the introduction, notes and bibliography. The story itself takes up only 51 of those pages, while another 60 or so equals the annotations. Also included are transcripts of the correspondence of the publisher to Beckett about the short story collection "More Pricks Than Kicks" for which "Echo's Bones" was written to be a concluding piece. The story behind that is that the publisher thought the original manuscript was too short and asked for an additional story, so Beckett wrote "Echo's Bones" but it was rejected as too confusing, and too disturbing, and so left out of the edition, and unpublished until now.
I have not read "More Pricks Than Kicks" but did not find that to be debilitating to my understanding of the story at all. The introduction covers quite a few of the through-lines, repeated characters, their significance to Belacqua (the main character). I do plan on reading the other stories now, to get a more complete and enriched depiction of "Echo's Bones", and also to see the whole, complete image (I'll also need to read Dreams, which More Pricks Than Kicks was born from) but I do not think it is something that has to be taken into consideration completely when approaching this work, because from what the introduction explains, "Echo's Bones" is not written in the same style of the other stories in "More Pricks Than Kicks". It seems that, now knowing his publication was secured, Beckett returned to his more preferred style of writing (at that time) for the requested final story.
So what is the story? It is a complicated question. I would argue, rather, that it is not a story at all. It is more of a series of contemplations around the themes of birth and rebirth, and these show up in many different incarnations. In the beginning of the story we find Belacqua, who is dead, and somehow still alive (a revenant, as he is referred to as). He is a character of inaction, and so is found sitting on a fence with no desire to move (his namesake is a character in The Divine Comedy who refuses to leave purgatory). He is approached by an inversion of the Mary character of the story of Jesus' resurrection, and as she tries to seduce him we are exposed to many different tableaux of birth; we see the promises of children in the tears of her eyes, as well as families that wander through the scene, a cow aborts its child and expires, death claiming both mother and child. Belacqua even considers himself to be a birth (or born twice), his first life, now his afterlife, neither of which he asked for, both of which he finds himself forced to endure. Legacy in the form of ancestors and children and ghosts is the topic of this piece, and while we encounter people who are desperate to leave behind some trace of themselves to secure their places in this world, or to relieve some bizarre quandary, Belacqua finds himself alone in being the one unwilling to accept his own birth, and struggling to keep himself from being responsible for the lives of any other being.
The story's title comes from the story of Echo and Narcissus, where in the end all that is left of Echo is her voice and her bones, which have degenerated into stones. Belacqua must face his own ephemeral nature, and while he never fights to prolong his existance, he does nothing to prevent its expiration either. Soon the dawn begins to rise, and like Hamlet's Ghost, Belacqua's time draws closer to its end.
This story is written in one of my favorite styles, and that is that of composing a piece around scattered pieces of quotes and information, placed together to support a certain number of themes, and to create more of a pondering on a subject than any telling of a tale. It's very James Joycian, very like T.S. Eliot (both of whom he references in the story). What I have done in reading this book is, first, I read the story as a whole, to take it in a pure and flowing form, then I read it a second time with my fingers stuck in the notes, and having all of the information and references divulged to me (which took some time, but was very much worth it). Now I am going to go back through and read it a third time, with all of these things (or as many as I can remember) in mind, to help heighten my understanding of the piece as a complete whole. This is definitely a book to be taken slowly. If you're looking to read something to relax to, this might not be it, unless you find studying relaxing (which, in this case, I did find it rather meditative).
I do want to mention, of course, that this story is (of course) terribly funny, in all the most morbid of ways (would you expect anything else from Beckett?). The sexual innuendos are so brilliantly pulled off that one cannot help but applaud the distinguished way in which he turns a phrase about some of the most explicit things. If you are offended by lewd behavior, be warned; this book has copious amounts of it. Some other laughs come from the story breaking the fourth wall and commenting on the unreasonable conditions of both its characters and itself (perhaps this story didn't want to be born either!).
All in all I have to say I loved it. This, in my opinion, is exactly what literature should be; intelligent, delicate, heart-breakingly honest, and executed with a supernal knowledge of language. I would actually recommend this as a good starting place for someone who is new to Beckett, as it comes with all the explanations, right there inside the book!
I hope this review helped illuminate a little about the story.
There are a few things to say about this book at the onset, for those who are curious about procuring a copy for themselves; it is a short book, 137 pages including the introduction, notes and bibliography. The story itself takes up only 51 of those pages, while another 60 or so equals the annotations. Also included are transcripts of the correspondence of the publisher to Beckett about the short story collection "More Pricks Than Kicks" for which "Echo's Bones" was written to be a concluding piece. The story behind that is that the publisher thought the original manuscript was too short and asked for an additional story, so Beckett wrote "Echo's Bones" but it was rejected as too confusing, and too disturbing, and so left out of the edition, and unpublished until now.
I have not read "More Pricks Than Kicks" but did not find that to be debilitating to my understanding of the story at all. The introduction covers quite a few of the through-lines, repeated characters, their significance to Belacqua (the main character). I do plan on reading the other stories now, to get a more complete and enriched depiction of "Echo's Bones", and also to see the whole, complete image (I'll also need to read Dreams, which More Pricks Than Kicks was born from) but I do not think it is something that has to be taken into consideration completely when approaching this work, because from what the introduction explains, "Echo's Bones" is not written in the same style of the other stories in "More Pricks Than Kicks". It seems that, now knowing his publication was secured, Beckett returned to his more preferred style of writing (at that time) for the requested final story.
So what is the story? It is a complicated question. I would argue, rather, that it is not a story at all. It is more of a series of contemplations around the themes of birth and rebirth, and these show up in many different incarnations. In the beginning of the story we find Belacqua, who is dead, and somehow still alive (a revenant, as he is referred to as). He is a character of inaction, and so is found sitting on a fence with no desire to move (his namesake is a character in The Divine Comedy who refuses to leave purgatory). He is approached by an inversion of the Mary character of the story of Jesus' resurrection, and as she tries to seduce him we are exposed to many different tableaux of birth; we see the promises of children in the tears of her eyes, as well as families that wander through the scene, a cow aborts its child and expires, death claiming both mother and child. Belacqua even considers himself to be a birth (or born twice), his first life, now his afterlife, neither of which he asked for, both of which he finds himself forced to endure. Legacy in the form of ancestors and children and ghosts is the topic of this piece, and while we encounter people who are desperate to leave behind some trace of themselves to secure their places in this world, or to relieve some bizarre quandary, Belacqua finds himself alone in being the one unwilling to accept his own birth, and struggling to keep himself from being responsible for the lives of any other being.
The story's title comes from the story of Echo and Narcissus, where in the end all that is left of Echo is her voice and her bones, which have degenerated into stones. Belacqua must face his own ephemeral nature, and while he never fights to prolong his existance, he does nothing to prevent its expiration either. Soon the dawn begins to rise, and like Hamlet's Ghost, Belacqua's time draws closer to its end.
This story is written in one of my favorite styles, and that is that of composing a piece around scattered pieces of quotes and information, placed together to support a certain number of themes, and to create more of a pondering on a subject than any telling of a tale. It's very James Joycian, very like T.S. Eliot (both of whom he references in the story). What I have done in reading this book is, first, I read the story as a whole, to take it in a pure and flowing form, then I read it a second time with my fingers stuck in the notes, and having all of the information and references divulged to me (which took some time, but was very much worth it). Now I am going to go back through and read it a third time, with all of these things (or as many as I can remember) in mind, to help heighten my understanding of the piece as a complete whole. This is definitely a book to be taken slowly. If you're looking to read something to relax to, this might not be it, unless you find studying relaxing (which, in this case, I did find it rather meditative).
I do want to mention, of course, that this story is (of course) terribly funny, in all the most morbid of ways (would you expect anything else from Beckett?). The sexual innuendos are so brilliantly pulled off that one cannot help but applaud the distinguished way in which he turns a phrase about some of the most explicit things. If you are offended by lewd behavior, be warned; this book has copious amounts of it. Some other laughs come from the story breaking the fourth wall and commenting on the unreasonable conditions of both its characters and itself (perhaps this story didn't want to be born either!).
All in all I have to say I loved it. This, in my opinion, is exactly what literature should be; intelligent, delicate, heart-breakingly honest, and executed with a supernal knowledge of language. I would actually recommend this as a good starting place for someone who is new to Beckett, as it comes with all the explanations, right there inside the book!
I hope this review helped illuminate a little about the story.
November 5, 2024
You don’t often get a chance to crowbar Morrissey into a Samuel Beckett review, but when the lyric works, as it does here (substitute Belacqua for Michael), and is performed by 3/4 of The Smiths (4/5 technically but that includes Craig Gannon whom no one includes except Craig Gannon), you just have to cash in on those great old B-sides:
“Michael’s Bones”
Michael's bones
Lay where he fell
Face down on a sports ground
Oh...
He was just somebody's luckless son
Oh, but now look what he's done
Oh, look what he's done
Your gentle hands are frozen
And your unkissed lips are blue
Your thinning clothes are hopeless
And no one was mad about you
Michael's bones
Were very young
But they were never to know
Oh...
Impetuous fun
Mr. Policeman
I don't know where you get such notions from
His gentle hands are frozen
And his unkissed lips are blue
But his eyes still cry
And now you've turned the last bend
And see—are we all judged the same at the end?
Tell me, tell me
Oh, you lucky thing
You are too brave
And I'm ashamed of myself
As usual
“Michael’s Bones”
Michael's bones
Lay where he fell
Face down on a sports ground
Oh...
He was just somebody's luckless son
Oh, but now look what he's done
Oh, look what he's done
Your gentle hands are frozen
And your unkissed lips are blue
Your thinning clothes are hopeless
And no one was mad about you
Michael's bones
Were very young
But they were never to know
Oh...
Impetuous fun
Mr. Policeman
I don't know where you get such notions from
His gentle hands are frozen
And his unkissed lips are blue
But his eyes still cry
And now you've turned the last bend
And see—are we all judged the same at the end?
Tell me, tell me
Oh, you lucky thing
You are too brave
And I'm ashamed of myself
As usual
Read
August 3, 2025My first Beckett and I had no idea what I was in for. DNF 60%. I just didn’t get it. Not an admonishment of Beckett and this brand of art. More an admission of defeat on my part.
A maximalist post modern barrage of highly specific multilingual references stitched together with opaque transitions that challenges you to keep up and makes it a point to include brief moments of gorgeous death metal. This type of art in general takes a lot of exposure for me to learn to interpret. Strikes me as being the literary equivalent of maybe Seijun Suzuki’s Taisho Trilogy (in film). Noteworthy about that trilogy is that Suzuki describes his own style as “a different kind of minimalism,” despite the saturation of visual elements in every scene. I watched it with someone who gets it and slowly came to appreciate its minimalism; I disliked it less and liked it more as I gave it space to be understood. Makes me wonder if Beckett requires something similar here. While that crass Americana in me finds it tempting to say that this sort of art just has its head up its own ass, I’ll wait until I actually understand it to consider giving into that temptation, especially for someone as highly regarded as Beckett.
The edition includes a glossary (the publisher calls them annotations) that explains all of the phrases/references. Probably helpful but I’m not in a place right now where I want to engage with fiction to the same degree that I had to for one of my old grad school textbooks.
Willing to gain some exposure and learn how to speak this story’s language. Would love to revisit later. Would love recs to help me develop more exposure in the meantime.
A maximalist post modern barrage of highly specific multilingual references stitched together with opaque transitions that challenges you to keep up and makes it a point to include brief moments of gorgeous death metal. This type of art in general takes a lot of exposure for me to learn to interpret. Strikes me as being the literary equivalent of maybe Seijun Suzuki’s Taisho Trilogy (in film). Noteworthy about that trilogy is that Suzuki describes his own style as “a different kind of minimalism,” despite the saturation of visual elements in every scene. I watched it with someone who gets it and slowly came to appreciate its minimalism; I disliked it less and liked it more as I gave it space to be understood. Makes me wonder if Beckett requires something similar here. While that crass Americana in me finds it tempting to say that this sort of art just has its head up its own ass, I’ll wait until I actually understand it to consider giving into that temptation, especially for someone as highly regarded as Beckett.
The edition includes a glossary (the publisher calls them annotations) that explains all of the phrases/references. Probably helpful but I’m not in a place right now where I want to engage with fiction to the same degree that I had to for one of my old grad school textbooks.
Willing to gain some exposure and learn how to speak this story’s language. Would love to revisit later. Would love recs to help me develop more exposure in the meantime.
December 18, 2025
Kitap 184 sayfa, asıl hikaye Echo'nun Kemikleri, 20-86 arası; 87-162 metinle ilgili notlar, 163-184 mektuplar ve kaynakça. Metni anlayabilelim diye kendinden uzun notlar düşülmüş; iyi düşülmüş de, bari numaralandırılsaymış. Nerenin arkada not olarak verildiğini bilmediğiniz için -geneli anlaşılmıyor zaten, çok fazla kinaye ve gönderme var- çevirip çevirip bakıyorsunuz.
Yorum yapmıyorum, yorumsuz bırakıyorum. Bu notlarla ilgili de ayrı bir açıklama bölümü eklenmeli kitaba, daha açıklayıcı olsun diye. Sonra bir açıklama kısmı daha eklenir!
Bir örnek(açıklanan kelimelere yıldızları ben koydum, metinde yok bu, anlamadıkça siz çevirip bakıyorsunuz)
Metinde bi paragraf -soylulara açık her tür sportif yarışmada geri kalan birinin kendimi böyle bir *ebediderte* dalkavukluk edecek kadar alçaltacağımı bir an olsun düşünebilir misin? Peh!"
Belacqua *sıçrayıp* sepetten ya da kazandan çıktı, *korkusuz* küçük dövüş horozu,...
Bunun arka sayfalarda verilen açıklama kısmı- "ebedidert": Beckett DD'ye (86) "Kartacalı Ebedidertler" diye yazmış. Bu sözcüğü Augustine'in İtiraflar'ından almıştır ve orada "ebedidertler" Kartacayı çökertmeyi amaçlayan "deviriciler" anlamındadır; Baron Extravas da aynı şekilde, Lord Gall'ı "mahvetmeyi" amaçlıyor.
"sıçrayıp... çıktı... göğüsledi": Box imgeleri.
"korkusuz": DD'deki, Lockhart'ın The History of Napoleon Bonaparte'ından (552) alınmış bir notta şu yazıyor: "Hinton, o herif sana, korkusuz lostromoya kazık attı ha" (66). Bu sözcük Beckett'in ilk yapıtının başka bir yerinde Dean Inge'nin tanımlamasıyla bağlantılandırılmış: "St Teresa: Arzuların korkusuz kızı" (DD 695); Düşler'de Alba "arzuların korkusuz kızı"dır (222), ayrıca, "Islak Bir Gece"de (Al 61) ve "Cerahat I" şiirinde "suların korkusuz Hintli dansözüne gönderme vardır.
Yorum yapmıyorum, yorumsuz bırakıyorum. Bu notlarla ilgili de ayrı bir açıklama bölümü eklenmeli kitaba, daha açıklayıcı olsun diye. Sonra bir açıklama kısmı daha eklenir!
Bir örnek(açıklanan kelimelere yıldızları ben koydum, metinde yok bu, anlamadıkça siz çevirip bakıyorsunuz)
Metinde bi paragraf -soylulara açık her tür sportif yarışmada geri kalan birinin kendimi böyle bir *ebediderte* dalkavukluk edecek kadar alçaltacağımı bir an olsun düşünebilir misin? Peh!"
Belacqua *sıçrayıp* sepetten ya da kazandan çıktı, *korkusuz* küçük dövüş horozu,...
Bunun arka sayfalarda verilen açıklama kısmı- "ebedidert": Beckett DD'ye (86) "Kartacalı Ebedidertler" diye yazmış. Bu sözcüğü Augustine'in İtiraflar'ından almıştır ve orada "ebedidertler" Kartacayı çökertmeyi amaçlayan "deviriciler" anlamındadır; Baron Extravas da aynı şekilde, Lord Gall'ı "mahvetmeyi" amaçlıyor.
"sıçrayıp... çıktı... göğüsledi": Box imgeleri.
"korkusuz": DD'deki, Lockhart'ın The History of Napoleon Bonaparte'ından (552) alınmış bir notta şu yazıyor: "Hinton, o herif sana, korkusuz lostromoya kazık attı ha" (66). Bu sözcük Beckett'in ilk yapıtının başka bir yerinde Dean Inge'nin tanımlamasıyla bağlantılandırılmış: "St Teresa: Arzuların korkusuz kızı" (DD 695); Düşler'de Alba "arzuların korkusuz kızı"dır (222), ayrıca, "Islak Bir Gece"de (Al 61) ve "Cerahat I" şiirinde "suların korkusuz Hintli dansözüne gönderme vardır.
June 5, 2014
Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Beckett’s. I’ve read (and own copies of) all his fiction, seen (and own DVDs of) all his stage page, watched all of (and have downloaded copies of most of) his TV and film output and have listened to (and own copies of) all his radio plays. Once you’ve got through all of that read Echo’s Bones. It’s not bad—Beckett does not do bad and even a bad story by Beckett is miles better that a decent story by anyone else—but it’s not his best work. It belongs to the early period where he’s finding his feet although, talking about feet, hopefully by this time he’d stopped wearing shoes that were too small for him just because that’s what Joyce wore.
If, like me, you are a fan then you may find the article on my blog helpful before you buy the book.
If, like me, you are a fan then you may find the article on my blog helpful before you buy the book.
June 29, 2015
Better than Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlets.
July 5, 2024
The story is 48 pages. Followed by 56 pages of annotations. An only somewhat tongue-in-cheek reading plan is to read it straight through and then go WTF? Read it again, this time flipping back and forth between the story and the annotations and go WTF? A more ambitious, but also perhaps an easier approach, is to photocopy the annotation pages, number the annotations, then read the story again and highlight the passages that have an annotation (don't forget to number the highlighted passages so they are sync'd with the annotations; seriously, you don't want to have to do this again). Not saying this method vacates the WTF, probably only changes it to FU Beckett. Maybe it helps to know that this was intended as a final story for the More Pricks Than Kicks collection, however, Beckett had killed off Belacqua in an earlier story, so he's dead in this one. Can't remember, did Harold Bloom have Joyce as Beckett's anxious influence?
August 24, 2024
Şiirlerden pek bir şey anladığımı söylemem çok zor..
Elbette ki bu eserden pek hoşlanmadığım da anlaşılacaktır..
Felsefi yanı ağır olan Beckett'in şiir kitabı diye okuma istedim ama azıcık pişman oldum..
Yarım bırakmak istemediğim için bitirdim..
Elbette ki bu eserden pek hoşlanmadığım da anlaşılacaktır..
Felsefi yanı ağır olan Beckett'in şiir kitabı diye okuma istedim ama azıcık pişman oldum..
Yarım bırakmak istemediğim için bitirdim..
September 2, 2023
echo's bones more like echo's boner
January 2, 2017
"tekrar söylüyorum
öğretmezsen öğrenemem
tekrar söylüyorum bir son var
son defanın bile sonu
yalvarmanın son seferi
sevmenin son seferi
rol yapmayı bilmemeyi bilmenin
söylemenin son seferinin bile bir sonu var
beni sevmezsen sevilemem
seni sevmezsem sevemem"
Harika bulduğum dizeler olduğu gibi Whorescope'u son derece itici buldum.
öğretmezsen öğrenemem
tekrar söylüyorum bir son var
son defanın bile sonu
yalvarmanın son seferi
sevmenin son seferi
rol yapmayı bilmemeyi bilmenin
söylemenin son seferinin bile bir sonu var
beni sevmezsen sevilemem
seni sevmezsem sevemem"
Harika bulduğum dizeler olduğu gibi Whorescope'u son derece itici buldum.
April 4, 2018
ta, it's Beckett! having just read "More Kicks Than Pricks" i had to read this one next... the Introduction spells out the details of how this story came to pass and why it was excluded from "MKTP", and unpublished until 1992 (and how does a university in Texas have one of the two original manuscripts?!?!? fecking hell!)... "It is a nightmare. Just too terribly persuasive. It gives me the jim-jams." - when this is your publisher's reply to the story HE requested (reply printed in full in the Intro of the book...) it stands to reason your story is getting held back... remember, it's 1933... early Beckett is such a different beast from later Beckett, though he still fills the text with references/quotes in other languages whilst not yet utilizing his minimalist, concise, repetitive writing style... this book is full of info outside/surrounding the story itself, which is on or about 40 pages in length... great stuff and well worth following up on, either while reading or afterwards... brought to mind Yellow Submarine or Monty Python is its absurd bits, and my fave was the back-and-forth, up-and-around with Doyle to close it out... not the best intro to Beckett (odd, as it is his some of his earliest work and likely "more accessible", as they say), but maybe safer than his later stuff, which i find fascinating but can really turn off people unfamiliar with his style...
Read
April 24, 2022(Part of my current project of reading everything Beckett published in precise chronological order.)
Beckett's final Belacqua story. He wrote it when the publisher of More Pricks than Kicks requested another story to add to the slim volume. However, to Beckett's disappointment, the publisher rejected it, saying (with profuse apologies) that "people will shudder and be puzzled and confused; and they won’t be keen on analysing the shudder".
Thus ended Beckett's Belacqua period, with something of a sputter. The prospect of Belacqua in the underworld was highly intriguing going into this, especially given the origins of the character as the namesake of one of the inhabitants of Dante's purgatory. And, its beginning is outstanding. However, as with many of Beckett's stories of this period, so much of the writing seems more keen on flashing Beckett's erudition than on telling an interesting story. The ingredients are there, but it's as if Beckett, despite his no doubt strenuous efforts, is hiding a deep insecurity about himself as a writer behind a wall of verbal cleverness.
Beckett's final Belacqua story. He wrote it when the publisher of More Pricks than Kicks requested another story to add to the slim volume. However, to Beckett's disappointment, the publisher rejected it, saying (with profuse apologies) that "people will shudder and be puzzled and confused; and they won’t be keen on analysing the shudder".
Thus ended Beckett's Belacqua period, with something of a sputter. The prospect of Belacqua in the underworld was highly intriguing going into this, especially given the origins of the character as the namesake of one of the inhabitants of Dante's purgatory. And, its beginning is outstanding. However, as with many of Beckett's stories of this period, so much of the writing seems more keen on flashing Beckett's erudition than on telling an interesting story. The ingredients are there, but it's as if Beckett, despite his no doubt strenuous efforts, is hiding a deep insecurity about himself as a writer behind a wall of verbal cleverness.
October 29, 2019
Lehetne akár az Ulysses epilógja is – mondjuk Stephen Dedalus meghal, és a purgatóriumba kerül. (Csak éppen nem Dedalusnak hívják, hanem Belacquá-nak.) Sikamlós nyelvi trip az ifjú Beckett-től, játék (sok egyéb mellett) Dante Poklá-val, amit kifordítunk-befordítunk, amíg az olvasó azt se tudja, hány lába van. (És kinek.) Ménkű sok magasirodalmi utalást tartalmaz, de én elhatároztam, hogy juszt se fogok hátralapozni a függelékhez – ha valamit nem értek, és ettől csökken az élmény, hát így jártunk (én meg a könyv), majd jól lecsillagozom. A jó hír az (nekem és Beckettnek, de a lehúzós irományokra szomjúhozóknak nem), hogy így is élveztem. Nem mindig értettem, de még az is jó volt. Határozottan öncélúbb, mint az Ulysses, ám ettől függetlenül merem ajánlani azoknak, akik szívesen eldobnák a hajukat valami extrém irodalmi sületlenségtől, de 600 oldal Joyce-hoz azért nem érzik magukat elég elvetemültnek.
May 3, 2020
A book I would have devoured when and if I was still in grad school. It's a manuscript studies gold mine.
August 31, 2024
Inkluderer en fin liste som forklarer alle referansene bare Beckett tar. Denne er lengre enn selve boka.
May 26, 2014
I found it essential (after attempting and failing to get to grips with this new story) to re-read all of More Pricks Than Kicks, for which this was proposed as a final story. I had forgotten much of that book after so many years - my 1983 paperback was worn and shabby next to this beautifully produced, slim, and over priced volume. Having accomplished that pleasant task, however, the new story was entirely readable.
I have no idea why it was rejected and hidden for so long. It is hard to keep in mind how radical this writing was in 1934. It is quite unlike the other stories, far more surreal and disjointed. But having said that, the other stories are quite unlike each other. The publishers could have saved me a fair sum had they inserted this final story in their original volume and stopped fussing.
The author, intruding in the story, refers to this as the "fagpiece" and "a little triptych." At 51 pages though it is quite substantial and a serious task to read through because it makes few concessions to plot. Happily, it makes lots of concessions to humour and the joys of wordplay. " A quantity of phrases presented themselves to Zaborovna, who thus to her annoyance found herself faced with the alternative of saying nothing or preferring one."
The volume offers copious notes at the back, covering as many pages as the story itself. I saw no point referring to them while I read the story because it is not terribly important to me to know what every word ought to mean but, disappointed to reach the end and have no more, I took some pleasure in reading through the notes for their own sake. It is curious to see the books Beckett was reading and that influenced him. I sometimes sympathise and think we have a far more interesting range available to us today. He might have enjoyed Goodreads.
On the whole, I think that Beckett fans will want to snatch this book from the shelves, but before too long it makes far more sense to produce a complete version of More Kicks than Pricks and place this story where it belongs. I fail to see who would want to read it out of context or make head-or-tail of it if they did.
I have no idea why it was rejected and hidden for so long. It is hard to keep in mind how radical this writing was in 1934. It is quite unlike the other stories, far more surreal and disjointed. But having said that, the other stories are quite unlike each other. The publishers could have saved me a fair sum had they inserted this final story in their original volume and stopped fussing.
The author, intruding in the story, refers to this as the "fagpiece" and "a little triptych." At 51 pages though it is quite substantial and a serious task to read through because it makes few concessions to plot. Happily, it makes lots of concessions to humour and the joys of wordplay. " A quantity of phrases presented themselves to Zaborovna, who thus to her annoyance found herself faced with the alternative of saying nothing or preferring one."
The volume offers copious notes at the back, covering as many pages as the story itself. I saw no point referring to them while I read the story because it is not terribly important to me to know what every word ought to mean but, disappointed to reach the end and have no more, I took some pleasure in reading through the notes for their own sake. It is curious to see the books Beckett was reading and that influenced him. I sometimes sympathise and think we have a far more interesting range available to us today. He might have enjoyed Goodreads.
On the whole, I think that Beckett fans will want to snatch this book from the shelves, but before too long it makes far more sense to produce a complete version of More Kicks than Pricks and place this story where it belongs. I fail to see who would want to read it out of context or make head-or-tail of it if they did.
April 14, 2014
One always approaches this kind of thing with trepidation. It is a transitional work. It is firmly under the shadow of Joyce. It is wonderful.
July 9, 2018
I kinda loved this weird missing link between the sorta Joycean but with more dark humor and puns early Beckett and the later, minimalist I-write-in-French-so-as-to-eschew-style Beckett with which we are much more familiar.
As the copious introduction will no doubt inform you, this 51-page text was written at the request of Chatto and Windus to "flesh-out" the already patched-together collection of tales, More Pricks than Kicks which, in its turn, was partly culled from the aborted (well, unpublished) first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women. Recoiling in horror from this tripartite romp of posthumous ranting from the collection's reoccurring protagonist Belacqua Shua, the editor allowed this poor tale to languish unpublished until Faber came out with this spiffy hardcover edition in 2014, fleshed out into a book in its own right with the aforementioned historical and critical introduction and the laughably copious notes.
Taken the right way, with a boulder of salt--I even have to wonder if Beckett didn't specifically write it to offend and challenge said editor--it's quite a crazy lark showing just how clueless, free, and without concern for his audience a great writer can be. If you've read Beckett's early verse, which is similarly dense with literary referents (almost all rendered absurd through pun and wordplay--not to mention dirty jokes and nihilism), then you'll have a leg up on the style here. Crazy, funny, off putting and peppered with the words of literary giants brought to their knees via fart jokes. In sum, it's more or less the end of Western Civilization in 51 pages.
Good riddance!
As the copious introduction will no doubt inform you, this 51-page text was written at the request of Chatto and Windus to "flesh-out" the already patched-together collection of tales, More Pricks than Kicks which, in its turn, was partly culled from the aborted (well, unpublished) first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women. Recoiling in horror from this tripartite romp of posthumous ranting from the collection's reoccurring protagonist Belacqua Shua, the editor allowed this poor tale to languish unpublished until Faber came out with this spiffy hardcover edition in 2014, fleshed out into a book in its own right with the aforementioned historical and critical introduction and the laughably copious notes.
Taken the right way, with a boulder of salt--I even have to wonder if Beckett didn't specifically write it to offend and challenge said editor--it's quite a crazy lark showing just how clueless, free, and without concern for his audience a great writer can be. If you've read Beckett's early verse, which is similarly dense with literary referents (almost all rendered absurd through pun and wordplay--not to mention dirty jokes and nihilism), then you'll have a leg up on the style here. Crazy, funny, off putting and peppered with the words of literary giants brought to their knees via fart jokes. In sum, it's more or less the end of Western Civilization in 51 pages.
Good riddance!
March 11, 2022
This was my first time reading Samuel Beckett. This is one of Beckett’s earliest works.
Echo’s Bones is easily forgettable, and this is mostly due to the fact that it is a short story with what seems to be extemporaneous changes in its storyline. The main character, Belacqua, is brought back to life. Or perhaps, he lives amongst the dead! The atmosphere in the first couple of pages suggests he’s living amongst the dead.
He is approached by a prostitute, or so I thought until I looked up the name of the said prostitute, who may very well be a subtle metaphor for a fence. He is then approached by a Lord who is desiring for a male heir and wants Belacqua’s help. He then goes back to his grave, with a bloke called Doyle meddling around it.
His interactions with a few other characters in the story don’t go deep enough for me to have a ‘feel’ for the characters. Perhaps Beckett’s style of writing in Echo’s Bones isn’t appealing to my brain? We shall come back to this. Though I have to say, I found Echo’s Bones subtly dark.
Echo’s Bones was written to be included in More Pricks Than Kicks, a collection of short stories by Beckett, though it was excluded on the advice of the publisher. Based on what I’ve read, Belacqua is featured in most stories in the collection. I reckon reading More Pricks Than Kicks before Echo’s Bones would result in Echo’s Bones being more satisfying to read. Giving this another go in the future once I’ve read Beckett’s other works.
Echo’s Bones is easily forgettable, and this is mostly due to the fact that it is a short story with what seems to be extemporaneous changes in its storyline. The main character, Belacqua, is brought back to life. Or perhaps, he lives amongst the dead! The atmosphere in the first couple of pages suggests he’s living amongst the dead.
He is approached by a prostitute, or so I thought until I looked up the name of the said prostitute, who may very well be a subtle metaphor for a fence. He is then approached by a Lord who is desiring for a male heir and wants Belacqua’s help. He then goes back to his grave, with a bloke called Doyle meddling around it.
His interactions with a few other characters in the story don’t go deep enough for me to have a ‘feel’ for the characters. Perhaps Beckett’s style of writing in Echo’s Bones isn’t appealing to my brain? We shall come back to this. Though I have to say, I found Echo’s Bones subtly dark.
Echo’s Bones was written to be included in More Pricks Than Kicks, a collection of short stories by Beckett, though it was excluded on the advice of the publisher. Based on what I’ve read, Belacqua is featured in most stories in the collection. I reckon reading More Pricks Than Kicks before Echo’s Bones would result in Echo’s Bones being more satisfying to read. Giving this another go in the future once I’ve read Beckett’s other works.
January 8, 2018
When Becket's story collection "More Pricks than Kicks" was accepted for publication, he was asked to add one more story to fill out the page count. He wrote this story, and it was rejected, so the book was published without it. The ten stories of More Pricks all center on Belacqua, one of Beckett's memorable leading figures, and ends with his death. Rather than add a filler story in the middle of the collection, Beckett used this story to tell three stages of Belacqua's afterlife, including meeting a giant and sitting on his own tombstone while talking to a man who was robbing his grave. For sure, the story is strange, and one could argue it plays as an odd end to Belacqua's story. I found this story fascinating and, considering Beckett's love of Dante, it was fitting. An excellent little book.
July 26, 2023
‘It was high time for a pause to ensue and a long one did.’ p. 6
'That's a sensible cadaver' p. 11
‘Sedendo et quiescendo, yes, who said that? I came, I sat down, I went away, was that the ending end of all earthly sagacity, the cream, the quintessence and the upshot, or was it not? Little wealth, ill health and a life by stealth.’ p. 19
‘'In virtue of the cruel rule that the image runs with the shadow, I am now precluded from looking into my eyes. I, Belacqua Shuah, Master of Arts, who spent my life between a bottle and a mirror, can no longer admire the front of my face. Yet I don't make a song about it. I put up with it.” p. 25
‘Hungry dogs eat dirty puddings.' p. 32
'Shall we chafe' inquired Belacqua 'that our age is that of a fly? Or a cock? Is there more God in an elephant than in an oyster?' p. 32
'That's a sensible cadaver' p. 11
‘Sedendo et quiescendo, yes, who said that? I came, I sat down, I went away, was that the ending end of all earthly sagacity, the cream, the quintessence and the upshot, or was it not? Little wealth, ill health and a life by stealth.’ p. 19
‘'In virtue of the cruel rule that the image runs with the shadow, I am now precluded from looking into my eyes. I, Belacqua Shuah, Master of Arts, who spent my life between a bottle and a mirror, can no longer admire the front of my face. Yet I don't make a song about it. I put up with it.” p. 25
‘Hungry dogs eat dirty puddings.' p. 32
'Shall we chafe' inquired Belacqua 'that our age is that of a fly? Or a cock? Is there more God in an elephant than in an oyster?' p. 32
April 4, 2022
Joyce is great at being Joyce, Beckett is great at being Beckett, Beckett is not that great at being Joyce — but he had to dig that tunnel and escape through the collapsing torrent of muddy words. A riot of erudite references and thievings — funny, boring, surprising, maddening, suffocating by turns. The notes themselves are a mad education and run to more pages than the story. Never forget that Chatto & Windus pressed Beckett for one more story to flesh out More Pricks Than Kicks. He eventually sent them this outrageous fable, which was rejected because it “would depress the sales very considerably”. For 80 years it lay in Belacqua’s grave. It stinks of the grave — and of Hamlet’s gravedigger — hilariously.
March 29, 2024
Sweet and young Beckett, who I though will be too much of Joyce's Wake and too hoewordish over my limited English with its transformed English, did well and dropped some poison into my heart. The story is taking place somewhere in between wastelands of noone that will be mostly mute and barren later on, now are still flourishing with word-flowers growing from numerous happy dead bodies and get their modernistic make-up, which is very Joycean (in a sense of life-no-matter-what-through-words-that-are-borrowed) and at the exact same time very Beckettian already. This short novella paints this departure from wordiness and life into territories that only Beckett and his ghosts (yet quite surprisingly alive and joking) will occupy later on.
July 20, 2022
As is the case with Beckett's early fiction, his narrative voice is pretty unstable and erratic, at times trying to emulate Joyce in his erudition, and at others dipping into colloquialisms and shaggy-dog story diction. This seems a kind of bridge between 'Dream of Fair to Middling Women' and 'More Pricks Than Kicks' in this sense, existing in a sort of limbo just as Belacqua drifts between the living and the dead. Some fantastic lines and images here that can still be observed as echos (no pun intended) across Beckett's career. Closer to a 3.5/5, but definitely worth reading as a fan of Beckett.
January 28, 2025
‘The dead die hard, they are trespassers on the beyond, they must take the place as they find it.’ So begins Samuel Beckett’s Echo’s Bones, a short story about the afterlife, first written in 1934 and unpublished for eighty years. From the fence where its protagonist Belacqua finds himself at the beginning to the empty grave of its ending, the story is bleak and bleakly funny, filled with clever jokes and dense intertextual references, its obscurity a wonderful Hamlet-permeated metaphor for death and all its dark uncertainty, stitched together in the way only Beckett has, Irish and Modernist and grim.
December 19, 2018
Unusual. Things written in this style always beg the question, "Is the emperor truly naked, or am I missing something?" The story is told with great mastery if English and a deep, broad vocabulary. Interesting and one I need to keep a dictionary nearby to read. Is it a short story? Is it something else entirely? As is true of many examples of modern art, this piece is for the very well read, the very well educated and those who are bored with the ordinary. It's a lovely book and I am enjoying reading it. Is it important art? I dunno, it might be bullshit...
December 28, 2017
"Echo's Bones" is a short story published only nearly 80 years after it was first written. It was initially rejected for being a "nightmare" and "too disturbing". I loved it. Beckett is just the usual genius that writes magistrally a story/non story about birth and rebirth (in a resurrection kind of way), with references to T.S. Eliot and Joyce, as well as the story of Echo and Narcissus from which the title comes from.
July 8, 2021
Intertextualitás soronként, indokolatlan művészkedés, utalgatások 2000 év irodalmára, élvezhetetlen formaiság és történetvezetés. Ez nem egy novella, sokkal inkább egy büntetési tétel a pénzbírság és a letöltendő börtön között. Csak azért nem adtam fél csillagot egy helyett, mert mégis Beckettről beszélünk – végigkínlódtam, és felet csak az érdemel, akit leraktam menet közben (kevesen vannak nagyon).
July 5, 2022
A 30 page tale about More Pricks Than Kicks' protagonist continuing on in the world after his death; he has a saucy quip exchange with an ethereal harlot then meets up with some faerie tale characters for further silly conversations. Appended is a lengthy series of explanatory notes derived from Beckett's notebooks at the time, revealing that all these early stories are constructed almost entirely from borrowed quotations and paraphrases. All-gaelige fun.
January 17, 2017
It wouldn't be fair to rate this any lower due my lack of knowledge, but this book has proved to be a tremendous challenge, even more so than The Sound and The Fury, A Clockwork Orange, though I have yet to read Ulysses.
Plus this is my first contact with Beckett's work, and I'd like to read more of his, any pointers for this newbie?
Plus this is my first contact with Beckett's work, and I'd like to read more of his, any pointers for this newbie?
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