Samuel Beckett: Anatomy of a Literary Revolution

by Pascale Casanova, Gregory Elliott (Translator), Terry Eagleton (Introduction)

In this fascinating new exploration of Samuel Beckett’s work, Pascale Casanova argues that Beckett’s reputation rests on a pervasive misreading of his oeuvre, which neglects entirely the literary revolution he instigated. Reintroducing the historical into the heart of this body of work, Casanova provides an arresting portrait of Beckett as radically subversive—doing for writing what Kandinsky did for art—and in the process presents the key to some of the most profound enigmas of Beckett’s writing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

119 pages, Hardcover

First published January 19, 2007

About the author

Pascale Casanova was a French literary critic. She was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Casanova's missions in this book is to overturn Blanchot's critical canonizing of Becket as ontological, existentialist, and beyond aesthetics. She begins in chapter 1: Ars Combinatoria with a superb close reading of Beckett's Worstword Ho that describes in detail his aesthetic goals and techniques before concluding that "the equation stated and solved by Worstword Ho therefore provides (strict) irrefutable prof of a formidable formal ambition, without precedent in the history of literature, of a logical, combinatory option in the service of a new literary form." (26) With chapters 2 and 3 Casanova uses a historical approach to show the genesis and necessity of Beckett's approach as he endeavored to overcome--in Harold Bloom's term--his strong precursors of Yeats and Joyce. In chapter 4 Casanova expands upon her argument establishing Beckett's aesthetic revolution, stating that Beckett's goal and achievement was to do for literature what had already been done in art and music. Thus Beckett takes out all the traditional underpinnings of literature--the subject, memory, imagination, narration, character, psychology, space and time--to settle on texts that are wholly self-sufficient, referring and depending only on themselves. Casanova's book describes how and why Beckett went to that level of abstraction, which makes it an essential book to any Beckett studies.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

ill be honest i only understood about half of this

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pascale Casanova is a historical formalist, a reader acutely tuned to the philosophical, biographical, and literary lines of thought that run through her objects of study. It is no surprise, then, to see her skewer the existential and absurdist interpretations offered by critics as various as Maurice Blanchot and Martin Esslin. Even less surprising is that she overplays her hand in pursuit of such difference and, if she is characteristically overconfident – a trait shared by The World Republic of Letters – her writing isn't so much flawed by it as is her writerly voice made singular and interesting. All in all there's much of great value here.

[Andrew Pitkin]

Casanova purports to write a book that argues that all criticism on Beckett has been a misunderstanding of his oeuvre, a failure to read his significant project for what it actually accomplished. Terry Eagleton begins his introduction by offering politically-infused readings of Beckett - cute, and somewhat useful, though out of place for Samuel Beckett, who, while having aspects of his literature that could be construed as Political, was more fundamentally a humanist who wanted to touch the spirit of humanity in all its aspects in a way transcending the political.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beckett and the reverse engineering of the English language!

To give away his style. And yet, since few are aware of how important he is, maybe we should be deconstructing the brush strokes of the pen. And sort out the motivations of writers like him and James Joyce having their little literary revolution while Ireland rudely finds its independence.

[Ale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could be that the book discussed things far more advanced than my current understanding of critical theory, Beckett's "oeuvre" and life in general. That being said, it could also just be an atrocious read, lacking in clarity and direction. It sucked the joy of reading out of me. I couldn't even finish the last chapter. When I picked this up, I had certain expectations of lucidity and drive based on the title. I did not feel the book delivered.

[Maddsurgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting position on the work of Beckett. Casanova takes a stance against the critics who have canonized him as a great existentialist writer, citing his position in the context of the history of Irish literature and the evidence for Beckett's ambitious "abstractionist" project.

[Sannie Hald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as useful as I had hoped but a fine read nonetheless