Pas moi

by Samuel Beckett

French

Genres: Plays, Drama, Classics, Theatre, Fiction, Irish Literature, Ireland

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Novels 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.

Reviews

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stand up woman! Speak up woman!

... quick grab and on ... nothing there ... on somewhere else ... try somewhere else ... all the time something begging ... something in her begging ... begging it all to stop . .. unanswered ... prayer unanswered ... or unheard ... too faint . .. so on ... keep on . . . trying ...

Envision the scene:
It’s inky black and nothing is seen on the stage, nothing but a woman’s mouth, which is the only thing that’s illuminated.
The mouth utters disjointed sentences; the voice distressed and disorientated. It’s like bit by bit the woman has lost her ‘self’ and only her voice remains; only her mouth.
And this mouth tells us of a woman who is maybe seventy years old; of how she has suffered; of how she has been abandoned; how she has been unloved and uncared for. Birth, childhood and later life are all visited, regrets regretted and uncommitted sins, judged.

Here’s is an excerpt:
... God is love ... she'll be purged ... back in the field ... morning sun ... April ... sink face down in the grass ... nothing but the larks ... so on . . . grabbing at the straw ... straining to hear . . . the odd word ... make some sense of it ... whole body like gone ... just the mouth . . . like maddened... and can't stop ... no stopping it ... something she- ... something she had to- ... what? .. who? .. no ! .. she! ... something she had to- .. . what? .. the buzzing? .. yes ... all the time the buzzing .. . dull roar ... in the skull ... and the beam ... ferreting around ... painless ... so far ... ha! .. so far ... then thinking ... oh long after ... sudden flash ... perhaps something she had to ... had to ... tell ... could that be it ? .. something she had to ... tell ... tiny little thing ... before its time ... godforsaken hole ... no love ... spared that ... speechless all her days ... practically speechless ... how she survived! .. that time in court ... what had she to say for herself ... guilty or not guilty ... stand up woman ... speak up woman ... stood there staring into space ... mouth half open as usual ... waiting to be led away ... glad of the hand on her arm ... now this . . . something she had to tell ... could that be it ? .. something that would tell ... how it was ... how she- ... what ? .. had been? .. yes ... something that would tell how it had been ... how she had lived ... lived on and on ... guilty or not . . . on and on ... to be sixty ... something she- ... what ? .. seventy? .. good God! .. on and on to be seventy ... something she didn't know herself ... wouldn't know if she heard ... then forgiven ... God is love ... tender mercies... new every morning ... back in the field ... April morning ... face in the grass ... nothing but the larks ... pick it up there ... get on with it from there ...

[Airam · Rating 4 out of 5]

What... the hell... just... happened... I can't... I don't... know... what to say... what to write... what to think... I read it... watched it... six times... still I... imagine!... still I... I don't... don't know... what to say... this guy... he was nuts... Billie Whitelaw... her performance... just brilliant... this mouth... and the laugh... the laugh... upsetting... and then you realize... ah!... you realize!... the buzzing... you hear it... she was... voiceless... now she speaks... disbelief... acceptance... epiphany... disconcerting... painful... what?... scream... ah!!!!... what?... ah!!!!...
"What?... Who?... No!... She!..."

[Théo d'Or]

They want .......me...... to read .....this, I ask them.... " Why? "

They say " It is .....a Beckett, man ! "

I say " yes, man......but... Not I "

They found a ......meaning ....in Beckett's ....try,

I found another.....they ask me.... why ,

I tell them " maybe ......you're interested.....but ....Not I ".

They sigh.....and then they ....cry , and ask me, disappointed... " Why ? "

I tell them " It's not the .....right... time,

Maybe you're ...ready, but .....Not ...I ".

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest experience I have ever had in the theatre. If you ever get the chance to see a performance of this extraordinary work, do not hesitate to do so.

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a mouth telling a story of woman’s life makes this an unsettling play.

The … that breaks up the phrases in this monologue invites me to read it fast but I read it slowly.

What emerges is a picture of how suffering shapes this woman’s life. What makes this story startling is how Beckett tells it.

The play ends on a positive note, the woman has finally, finally found relief and she’s happy about this. This takes me a long moment to process; what sticks is it takes her seventy years to find this.

Through the story fragments I see her suffering and the length of her suffering which feel undeserved. This injustice is more glaring to me than the honest picture this play draws of the pointlessness of suffering.

[Ladan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though at first, I thought I didn't make head nor tail of it, watching Billie Whitelaw's performance made me enjoy it.

[Loren Harway · Rating 2 out of 5]

blahblahblah theatre of the Absurd.

[Abrar]

This play proves my point that Beckett uses what novelist use; stream of consciousness. This, in my opinion, is what invites various clashing interpretations, offering a spacious margin to analyze, which in its turn renders the reader "freer" to process the play. The playwright is inviting his audience into a mysterious dark place, he writes down not only the fragmented plot but depicts the discorded voices that ring in the creative mind in the heated moments of the creation, as if giving rare glimpses of this mysterious process. almost a mockery of traditional clichés in stories.

Moreover, the extraordinary talent Beckett shows in psychologically provoking his audience with the visual aspect, where he presents a mouth moving non stop, a frantic way in which teeth, lips and the voice harsh and bitter offer a view of a character that is not a whole but part of that character, not a story teller but part of him, namely; his imagination and the clashing voices that in an almost dialogic manner back and forth, create the story.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

"and the whole brain begging... something begging in the brain... if only for a moment... and the brain... raving away on its own... trying to make sense of it... or make it stop.... or in the past..."

I don't know what the hell did I just read, but it made me cry and I'm not anywhere near my scheduled monthly drama, therefore 5/5, reviewer's block, shelved on Favourites and after reading it three times, I don't want to see it again until next year.

[Fin · Rating 5 out of 5]

... the mouth alone ... oh long after ... so far ... ha! ... so far ... then thinking sudden flash ... it can’t go on ... all this ... all that ... steady stream ... straining to hear ... make something of it ... and her own thoughts ... make something of them ... all ... what? ... the buzzing? ... yes ... all the time the buzzing ... so-called ... all that together ... imagine! ... whole body like gone ... just the mouth ... lips ... cheeks ... jaws ... never ... what? ... tongue? ... yes ... lips ... cheeks ... jaws ... tongue ... never still a second ... mouth on fire ... stream of words ... her ear ... practically in her ear ... not catching the half ... not the quarter ... no idea what she’s saying ... imagine! ... no idea what she’s saying! ... and can’t stop ... no stopping it ... she who but a moment before ... but a moment! ... could not make a sound ... no sound of any kind ... now can’t stop ... imagine! ... can’t stop the stream ... and the whole brain begging ... something begging in the brain ... begging the mouth to stop ... pause a moment ... if only for a moment ... and no response ... as if it hadn’t heard ... or couldn’t ... couldn’t pause a second ... like maddened ... all that together ... straining to hear ... piece it together ... and the brain ... raving away on its own ... trying to make sense of it ... of make it stop ... or in the past ... dragging up the past ... flashes from all over ... walks mostly ... walking all her days ... day after day ... a few steps then stop ... stare into space ... then on ... a few more ... stop and stare again ... so on ... drifting around ... day after day ... or that time she cried ... the one time she could remember ... since she was a baby ... must have cried as a baby ... perhaps not ... not essential to life .... just the birth cry to get her going ... breathing ... then no more till this ... old hag already ... sitting staring at her hand ... where was it? ... Croker’s Acres ... one evening on the way home ... home! ... a little mound in Croker’s Acres ... dusk ... sitting staring at her hand ... there in her lap ... palm upward ... suddenly saw it wet ... the palm ... tears presumably ... hers presumably ... no one else for miles ... no sound ... just the tears ... sat and watched them dry ... all over in a second ...

...if only I could forget him, have one second of this noise that carries me away, without having to say, I don’t, I haven’t time, It’s not I, I am he, after all, why not, why not say it, I must have said it, as well that as any thing else, it’s not I, not I, I can’t say it, it came like that, it comes like that, it’s not I, if only it could be about him, if only it could come about him, I’d deny him, with pleasure, if that could help, it’s I, here it’s I, speak to me of him, let me speak of him, that’s all I ask, I never asked for anything, make me speak of him, what a mess, now there is no one left, long may it last. In the end it comes to that, to the survival of that alone, then the words come back, someone says I, unbelieving.

from The Unnamable

[Sean McClelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goosebumps. I need to see this staged.

[Nada Ghanim · Rating 3 out of 5]

What ... the hell ... just ... happened! Nerve wrecking experience still, worth it.

https://youtu.be/M4LDwfKxr-M

[Chiara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read it, saw it, and studied it. I just really couldn't get into it.

[Defne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could understand this play (at least some parts) only after we have watched and discussed it in the classroom.

The mouth keeps talking nonsense but after some time, you start to notice a pattern. Some words or acts are getting familiar. She says “God”, then laughs hysterically, out of despair, many times. God is not there to help. She is stuck in this never ending cycle of misery, her own thoughts.

The movie was very short yet impossible to watch patiently. I felt horrible, the video felt like it was never going to end. The mouth and the voice started to get separated and I was fatigued and dizzy, having a difficult time to breathe. I wanted to cry out of despair when other people were laughing at how stupid the whole movie/play was.

Even after the video ended, her presence, still, echoed for several minutes in my mind. Also, I have to mention what a great actress Billie Whitelaw is. Outstanding performance that makes you feel in such a way that can’t be possibly described.

Extra note: I am convinced that we share the same braincells with Mr. Beckett. However, it comes extraordinary to me the way he is able to make something so clear out of the chaos he is in. May force be with me so that I can also do the same one day.

[carol. · Rating 5 out of 5]

zatrważający, przemawiający z przepony utylitarnego doświadczenia porzuconej cywilizacji-bękarta bez matki i ojca, opieki i mowy, niemej na wszelkie doświadczenie. lektura not i obok rockabay > to doskonałe kompendium ludzkiej tragedii, nadziei w beznadziejnych warunkach stanu faktycznego postmodernistycznego świata. będę o nich myśleć, do snu (koszmaru?), trwającego na płaszczyznach wiecznie szeroko otwartych oczu

[Alexandra]

. and the brain . . . raving away on its own . . . trying to make sense of it . . . or make it stop . . . or in the past . . . dragging up the past . .

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roll up to get your nerves frayed by a rapid fire, neurotic monologue from a stage-lit mouth.

[Tania tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe if it was written with less ellipsis, it would be a four star play
it’s also a bit of a mess and hard to read/understand
but it was okay

[Lars Meijer]

‘Always winter for some strange reason…’

[Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

a raising and gnashing of the teeth.

[حسن · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Beckett's play "Not I"

"Not I" is like a prosaic text written via a telegram, which messages' length were limited to few characters only according to the limits of the signaling medium used.. Kind of like this: I am [stop] ephemeral [stop] blending with the universe [full stop].
The sentences in a very long melodramatic monologue recited by the solo character are fragmented and disjointed, as if Beckett was writing them down spontaneously without editing.

"Not I" takes place in an annihilating darkness that permeates the stage, with only the actress' mouth spot-litt eight feet above it.
Her mouth utters jumbled sentences at a ferocious pace, telling stories of an elderly woman that are difficult to follow in a straight-forward narrative sense.
The actress relates fragments of memory filled with loneliness and fear, past traumas and incidents from a painful and empty life, strangely referring to herself in the third person as if to distance herself from it (which explains the title), each separated with the repetition of an epiphany revealed in the first scene by which she was deeply affected, reexamining it in several different angles..
However she gives different clues about her background, in form of compulsive confessions, "Not I" mainly explores the absurd incident behind the revelation of this epiphany.


What are the main themes and what interpretations can they be given in a play that evokes a more emotional response than an intellectual one?
Many can be highlighted, related to existentialism, death, absurdity and the meaning of life.. What also must be noted are the various psychological ideas Beckett deals with in his plays.
In his quest of questioning the reality, Beckett's uses of freudian elements of depth psychology in a literary form, in "Not I" as elsewhere, are simply brilliant. According to J. O'Hara in his book "Samuel Beckett's Hidden Drives: structural Uses of Depth Psychology", Beckett has had the sense that "life is primarily psychological".

The divided self is recurrent in Beckett's texts.. He pushes his characters to explore aspects of their own consciousness in order to discretely uncover their psyche.
the elderly woman, as the title implies, seems to suffer from a fracture between the speaking subject and the real self.. Beckett provides few explanations about his characters’ behavior and motivations, leaving space to the revelation of the unconscious, characterized by Lacan as the discourse of the other.

[MJD · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way that I read this (and enjoyed it) was to read the text as quick burst with solid pauses in between. I adapted this form of interpretation from a production of "Waiting for Godot" that I saw, in which the actor playing Lucky used this interpretation of the text of Lucky's speech to great effect.

No matter if you adapt this form of reading or another, I would advise that the text calls for a more active reading like poetry does instead of a sort of passive reading that can be used in reading prose. By this I mean that the reader should "hear" the words and silences as well as read them. While some people can do this via reading it silently, it may be beneficial to read it out loud.

[Ian Lepine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dramatic monologue is incredibly hard to follow; at times you can't even tell whether you're enjoying it. And yet, you can tell that it is good. All the phrases–for there are rarely ever complete sentences in it, are separated by an ellipsis. It gives you a sense of discontinuance and makes you wonder what... the... hell... is... happening... here?
Nevertheless, it is a very interesting take of the narrative technique known as stream of consciousness.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A roller coaster. Everything and nothing and whatever is in-between. There's not much to say, really. Or perhaps too much and there are not enough words. Or something.

I really need to see a production of Not I. I need to add a voice that is not my own to all these words that seem to take you up and down and up and down till you...

[Niall Brehon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifying. Best watched on YouTube first, then read while listening to the YouTube video, then read. Like Worstward Ho, an experience not for the fainthearted.

[Shayantani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buzzing always the buzzing!

[yo JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Typical Samuel Beckett shit cvičeníčko", pokud jste na jeho vnitřní monology zvyklí, asi nic novýho. Julianne Moore a její 14-minutový monolog s close-upem na její ústa, zuby a rty, které vám dají ideu, jak to asi vypadá, když s ní ležíte v posteli a ona vám dává nějakej dlouhej diktát. Neobeznámeným to samozřejmě připadá jako schizoidní lynchovina... ale to je jen klasický Beckett. Dovolím si zmínit svůj volný (rozuměj špatný) překlad z komentáře ke knize 'Languages of Truth' (Jazyky pravdy) od Salmana Rushdieho, ironicky jsem se tak v kontextu obsahu taky dopustil hraní mezi jazyky (protože jsem knihu poslouchal jako audio anglicky). Rushdie mluví v závěru knihy o Beckettovi: "Já, o kterém nic nevím... (...) Muž, který mluví úžasně anglicky se rozhodne mluvit francouzsky, což mu činí velké potíže. Takže je povinen obezřetně volit svá slova, přinucen se vzdát plynulosti a najít obtížná slova, se značnými potížemi a posléze, po všem tom hledání, to vše zase dá dohromady v angličtině, nové angličtině, obsahující veškerou složitost francouzštiny, hrajíc si s myšlenkou druhého jazyka, s novou angličtinou, která má sílu změnit angličtinu navždy. Tohle je Samuel Beckett. Tohle je jeho dílo. Je to věc, která mluví..." (...) Možnosti jazyka, Beckett je taková hračička, někdy vtipná, někdo v něm dokáže vidět vážnost nejvyššího kalibru, někdo ho naopak odsuzuje za přesný opak, ale já sám se občas ztratím v monotónnosti jeho psaní, které nikam nevede a nejspíš to je jeden ze záměrů, prvků, ta nuda, to odnikud nikam. Takže postupně jsem se od slov přenesl (top při jízdě na rotopedu po příšerným týdnu v práci na nula nula hodinách spánku) k "Julianne má skvělej chrup, líbí se mi její rty..." (a ano, vlastně hodnotím adaptaci textu, ale de facto jde jen o přednes) a to asi to mluví sdostatek, ta úmornost. Beckett mě ale i tak nepřestává fascinovat, člověk nikdy přesně neví, co od něj otevře a o co přesně mu půjde, ví jen to, že to bude typical Samuel Beckett shit... (a tady končí/začíná můj perfect loop pro short video).

[Justin A Burnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

For his very short drama, “Not I,” notable even among his generally notable works for stage, Samuel Beckett chooses two images: foremost, the mouth, and peripherally, the hooded, unmoving figure of the auditor. I cannot help thinking of collage due to the starkness of these images. They are removed from context, abstracted components of the life machine, and pasted on a black background. But it is not truly the effect of collage that Beckett accomplishes. Visual juxtaposition is not the focus. It is a stark meditation, instead, on the voice. . . No, not the voice. On the buzzing this mouth described, the incessant noise in the background of being alive, the stream from which we draw the cupped handful we call “I.”

In the play, Death, or something like it, reduces the character to her essence, or something like it. In this dim and reduced condition, a purification of perception occurs, revealing. . . well, revealing what really should not be described further, since that is the work of the play. Reduction, purification—of course these are Beckett’s methods, but they reach an intensity here that may shake our conditioning to these aspects loose.

I say conditioning because Beckett is the oldest contemporary of our age. It may be that our nihilists in fiction and philosophy alike have grown too comfortable with nothingness. For them, it is a given, a feature of their worldview. It’s Beckett who truly collapses the distance, taking us all the way to its texture. For Beckett, nothingness is ever a problem to be lived through. Only in Buddhism is the intensity of his investigation paralleled, a discipline possessing the only technical vocabulary I know of explicitly designed to navigate the buzzing stream of no-self (anattā).

“Not I” is, of course, yet another instance of Beckett’s unforgiving brilliance.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This dreamlike play focuses in one concluding, unfathomable image all Beckett’s life-long obsessions. The play encompasses three characters, a) the man, b) his wife and c) his lover. All three are placed in funeral urns, with a decidedly formalized entwining of chronicles. In a way this play is the ultimate dramatic countenance of the unnameable last words and Beckett’s own distrustful statement of his calling as a writer. ‘The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from’ which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express….’ But there is a difference: instead of resolve and compulsion there is now an unqualified, instantaneous, tempting need to express. This play perchance states the quandary of Beckett himself as an artist who has gone on telling stories notwithstanding his aversion, heedlessness, and minimal gift for narrative, enforced both by the nature of the forms he employs and by his own steadfast penchant for anonymity to continue with the fiction of making fictions out of what is, in effect, individual torment.

[Oussama ben ayad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like existence….itself…..this play is…. It is….really…. A litany…. A wording of reality…. Reality laid bare….reality expressed….through a language….but…. A language….arbitrary….so meaning…..arbitrary….so madness….is but a mouth….conscious….existent….taking control….over I…. Over who?….I….. No!…..He!….Over he!….Yes…..Madness….I say….is but a brain….losing itself….in language…..the signifier….the signified….losing mechanics….becoming blurred….langue…..failing parole….failing….I….failing….yes….I have….I have….Read it at midnight….can you imagine?….MIDNIGHT!…. I mean….he… NOT I…. HE!….anyways…..This must….and the anxiety…..and the buzzing…..this must be what….what?…what it is like to go mad!….horrible….yet….liberating.