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More Pricks Than Kicks
More Pricks Than Kicks is a collection of short prose by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1934.
The stories chart the life of the book's main character, Belacqua Shuah, from his days as a student to his accidental death. Beckett takes the name Belacqua from a figure in Dante's Purgatorio, a Florentine lute-maker famed for his laziness, who has given up on ever reaching heaven.
The stories chart the life of the book's main character, Belacqua Shuah, from his days as a student to his accidental death. Beckett takes the name Belacqua from a figure in Dante's Purgatorio, a Florentine lute-maker famed for his laziness, who has given up on ever reaching heaven.
173 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
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1182 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Beckett
919 books6,560 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 115 reviews
October 14, 2022
Samuel Beckett knew what was what right from the beginning.
In the series of short stories More Pricks Than Kicks Samuel Beckett already reveals himself as a sardonic and metaphysical sage.
In the first tale Dante and the Lobster the working of divine providence led the poor lobster to its hot inferno – a pot of boiling water and its fate was to become a dinner…
God treats us the same way we treat lobsters and cares least about consequences.
In the series of short stories More Pricks Than Kicks Samuel Beckett already reveals himself as a sardonic and metaphysical sage.
“Have sense” she said sharply, “lobsters are always boiled alive. They must be.” She caught up the lobster and laid it on its back. It trembled. “They feel nothing” she said.
In the depths of the sea it had crept into the cruel pot. For hours, in the midst of its enemies, it had breathed secretly. It had survived the Frenchwoman’s cat and his witless clutch. Now it was going alive into scalding water. It had to. Take into the air my quiet breath.
Belacqua looked at the old parchment of her face, grey in the dim kitchen.
“You make a fuss” she said angrily “and upset me and then lash into it for your dinner.”
She lifted the lobster clear of the table. It had about thirty seconds to live.
Well, thought Belacqua, it’s a quick death, God help us all.
In the first tale Dante and the Lobster the working of divine providence led the poor lobster to its hot inferno – a pot of boiling water and its fate was to become a dinner…
God treats us the same way we treat lobsters and cares least about consequences.
January 29, 2016
The beginnings of Beckett: arcane, outré, plump with rococo vocab and spiky turns of phrase, incomprehensible, comprehensible in places, incomprehensible again, prone to the polylingual pun, liable to the phrase “little bump of amativeness”, self-referential and self-laudatory (“thank you Mr Beckett”), frustrating as hell, funny on occasion, abounding in references to Dante, liable to the phrase “nuptial hawser”, freewheelingly absurdist, bursting with the sort of smart-alec snottery that triggered the Joyce comparisons. Proceed with caution, you may find more kicks than pricks.
October 29, 2024
January 2024 READING
I’m doing a thing related to Federman that involves refamiliarizing myself with Sam’s early work, everything through 1947. I see the below review as not only precious but lamentable.
I would make no claim to be being a better reader in the intervening 6.5 years, but I am certainly better read in Beckett. What strikes me is my insouciance, not Sam’s. It’s wonderful by all measurements or ______. Whatever. If you can’t appreciate Beckett at his least filtered, then you may just be the pretentious asshole exhibited below.
It’s only baseball.
_______
Here we have Sam's official bow, and it shows. Bits are fantastic, others far too wooly for no sake I can detect. If this sounds familiar that's because it is also an apt description for 99% of debut works by any author. Rare is the author that emerges who doesn't try to jam too many great ideas in for fear that they may never get another chance. But, hey, it's Sammy B! It's not like you can get away without reading every word. Guy's like fucking crack, I swear...
I’m doing a thing related to Federman that involves refamiliarizing myself with Sam’s early work, everything through 1947. I see the below review as not only precious but lamentable.
I would make no claim to be being a better reader in the intervening 6.5 years, but I am certainly better read in Beckett. What strikes me is my insouciance, not Sam’s. It’s wonderful by all measurements or ______. Whatever. If you can’t appreciate Beckett at his least filtered, then you may just be the pretentious asshole exhibited below.
It’s only baseball.
_______
Here we have Sam's official bow, and it shows. Bits are fantastic, others far too wooly for no sake I can detect. If this sounds familiar that's because it is also an apt description for 99% of debut works by any author. Rare is the author that emerges who doesn't try to jam too many great ideas in for fear that they may never get another chance. But, hey, it's Sammy B! It's not like you can get away without reading every word. Guy's like fucking crack, I swear...
April 7, 2022
When this works -- and it doesn't always; A Wet Night is a little too rambunctiously, logorrheically scattershot (go in girded for none-more-abstruse polysyllabic arcana) to succeed as anything but a disjointed intellectual exhibition -- it's an often exhilarating prelude to what was to come.
'Belacqua, paying pious suit to the hem of her garment and gutting his raptures with great complacency at a safe remove, represented precisely the ineffable long-distance paramour to whom as a homesick meteorite abounding in IT she had sacrificed her innumerable gallants. And now, the metal of stars smothered in earth, the IT run dry and the gallants departed, he appeared, like the agent of an ironical Fortune, to put her in mind of what she had missed and rowel her sorrow for what she was missing. Yet she tolerated him in the hope that sooner or later, in a fit of ebriety or of common or garden incontinence, he would so far forget himself as to take her in his arms.
The light began to die, there was no time to be lost.
“Will you be shot” said Belacqua “or poisoned? If the former, have you any preference? The heart? The temple? If the latter” passing over the bag, “help yourself.”
Ruby passed it back.
“Load” she ordained.
“Chevaliers d'industrie” said Belacqua, inserting the ball, “nearly all blow their brains out. Kreuger proved the rule.”
“We don't exactly die together darling” drawled Ruby “or do we?”
“Alas” sighed Belacqua “what can you expect? But a couple of minutes” with a bounteous brandish of the revolver, “the time it takes to boil an egg, what is that to eternity?”
“Still” said Ruby “it would have been rather nice to pass out together.”
“The problem of precedence” said Belacqua, as from a rostrum, “always arises, even as between the Pope and Napoleon.”
“‘The Pope the puke’” quoted Ruby “‘he bleached her soul…’”
“But perhaps you don't know that story” said Belacqua, ignoring the irrelevance.
“I do not” said Ruby “and I have no wish to.”
“Well” said Belacqua “in that case I will merely say that they solved it in a strictly spatial manner.”
“Then why not we?” said Ruby.
The gas seems to be escaping somewhere.
“We” said Belacqua “like twins——”
“Are gone astray” sneered Ruby.
“Are slaves of the sand-glass. There is not room for us to run out arm in arm.”
“As though there were only the one in the world” said Ruby. “Pah!”
“We happen to pine in the same one” said Belacqua, “that is the difficulty.”
“Well, it's a minor point” said Ruby “and by all means ladies first.”
“Please yourself” said Belacqua, “I'm the better shot.”
But Ruby, instead of expanding her bosom or holding up her head to be blown off, helped herself to a drink.
Belacqua fell into a passion. “Damn it” he cried “didn't we settle all these things weeks ago? Did we or did we not?”
“A settlement was reached” said Ruby, “certainly.”
“Then why all this bloody talk?”
Ruby drank her drink.
“And leave us a drop in the bottle” he snarled, “I'll need it when you're gone.”
That indescribable sensation, compound of exasperation and relief, relaxing, the better to grieve, the coenaesthesis of the consultant when he finds the surgeon out, now burst inside Belacqua. He felt suddenly hot within. The bitch was backing out. Though whiskey as a rule helped Ruby to feel starry, yet somehow on this occasion it failed to effect her in that way, which is scarcely surprising if we reflect what a very special occasion it was.
Now to her amazement the revolver went off, harmlessly luckily, and the bullet fell in terram nobody knows where. But for fully a minute she thought she was shot. An appalling silence, in the core of which their eyes met, succeeded the detonation.
“The finger of God” whispered Belacqua.
Who shall judge of his conduct at this crux? Is it to be condemned as wholly despicable? Is it not possible that he was gallantly trying to spare the young woman embarassment? Was it tact or concupiscence or the white feather or an accident or what? We state the facts. We do not presume to determine their significance.
“Digitus Dei” he said “for once.”
That remark rather gives him away, does it not?
When the first shock of surprise had passed and the silence spent its fury a great turmoil of life-blood sprang up in the breasts of our two young felons, so that they came together in inevitable nuptial. With the utmost reverence at our command, moving away on tiptoe from where they lie in the ling, we mention this in a low voice.
It will quite possibly be his boast in years to come, when Ruby is dead and he an old optimist, that at least on this occasion, if never before nor since, he achieved what he set out to do; car, in the words of one competent to sing of the matter, l'Amour et la Mort—caesura—n'est qu'une mesme chose.
May their night be full of music at all events.'
'Belacqua, paying pious suit to the hem of her garment and gutting his raptures with great complacency at a safe remove, represented precisely the ineffable long-distance paramour to whom as a homesick meteorite abounding in IT she had sacrificed her innumerable gallants. And now, the metal of stars smothered in earth, the IT run dry and the gallants departed, he appeared, like the agent of an ironical Fortune, to put her in mind of what she had missed and rowel her sorrow for what she was missing. Yet she tolerated him in the hope that sooner or later, in a fit of ebriety or of common or garden incontinence, he would so far forget himself as to take her in his arms.
The light began to die, there was no time to be lost.
“Will you be shot” said Belacqua “or poisoned? If the former, have you any preference? The heart? The temple? If the latter” passing over the bag, “help yourself.”
Ruby passed it back.
“Load” she ordained.
“Chevaliers d'industrie” said Belacqua, inserting the ball, “nearly all blow their brains out. Kreuger proved the rule.”
“We don't exactly die together darling” drawled Ruby “or do we?”
“Alas” sighed Belacqua “what can you expect? But a couple of minutes” with a bounteous brandish of the revolver, “the time it takes to boil an egg, what is that to eternity?”
“Still” said Ruby “it would have been rather nice to pass out together.”
“The problem of precedence” said Belacqua, as from a rostrum, “always arises, even as between the Pope and Napoleon.”
“‘The Pope the puke’” quoted Ruby “‘he bleached her soul…’”
“But perhaps you don't know that story” said Belacqua, ignoring the irrelevance.
“I do not” said Ruby “and I have no wish to.”
“Well” said Belacqua “in that case I will merely say that they solved it in a strictly spatial manner.”
“Then why not we?” said Ruby.
The gas seems to be escaping somewhere.
“We” said Belacqua “like twins——”
“Are gone astray” sneered Ruby.
“Are slaves of the sand-glass. There is not room for us to run out arm in arm.”
“As though there were only the one in the world” said Ruby. “Pah!”
“We happen to pine in the same one” said Belacqua, “that is the difficulty.”
“Well, it's a minor point” said Ruby “and by all means ladies first.”
“Please yourself” said Belacqua, “I'm the better shot.”
But Ruby, instead of expanding her bosom or holding up her head to be blown off, helped herself to a drink.
Belacqua fell into a passion. “Damn it” he cried “didn't we settle all these things weeks ago? Did we or did we not?”
“A settlement was reached” said Ruby, “certainly.”
“Then why all this bloody talk?”
Ruby drank her drink.
“And leave us a drop in the bottle” he snarled, “I'll need it when you're gone.”
That indescribable sensation, compound of exasperation and relief, relaxing, the better to grieve, the coenaesthesis of the consultant when he finds the surgeon out, now burst inside Belacqua. He felt suddenly hot within. The bitch was backing out. Though whiskey as a rule helped Ruby to feel starry, yet somehow on this occasion it failed to effect her in that way, which is scarcely surprising if we reflect what a very special occasion it was.
Now to her amazement the revolver went off, harmlessly luckily, and the bullet fell in terram nobody knows where. But for fully a minute she thought she was shot. An appalling silence, in the core of which their eyes met, succeeded the detonation.
“The finger of God” whispered Belacqua.
Who shall judge of his conduct at this crux? Is it to be condemned as wholly despicable? Is it not possible that he was gallantly trying to spare the young woman embarassment? Was it tact or concupiscence or the white feather or an accident or what? We state the facts. We do not presume to determine their significance.
“Digitus Dei” he said “for once.”
That remark rather gives him away, does it not?
When the first shock of surprise had passed and the silence spent its fury a great turmoil of life-blood sprang up in the breasts of our two young felons, so that they came together in inevitable nuptial. With the utmost reverence at our command, moving away on tiptoe from where they lie in the ling, we mention this in a low voice.
It will quite possibly be his boast in years to come, when Ruby is dead and he an old optimist, that at least on this occasion, if never before nor since, he achieved what he set out to do; car, in the words of one competent to sing of the matter, l'Amour et la Mort—caesura—n'est qu'une mesme chose.
May their night be full of music at all events.'
February 3, 2011
This novel (Beckett's first) is composed of a series of stories that tell the story of the adult life of Belacqua Shuah, a sort of schmuck version of Stephen Dedalus. The book is fairly funny, sometimes the humor had to be explained to me though by the OED, it's also dark and absurd. You know, sort of what you would expect from Beckett.
This 170 page book took me about a month to read, mostly because I insisted on reading it next to my computer so that I could look up words in the OED and because after reading a story I pretty much had my fill of Beckett for a few days. That is sort of the story of me and Beckett. I would love to love him and I think I have very strong feelings for him, but I can only take him in very small doses, after that he makes my eyes cross and my brain shut down.
Here are some words I looked up (some because I felt they were being used in obscure manners (almost everyone of them is being marked as spelled incorrect by the Firefox spell-checker):
rictus
finical
vidual
saprophile
cicisbeo
scrum
estrade
dunch
mizzle
cambric
adenoidal
asperity
misericord
sockdolager
felo de se
fantoccini
secco
Ferrule
Battledore
pinetum
Sursum Corda
This 170 page book took me about a month to read, mostly because I insisted on reading it next to my computer so that I could look up words in the OED and because after reading a story I pretty much had my fill of Beckett for a few days. That is sort of the story of me and Beckett. I would love to love him and I think I have very strong feelings for him, but I can only take him in very small doses, after that he makes my eyes cross and my brain shut down.
Here are some words I looked up (some because I felt they were being used in obscure manners (almost everyone of them is being marked as spelled incorrect by the Firefox spell-checker):
rictus
finical
vidual
saprophile
cicisbeo
scrum
estrade
dunch
mizzle
cambric
adenoidal
asperity
misericord
sockdolager
felo de se
fantoccini
secco
Ferrule
Battledore
pinetum
Sursum Corda
February 11, 2018
It's no surprise that Beckett got on so well with Joyce. Both share certain similarities of style and tone, as well as a selfish lack of concern for the reader. It takes concentration to extract the plot from the quagmire of wordplay. Sometimes the action is clear, and other times - well, you either follow the author's strange line of thought, or you are lost (a dictionary won't help). But this is Beckett, so it's not supposed to be easy, or make complete sense.
The prose is playful, masterful, exuberant, and the story is often funny, at times poignant. It is certainly a wonderfully executed instance of the kind of thing that it is, if you are into that kind of thing. I am thinking that maybe I am not. I don't know why, but I feel less impressed by this kind of writing the more I am exposed to it. There is depth in the language, but very little in the humanity.
The prose is playful, masterful, exuberant, and the story is often funny, at times poignant. It is certainly a wonderfully executed instance of the kind of thing that it is, if you are into that kind of thing. I am thinking that maybe I am not. I don't know why, but I feel less impressed by this kind of writing the more I am exposed to it. There is depth in the language, but very little in the humanity.
Currently reading
September 6, 2007I read this when I was 19 and had a very intense crush on a Beckett-loving Latin professor who is now a psychiatrist. Looking at it again I have no idea how I understood anything.
March 5, 2021
Olmadı, içine giremedim, sevemedim, lütfen beni vurmayın. Beckett’in ilk kitabı, dolayısıyla ondan olması muhtemel, fakat hikâyeler fazlasıyla yorucu (ki zor okumalarla genel olarak sorunu olan biri olmadığım kanaatindeyim), varoluş kaygısı bence fazla baskın, tasvirler sıradan ve üstelik çok uzunlar. Kim olduğunu hatırlamıyorum, bir oyun yönetmeni şuna benzer bir şey söylemişti; “Pek çok insan Beckett’i sevdiğini söylüyor ama bence sevmiyorlar. Kendisinin savaş sonrasının ıssızlığında ürettiği eserlerin şu an pek çoğumuz için kavranılamaz olmasını anlaşılır buluyorum.” Bence de öyle. (Bu arada orijinal adı “More Pricks Than Kicks” olan kitabı “Aşksız İlişkiler” diye çevirmek nedendir yahu? Neyse.)
October 17, 2023
People often find Beckett grim and he is, but he's also dead funny. This early work is hilarious. (And grim).
From my 1982 notebook:
Belacqua's jolly japes in Beckett's superb prose - corns complicated his night. Every sentence wound up like clockwork, ready to delight. eg It was the old story of the salad days, torment in the terms and in the intervals a measure of ease.
Balanced prose, the words a mathemetics of image and sound and meaning.
Belacqua calculates his affairs ‘de coeur’ meticulously so that they will chime like the grandfather clocks he hates..
(I was young, well 27).
From my 1982 notebook:
Belacqua's jolly japes in Beckett's superb prose - corns complicated his night. Every sentence wound up like clockwork, ready to delight. eg It was the old story of the salad days, torment in the terms and in the intervals a measure of ease.
Balanced prose, the words a mathemetics of image and sound and meaning.
Belacqua calculates his affairs ‘de coeur’ meticulously so that they will chime like the grandfather clocks he hates..
(I was young, well 27).
June 2, 2019
More Pricks Than Kicks is probably my favourite work of Samuel Beckett's early period, about the bizarre adventures of student Belacqua and his solipsistic existence in Dublin. Beckett's early writing was obviously very much influenced by fellow Irishman James Joyce and the complex wordplay and sometimes incomprehensible jargon is on full display at times, although to me it felt mainly limited to two of the longest chapters/short stories ('Wet Night' and 'What a Misfortune'). The other shorter stories/fragments feature beautiful descriptions of the Irish countryside and surrounding nature, tender moments of reflection and agony, and really darkly humorous sketches.
April 15, 2025
An interesting, sometimes absurdist, witty, clever, odd, original book of ten short stories describing episodes in the life of Dublin intellectual, Belacqua Shuah, with lots of words I was unfamiliar with. A dictionary comes in handy. This was the author’s first published book.
This book was first published in 1934.
This book was first published in 1934.
August 31, 2018
The most Joycean and hence difficult of Beckett's books.
Here you can see just how much Beckett admired Joyce through his use of esoteric vocabulary and the similar Irish humor.
This is almost like a scattered portrait-novel, featuring 9 chapters on the main character, Belacqua, who is an even larger walking disaster than Bloom in Ulysses.
Belacqua is an unfortunate type who clearly has some undiagnosed psychological condition but his person is portrayed as such a wretched and pathetic character, that it is both hilarious and tragic at the same time.
At some point in most chapters, it's almost unbearable as you sense 'oh no, what blunder is he going to commit this time?'
However, it's Beckett's jocular tone and writing style, here somewhat different from his other works in not only being Joycean (and let's remember that imitation is the highest form of flattery) but there is something medieval about its undertones as well.
i happened to be listening to some medieval lyre and recorder music as i read this and it seemed to fit perfectly with the style of the book.
i have no idea why it is called 'More Pricks Than Kicks' but it is a great title nevertheless.
Extremely diverting and singular but being somewhat Joycean, it was also difficult in parts to follow. Therefore i can only recommend this to the serious Samuel Beckett fan.
Here you can see just how much Beckett admired Joyce through his use of esoteric vocabulary and the similar Irish humor.
This is almost like a scattered portrait-novel, featuring 9 chapters on the main character, Belacqua, who is an even larger walking disaster than Bloom in Ulysses.
Belacqua is an unfortunate type who clearly has some undiagnosed psychological condition but his person is portrayed as such a wretched and pathetic character, that it is both hilarious and tragic at the same time.
At some point in most chapters, it's almost unbearable as you sense 'oh no, what blunder is he going to commit this time?'
However, it's Beckett's jocular tone and writing style, here somewhat different from his other works in not only being Joycean (and let's remember that imitation is the highest form of flattery) but there is something medieval about its undertones as well.
i happened to be listening to some medieval lyre and recorder music as i read this and it seemed to fit perfectly with the style of the book.
i have no idea why it is called 'More Pricks Than Kicks' but it is a great title nevertheless.
Extremely diverting and singular but being somewhat Joycean, it was also difficult in parts to follow. Therefore i can only recommend this to the serious Samuel Beckett fan.
February 13, 2018
This was a very enjoyable collection of short stories, but I think my favorite was the first out of the box, Dante and the Lobster. With a title like that, what's not to like? It was a very funny description of the preparation of lunch after reading Divine Comedy and then locking the door to ensure there would be no interruptions ..."Toast must not on any account be done too rapidly...If there was one thing he abominated more than another it was to feel his teeth meet in a bathos of pith and dough."
Beckett was wonderful.
Beckett was wonderful.
April 12, 2015
Чтение чего-то через что-то другое — совершенно нормальная практика, но не все почему-то об этом помнят и/или отдают себе в этом отчет, когда так делают. Вот это — совершенно Джойсов роман в эпизодах (жаль, что составители сборников часто дербанят его на «рассказы»), он весь происходит в топографии «Дублинцев» и «Улисса», так что если кому не хватило Джойса, могут догнаться первой книжкой Бекетта. С «Дублинцами» он вообще до того параллелен, что возникает подозрение, уж не пародия ли это. Но расследуют его пусть литературоведы, положив книжки рядом друг с дружкой.
Белаква — родоначальник последующих героев Бекетта, в нем автор намечает весь дальнейший их modus vivendi. У него тоже, по сути — не бессилие перед мирозданием, я бы решил, что это скорее беспримесное отвращение. Покоряют мир пускай герои-стахановцы (недаром там, видимо, возникает «резиновый Сталин», хорошее, кстати, название для гаражной рок-группы). У Белаквы же ничего, кроме омерзения, этот мир не вызывает.
Топография же здесь настолько прекрасна, что организовать по ней маршруты выходного дня, как для «Улисса», было бы, наверное, тоже крайне занимательно, не знаю — может, они и существуют. А переводить название «Больше лает, чем кусает» могло прийти в голову только душевнобольному кретину. С другой стороны, так же бытующее «Больше замахов, чем ударов» — пример казенного, чугунного и железобетонного подхода: сделаем так, чтобы поняли в ЖАКТе.
Белаква — родоначальник последующих героев Бекетта, в нем автор намечает весь дальнейший их modus vivendi. У него тоже, по сути — не бессилие перед мирозданием, я бы решил, что это скорее беспримесное отвращение. Покоряют мир пускай герои-стахановцы (недаром там, видимо, возникает «резиновый Сталин», хорошее, кстати, название для гаражной рок-группы). У Белаквы же ничего, кроме омерзения, этот мир не вызывает.
Топография же здесь настолько прекрасна, что организовать по ней маршруты выходного дня, как для «Улисса», было бы, наверное, тоже крайне занимательно, не знаю — может, они и существуют. А переводить название «Больше лает, чем кусает» могло прийти в голову только душевнобольному кретину. С другой стороны, так же бытующее «Больше замахов, чем ударов» — пример казенного, чугунного и железобетонного подхода: сделаем так, чтобы поняли в ЖАКТе.
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July 13, 2024At times difficult to scrute, but not inscrutable. Comical, misanthropic, cynical, absurd. Occasionally, hysterically funny. Madcap. One can be impressed with the talent of the author even in his early development as an author. At other times one can feel bogged down and start to lose interest (some of the middle chapters left me feeling that way, while the late chapters lifted me up again and made it a rewarding reading experience). It's a great hint at what Beckett would become as an author in his later years. For someone who hasn't read a lot of Beckett, I would not suggest prioritizing this over some of his later, greater works, but the book still has a lot to recommend it, especially if you have read all those other ones and are of a completionist mindset.
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August 27, 2023Wenn der Buchrücken schon verkündet, dass James Joyce ihm Talent zuspricht, ist ein Abbruch durch mich sehr wahrscheinlich. Auf inhaltslose, aufgeblähte Ausführungen rund um einen vermeintlichen Neurotiker habe ich keine Lust.
December 5, 2018
İnançsızlık bir boşluktur.
İnsan boşlukta kalmaya katlanamaz.
İnsan boşlukta kalmaya katlanamaz.
May 26, 2014
Belacqua is the character around whom Beckett has built this collection of short stories and by the end he has been firmly established as a credible human figure, with a curmudgeonly personality and foibles that are all his own. ".. he was an indolent bourgeois poltroon, very talented up to a point, but not fitted for private life in the best and brightest sense, in the sense to which he referred when he bragged how he furnished his mind and lived there, because it was the last ditch when all was said and done."
Yellow is the funniest story, in which the unfortunate Belacqua is seen anxiously composing himself in a hospital bed as he awaits a minor operation, when he trusts the doctors will give him a new lease of apathy. It is gallows humour without question, since it captures all too well an experience that most of us will at some time in our lives find we must endure one way or another, hopefully with more success.
Beckett does not romanticize women. A typical introduction begins: "Bodies don't matter but her's went something like this: big enormous breasts, big breech, Botticelli thighs....." (That story is titled Draff). In "The Smeraldina's Billet Doux" a woman of limited gifts nevertheless pours out in a letter to Belacqua a frank expression of her love for our hero, and at some point it dawns on the reader that this is human vulnerability at its most acute; not to be mocked but to be observed with charity. ["Doubt, Despair and Scrounging; shall I hitch my bath-chair to the greatest of these?"]
If this is also Beckett's answer to the Molly monologue at the end of Ulysses (and I have no idea if it is) then it is even more entertaining for that. Maybe, then, "a wet night" invites comparison with "The Dead" at the end of Joyce's Dubliners. It incorporates a party and successfully scripts parts for a lot of different characters to interact with each other, against which is set some kind of a love story for Belacqua. "...he appeared, like the agent of an ironical fortune, to put her in mind of what she had missed and rowel her sorrow for what she was missing. Yet she tolerated him in the hope that sooner or later, in a fit of ebriety or of common or garden incontinence, he would so far forget himself as to take her in his arms."
Love and Lethe is a fiendish tale fit to be read with your heart in your mouth, after which it is no longer safe to underestimate just what this man might be capable of doing. Skullduggery at its most wanton.
It is easy to feel that the characters described are unattractive and their circumstances unpleasant. Is it really pleasurable of a night to read about strong smelling cheese? I am keen to agree that reading Beckett requires a certain mood - it is more effective on some nights than others. But he wrote a century after the Bronte sisters were also attacked for writing about low life and disagreeable incidents and we have moved on the best part of a further century in which nothing has fundamentally changed. The genteel reader will still probably avoid these stories in any event, but it will be their loss.
Yellow is the funniest story, in which the unfortunate Belacqua is seen anxiously composing himself in a hospital bed as he awaits a minor operation, when he trusts the doctors will give him a new lease of apathy. It is gallows humour without question, since it captures all too well an experience that most of us will at some time in our lives find we must endure one way or another, hopefully with more success.
Beckett does not romanticize women. A typical introduction begins: "Bodies don't matter but her's went something like this: big enormous breasts, big breech, Botticelli thighs....." (That story is titled Draff). In "The Smeraldina's Billet Doux" a woman of limited gifts nevertheless pours out in a letter to Belacqua a frank expression of her love for our hero, and at some point it dawns on the reader that this is human vulnerability at its most acute; not to be mocked but to be observed with charity. ["Doubt, Despair and Scrounging; shall I hitch my bath-chair to the greatest of these?"]
If this is also Beckett's answer to the Molly monologue at the end of Ulysses (and I have no idea if it is) then it is even more entertaining for that. Maybe, then, "a wet night" invites comparison with "The Dead" at the end of Joyce's Dubliners. It incorporates a party and successfully scripts parts for a lot of different characters to interact with each other, against which is set some kind of a love story for Belacqua. "...he appeared, like the agent of an ironical fortune, to put her in mind of what she had missed and rowel her sorrow for what she was missing. Yet she tolerated him in the hope that sooner or later, in a fit of ebriety or of common or garden incontinence, he would so far forget himself as to take her in his arms."
Love and Lethe is a fiendish tale fit to be read with your heart in your mouth, after which it is no longer safe to underestimate just what this man might be capable of doing. Skullduggery at its most wanton.
It is easy to feel that the characters described are unattractive and their circumstances unpleasant. Is it really pleasurable of a night to read about strong smelling cheese? I am keen to agree that reading Beckett requires a certain mood - it is more effective on some nights than others. But he wrote a century after the Bronte sisters were also attacked for writing about low life and disagreeable incidents and we have moved on the best part of a further century in which nothing has fundamentally changed. The genteel reader will still probably avoid these stories in any event, but it will be their loss.
July 29, 2016
I'd read alotof Beckett before I got around to this one. I think Beckett's a great writer but he's too grim for me. I'm already grim enuf.. & too morbid. SO, when I read this & found it to be very well written (no surprise) but also from an earlier phase in his work where people are more than just blind worms crawling pointlessly thru the mud (nice surprise) I was relieved. Anyway, just when I was probably not expecting much from Beckett anymore he reminded me that he really IS a great writer & far, far more than a one trick existentialist (if using that word here isn't too inappropriate).
June 14, 2019
“Gerçekten de bir parça kibarlık ve iyi niyet çok şeye yetiyordu dünyamızda. Sıradan bir emekçiden duyduğumuz tatlı bir söz ve gülümseme nasıl da aydınlatıyordu dünyanın çehresini. Öyle kolaydı ki bu, yalnızca kasların denetimiyle ilgili bir sorundu.”
December 18, 2025
Bölümler: Dante ve istakoz/ fingal/ kaçık/ ıslak bir gece/ aşk ve ölüm/ gezinti/ ne büyük şanssızlık/ smeraldina aşk mektubu/ sarı/ acı bir ölüm. Bunlardan en beğendiklerim; dante ve istakoz, ne büyük şanssızlık ve acı bir ölüm. Öyküler, Belacqua'nın yaşamındaki kadınların var oldukları sıralamalarıyla yaşadıklarının ya da yaşattıklarının öyküleştirilmiş hali; aslında tek tek de okunabilir. Okuması keyifli, neşeli biraz uçarı azıcık havadada kalan farklı metinler.
"Bedeni ve bedeninin ait olduğu dış dünyayla aklı arasındaki uçurumun farkındadır hep; kalbinin ait olduğu yerin bir akıl hastanesi olduğuna inanır inatla. Tıpkı tanıdığımız öteki Beckett kişilikleri gibi bir bisikleti bir kadınla birlikte olmaya yeğler; aşk ve sevgi ondan çok uzak kavramlardır; grotesk birlikteliklerdir kadınlarla yaşadıkları. Belki de içinde yitip gitmek istediği o karanlık dünyayı asla anlamayacakları, onun acı dolu varoluş serüvenine hep kuşkuyla bakacakları için,...
"Dante" ve "Istakoz" adlı çarpıcı açılış öyküsü ise Beckett'in tüm yazınında acı çekmekte olan karşı-kahramanların ilk ve sonsuz çığlığını duyurur adeta; çabuk bir ölüm diler Belacqua canlı canlı kaynatılan ıstakoz için:
"Tanrı bizimledir. Değil ama." "
Herkese keyifli okumalar.
berbat bir uyuşukluğa gömülmüş bezgin ruhu, kendi deyişiyle cinleriyle baş başa kalmaktan başka bir şey dilemezken
bazen bulduğu çözüm acaba sızlanmasından çok daha rahatsız edici değil mi, diye merak etmekten kendini alamazdı. Ama yanıtı olumsuzdu bu sorunun, bu yola başvurmayı sürdürdüğüne göre, bir yararı vardı kuşkusuz
çok değildi belki; yine de deniyordu yıllardır ve az da olsa kendisine iyiliği dokunduğu için hoşnuttu.syf35
sekize benzeyen daireler çizerdi, eğer yukarılara uzanan bir şeylerin peşinden koşuyorsanız, aradıklarınız dönüşte de önünüze çıkardı. İçkinin çizdiği kıçsız sekiz. Başladığınız yerde bitiremezdiniz ama dönüşte, bir yerlere giden kendinizle yüz yüze gelirdiniz. Şimdilerde olduğu gibi, bazen kendinizi iyi hisseder, çoğu kez de hüzünlü ve aceleyle evinize koşardınız.
Yağmurda, düğmeler çenenize kadar iliklenmiş, üşüyerek ve sırılsıklam yürürken, adımları sıklaştırmak yapılmaması gereken uygunsuz bir şeydi.syf72
Neşeli çıkışın hüzünlüdür dönüşü" demişti, syf36
Bir Beethoven duraklamasında (ne demekse) yaşıyordu, söylediği buydu. Kendini dışavurma kaygıları içinde hüzünlenirdi bazen. Bu kaygı (belki de bana öyle geliyordu) sahiplenmekten asla vazgeçmediği bir kendine yeterlik duygusunu parçalamakla kalmıyor, benim küçük benliğimi de çöküntüye uğratıyor, onu da kendi gölgesinde yaşayan âciz bir maymun konumuna sokuyordu.syf35
Bu tümüyle katışıksız devinimin, ileri adımın ya da adımlamanın çekiciliği, özne onaylasın ya da onaylamasın, dış dünyanın güçsüz izdüşümlerinin bir bütün olarak algılanmasıyla sınırlı değildi. Bu devingen duruşlar yazgıdan bağımsız, umulmadık biçimde insanın karşısına çıkabilen küçük gülünç olaylara sırt çevirmek ve hiç beklenmedik rastlantılardan kaçınmak gereği duymazlardı. Öncelikle boş olma özelliğini taşıyan bu aylaklığın tek çekiciliği değildi bu duyarlık, kirlenmeyi onaylayan acelecilik de, bu katışıksız edimin tek çekiciliği olamazdı. Ama buna yakındı.syf37
işe yaramadı. İnanç, Umut ve -o da nesi?- Aşk, Yitik Cennet, suların her geri çekilişi alay ediyordu, Büyük Benliğin çakıl taşlarından uzaklaşan tüm gelgitler, küçülen ben. İşte böyle, bir yere gidemiyordu, küreler gibi, suskunca dönüyordu yalnızca. Onu yerinden kaldıramazdı hiçbir şey, şimdi yalnızca kafasına fikirler yerleştirebilirdi. Kendi düşünceleri ve başkalarının düşünceleri arasında oturup kalmaktan gelmemiş miydi bu noktaya? Neler vermezdi şimdi, harekete geçebilmek için! Düşüncelerden kurtulabilmek için.syf38
Eski, pis pantolonunun düğmelerini çözdü ve Alman malı gömleğini dışarıya çıkardı gömleğini ve kazağını sıvırarak göğsünde topladı. Yağmur göğsünü ve karnını dövüyor; üzerinden süzülüyordur gunduğundan daha hoştu bunu hissetmek ama çok üşümüştü. Çırılçıplak kalmış göğsünü mermer avuçlarla döven bu alçak fırtınaya açmıştı, şimdi yaptıkları nede niyle üzgündü, bir zavallı gibi hissediyordu kendini. Ha-talı davrandığının farkındaydı, yürekten pişmandı. Oturdu, çoraplı topuklarını üzgün üzgün taşa vurarak, dünyada nasıl avunç bulacağını sordu kendine, birden...syf73
bu pis ortamda ciğerlerine derin bir nefes çekti ve sonra, zor bir tekerleme söyleyen birinin hızıyla aşağıdaki tümceleri art arda sıraladı:
"Eski günlerimi ilgisizlikle anımsadığımda, usum ilgisiz, belleğim hüzünlü. Us duyduğu ilgisizlik dışında da ilgisiz, oysa bellek, duyduğu hüzün dışında kederli değil."
"Bir daha" dedi kız, "yavaşça."syf80
hoyratça çekip çıkardı sonsözü. Özensizce beyaza boyanmış eski bir araba plakasının üzerindeki yazıya bakıyordu Ruby:
GEÇİCİ BİR SÜRE İÇİN SAĞ syf95
ağlamaya en küçük bir istek ve gereksinme duymuyordu, cılız bir biçimde biriktirdiği acıma duygusunu canlılara saklıyordu, bundan belli şanssız birileri değil, yaşayan adsız bir topluluk, daha doğrusu soyut anlamda insanlar anlaşılmalıydı. Bu bireylerden soyutlanmış acıma duygusu, birçok çevrede katlanılmaz derecede kendinden verme, aşırı ve gereksiz bir özveri olarak değerlendirilip lanetlenirken, bazıları Tanrı ve topluma karşı işlenmiş bir suç görürdü burada. Ama Belacqua'nın yapacağı pek bir şey yoktu çünkü bu duygularla doluydu; kesin, tek biçimde ve sürekli, koşullardan etkilenmeden, ayrım gözetmeden ve çaba göstermeden acıma duyuyordu. Böyle bir yaklaşımın, bunu bazı zavallı bireylerin duyarsızlığı diye tanımlamaya çalışan kişiler için bir anlamı yoktu; ama bireye özel yaşamında büyük yararlar sağladığı açıktı.syf113
kendini çok iyi hissediyordu, bir çocuğun yüzünü öpülmek için uzatması gibi küçük yüzünü güneşe doğru çevirdi.
"Saklanan tutuklu" diye yanıtladı "bazen kör olur ama köstebek asla ayık dolaşmaz..."
Köstebek asla ayık dolaşmaz. Derin anlamlı bir söz. Kıllı böyle bir sözü yanıtlamak için ne kadar çabaladıysa da yenilgiyi onurla kabul etti;syf131
tasarladıkları gibiydi, Belacqua'nın kalbi kafesinin duvarlarına umutsuz bir hamle yaptı, kilise aniden haç biçiminde bir kafese dönüştü, cennetin buldogları sunağı denetliyor, sahanlıktaki tören alayı hareketlenmeye başlıyordu. Orgçu bir katil gibi yükseklerdeki yerine sıçradı, kısa bir süre sonra herkesin yüzünü güldürecek, neşelendirecek olan güçlerini devindirdi.syf136
Belacqua kediye çan takan fareden farksız bir biçimde hızla takıverdi yüzüğü, aşkının yüzük parmağı bir an önce şişsin, içine kazılı olan tümce okunmasın diye dua etti: Mens mea Lucia lucescit luce tua.
Ruhsal durumu bu evrede öyle yoğun ve karmaşıktı ki (tüm başına gelenleri düşündüğümüzde bizi hiç şaşırtmıyor. Her mevsimde şapka giymesine neden olan eşinin kaybı; Bn. bboggs için duyduğu tutkunun tatlı ve ateşli acısı; onu iyice uyuşuklaştıran yataktaki uzun dinlencesi; bira ve sarmısaklar; şimdi de görünen, dışsal bir işaretle bağlanıyor olmanın hissettirdikleri) noktalanmamış senfoninin birinci bölümündeki ikinci tekrarını sabırsızca ve solgunca dinleyen göçmüş sevgili Lucy ile arasında bir benzetme yapılabilirdi. Ne derseniz deyin, ölü bir kafayı eğik tutamazsınız.syf138
Acılar artık düşünülmez olduğunda uyku vakti gelmiştir. Yıllardır bu tümceyle iç içe yaşamıştı, şimdi terimleri ters yüz ederek, acıyı neşeyle değiştirerek durumuna uyarlıyor, kendisine yarar sağlayamayacağını düşündüğü bazı uygulamaların verdiği gerginlikten kurtulmaya çalışıyordu, başarılı olduğu da söylenebilirdi. Şimdi aklında bu tümceyle uyanmıştı, sanki uyuduğu süre içinde de oradaydı, bu kırılgan yeri düşlerden uzak tutmuştu.syf157
küçük ruhunun derinliklerine işlemiş bu vahşilere özgü düşünceden, dün gece kaygıyla geçirdiği saatlerin üzerinde bıraktığı ağırlıktan güzel bir uyku çekerek kurtulabilirdi. Onu istediklerini yapmaktan alıkoyan düşüncesi değil, ruhuydu. Haksızlık etmeyelim Belacqua'ya; umursamıyordu kendini. Usu tüm önemsedikleri karşısında gerileyebilirdi, bu serseriden bıkmıştı.syf158
Budalalıktı bu, iyi biliyordu. Değişmek için çok çabalamış, bu zayıflığıyla alay ederek ya da kendi kendini korkutarak kurtulmaya çalışmış ama başaramamıştı. Daha da bezmiş ve kendi kendine, neysem oyum demişti. Düşüncelerinin ve çabalamalarının sonuydu bu. Neysem oyum, bu tümceyi bir yerlerde okumuş, hoşlanmış ve benimsemişti.
Ama Tanrı en azından iyiydi, her zamanki gibi, yalnızca ona nasıl ulaşılacağını bilmemiz gerekiyordu, işte böyle, syf159
Gölge yapıyordu,
Gözlerini kapatacak, böylece gün doğumun dan uzak duracaktı.
Aslında gözler nedir, aklın gizli kapıları değil mi?
Güvenle kapattı onları.
İyi bir eğitim görmüş ya da gözünü budaktan esirgemeyen biri olmak, ya bir soylu ya da bir dövüş horozu! Sık sık övündüğü gibi düşüncesinde yaşıyor olsa bile. O zaman kendini hazır hissetmesi için bunların hiçbirine gerek duymazdı. O zaman, geriye yalnızca uyumak ya da kitap okumak için çabalamak, sakince akşam duasını bekleyerek,
çünkü her şeyin söylendiği ve yapıldığı son çukurdu orası. Ama o zamana kadar beklememeyi yeğlerdi, oraya hemen gidip yerleşmek, kendini dünyada belki de tam evindeymiş gibi hissedeceği o an, dünyanın kıçına tekmeyi vurmasını beklemekten daha akıllıcaydı. Kalbinin içine tam anlamıyla giremiyordu ama dışına da çıkamıyordu. syf160
Aklını gülerek güçlendirecekti, gülme iyi bir sözcük değildi ama her anlamda işine yarayacaktı, düşünceye açık olacak ve onu parça parça edecekti. İşkence odasına doğru ilerlerken bir nesnenin (bu da doğru bir sözcük değil), bir vişnenin yendikten sonra ağızda bıraktığına benzer bir tat kala-caktı dudaklarında, ohne Hast aber ohne Rast Dayanıklılığı herkeste saygınlık uyandıracaktı.syf163
kıza göz kamaştırıcı biçimde gülümsedi. Kız kolayca unutamazdı bunu.
Bir damat gibi sıçradı masanın üzerine. Narkozcu çok formda görünüyordu, biraz önce sağdıç olarak bir evlilik törenindeydi, ameliyat kıyafetinin altında şık giysileri gizliydi, içinden dua etti ve aletin başını tuttu.
"Tamam mısınız" dedi Belacqua.
Karışım çok zengindi, bu konudaki tüm sorular yersiz kaçacak. Kalbi kendisinden uzaklaşıyordu Belacqua'nın, kafasının içine korkunç sarı darbeler iniyordu. "En iyilerinden biri" gibi kendisiyle ilgisi bulunmayan sözler işitti. Deyim güven verdi ona. Sağdıç vanayı çevirdi.
Aksi şeytan! Öldü!
Kalbini dinlemeyi tamamen unutmuşlardı.syf173
Adam kendini dingin ve düşünceli hissediyordu. Klasikoromantik bir emekçiydi öyleyse. Gülün güle söylediği sözler uçuşuyordu kafasında: hiçbir bahçıvan õlmemişti, virgül, gülle dolu bir bellek içinde. Kısa bir süre şarkı söyledi, birasından içti, bir gözyaşı damlası süzüldü gözlerinden, rahatlattı kendini.
Yaşam böyle işte. syf191
"Bedeni ve bedeninin ait olduğu dış dünyayla aklı arasındaki uçurumun farkındadır hep; kalbinin ait olduğu yerin bir akıl hastanesi olduğuna inanır inatla. Tıpkı tanıdığımız öteki Beckett kişilikleri gibi bir bisikleti bir kadınla birlikte olmaya yeğler; aşk ve sevgi ondan çok uzak kavramlardır; grotesk birlikteliklerdir kadınlarla yaşadıkları. Belki de içinde yitip gitmek istediği o karanlık dünyayı asla anlamayacakları, onun acı dolu varoluş serüvenine hep kuşkuyla bakacakları için,...
"Dante" ve "Istakoz" adlı çarpıcı açılış öyküsü ise Beckett'in tüm yazınında acı çekmekte olan karşı-kahramanların ilk ve sonsuz çığlığını duyurur adeta; çabuk bir ölüm diler Belacqua canlı canlı kaynatılan ıstakoz için:
"Tanrı bizimledir. Değil ama." "
Herkese keyifli okumalar.
berbat bir uyuşukluğa gömülmüş bezgin ruhu, kendi deyişiyle cinleriyle baş başa kalmaktan başka bir şey dilemezken
bazen bulduğu çözüm acaba sızlanmasından çok daha rahatsız edici değil mi, diye merak etmekten kendini alamazdı. Ama yanıtı olumsuzdu bu sorunun, bu yola başvurmayı sürdürdüğüne göre, bir yararı vardı kuşkusuz
çok değildi belki; yine de deniyordu yıllardır ve az da olsa kendisine iyiliği dokunduğu için hoşnuttu.syf35
sekize benzeyen daireler çizerdi, eğer yukarılara uzanan bir şeylerin peşinden koşuyorsanız, aradıklarınız dönüşte de önünüze çıkardı. İçkinin çizdiği kıçsız sekiz. Başladığınız yerde bitiremezdiniz ama dönüşte, bir yerlere giden kendinizle yüz yüze gelirdiniz. Şimdilerde olduğu gibi, bazen kendinizi iyi hisseder, çoğu kez de hüzünlü ve aceleyle evinize koşardınız.
Yağmurda, düğmeler çenenize kadar iliklenmiş, üşüyerek ve sırılsıklam yürürken, adımları sıklaştırmak yapılmaması gereken uygunsuz bir şeydi.syf72
Neşeli çıkışın hüzünlüdür dönüşü" demişti, syf36
Bir Beethoven duraklamasında (ne demekse) yaşıyordu, söylediği buydu. Kendini dışavurma kaygıları içinde hüzünlenirdi bazen. Bu kaygı (belki de bana öyle geliyordu) sahiplenmekten asla vazgeçmediği bir kendine yeterlik duygusunu parçalamakla kalmıyor, benim küçük benliğimi de çöküntüye uğratıyor, onu da kendi gölgesinde yaşayan âciz bir maymun konumuna sokuyordu.syf35
Bu tümüyle katışıksız devinimin, ileri adımın ya da adımlamanın çekiciliği, özne onaylasın ya da onaylamasın, dış dünyanın güçsüz izdüşümlerinin bir bütün olarak algılanmasıyla sınırlı değildi. Bu devingen duruşlar yazgıdan bağımsız, umulmadık biçimde insanın karşısına çıkabilen küçük gülünç olaylara sırt çevirmek ve hiç beklenmedik rastlantılardan kaçınmak gereği duymazlardı. Öncelikle boş olma özelliğini taşıyan bu aylaklığın tek çekiciliği değildi bu duyarlık, kirlenmeyi onaylayan acelecilik de, bu katışıksız edimin tek çekiciliği olamazdı. Ama buna yakındı.syf37
işe yaramadı. İnanç, Umut ve -o da nesi?- Aşk, Yitik Cennet, suların her geri çekilişi alay ediyordu, Büyük Benliğin çakıl taşlarından uzaklaşan tüm gelgitler, küçülen ben. İşte böyle, bir yere gidemiyordu, küreler gibi, suskunca dönüyordu yalnızca. Onu yerinden kaldıramazdı hiçbir şey, şimdi yalnızca kafasına fikirler yerleştirebilirdi. Kendi düşünceleri ve başkalarının düşünceleri arasında oturup kalmaktan gelmemiş miydi bu noktaya? Neler vermezdi şimdi, harekete geçebilmek için! Düşüncelerden kurtulabilmek için.syf38
Eski, pis pantolonunun düğmelerini çözdü ve Alman malı gömleğini dışarıya çıkardı gömleğini ve kazağını sıvırarak göğsünde topladı. Yağmur göğsünü ve karnını dövüyor; üzerinden süzülüyordur gunduğundan daha hoştu bunu hissetmek ama çok üşümüştü. Çırılçıplak kalmış göğsünü mermer avuçlarla döven bu alçak fırtınaya açmıştı, şimdi yaptıkları nede niyle üzgündü, bir zavallı gibi hissediyordu kendini. Ha-talı davrandığının farkındaydı, yürekten pişmandı. Oturdu, çoraplı topuklarını üzgün üzgün taşa vurarak, dünyada nasıl avunç bulacağını sordu kendine, birden...syf73
bu pis ortamda ciğerlerine derin bir nefes çekti ve sonra, zor bir tekerleme söyleyen birinin hızıyla aşağıdaki tümceleri art arda sıraladı:
"Eski günlerimi ilgisizlikle anımsadığımda, usum ilgisiz, belleğim hüzünlü. Us duyduğu ilgisizlik dışında da ilgisiz, oysa bellek, duyduğu hüzün dışında kederli değil."
"Bir daha" dedi kız, "yavaşça."syf80
hoyratça çekip çıkardı sonsözü. Özensizce beyaza boyanmış eski bir araba plakasının üzerindeki yazıya bakıyordu Ruby:
GEÇİCİ BİR SÜRE İÇİN SAĞ syf95
ağlamaya en küçük bir istek ve gereksinme duymuyordu, cılız bir biçimde biriktirdiği acıma duygusunu canlılara saklıyordu, bundan belli şanssız birileri değil, yaşayan adsız bir topluluk, daha doğrusu soyut anlamda insanlar anlaşılmalıydı. Bu bireylerden soyutlanmış acıma duygusu, birçok çevrede katlanılmaz derecede kendinden verme, aşırı ve gereksiz bir özveri olarak değerlendirilip lanetlenirken, bazıları Tanrı ve topluma karşı işlenmiş bir suç görürdü burada. Ama Belacqua'nın yapacağı pek bir şey yoktu çünkü bu duygularla doluydu; kesin, tek biçimde ve sürekli, koşullardan etkilenmeden, ayrım gözetmeden ve çaba göstermeden acıma duyuyordu. Böyle bir yaklaşımın, bunu bazı zavallı bireylerin duyarsızlığı diye tanımlamaya çalışan kişiler için bir anlamı yoktu; ama bireye özel yaşamında büyük yararlar sağladığı açıktı.syf113
kendini çok iyi hissediyordu, bir çocuğun yüzünü öpülmek için uzatması gibi küçük yüzünü güneşe doğru çevirdi.
"Saklanan tutuklu" diye yanıtladı "bazen kör olur ama köstebek asla ayık dolaşmaz..."
Köstebek asla ayık dolaşmaz. Derin anlamlı bir söz. Kıllı böyle bir sözü yanıtlamak için ne kadar çabaladıysa da yenilgiyi onurla kabul etti;syf131
tasarladıkları gibiydi, Belacqua'nın kalbi kafesinin duvarlarına umutsuz bir hamle yaptı, kilise aniden haç biçiminde bir kafese dönüştü, cennetin buldogları sunağı denetliyor, sahanlıktaki tören alayı hareketlenmeye başlıyordu. Orgçu bir katil gibi yükseklerdeki yerine sıçradı, kısa bir süre sonra herkesin yüzünü güldürecek, neşelendirecek olan güçlerini devindirdi.syf136
Belacqua kediye çan takan fareden farksız bir biçimde hızla takıverdi yüzüğü, aşkının yüzük parmağı bir an önce şişsin, içine kazılı olan tümce okunmasın diye dua etti: Mens mea Lucia lucescit luce tua.
Ruhsal durumu bu evrede öyle yoğun ve karmaşıktı ki (tüm başına gelenleri düşündüğümüzde bizi hiç şaşırtmıyor. Her mevsimde şapka giymesine neden olan eşinin kaybı; Bn. bboggs için duyduğu tutkunun tatlı ve ateşli acısı; onu iyice uyuşuklaştıran yataktaki uzun dinlencesi; bira ve sarmısaklar; şimdi de görünen, dışsal bir işaretle bağlanıyor olmanın hissettirdikleri) noktalanmamış senfoninin birinci bölümündeki ikinci tekrarını sabırsızca ve solgunca dinleyen göçmüş sevgili Lucy ile arasında bir benzetme yapılabilirdi. Ne derseniz deyin, ölü bir kafayı eğik tutamazsınız.syf138
Acılar artık düşünülmez olduğunda uyku vakti gelmiştir. Yıllardır bu tümceyle iç içe yaşamıştı, şimdi terimleri ters yüz ederek, acıyı neşeyle değiştirerek durumuna uyarlıyor, kendisine yarar sağlayamayacağını düşündüğü bazı uygulamaların verdiği gerginlikten kurtulmaya çalışıyordu, başarılı olduğu da söylenebilirdi. Şimdi aklında bu tümceyle uyanmıştı, sanki uyuduğu süre içinde de oradaydı, bu kırılgan yeri düşlerden uzak tutmuştu.syf157
küçük ruhunun derinliklerine işlemiş bu vahşilere özgü düşünceden, dün gece kaygıyla geçirdiği saatlerin üzerinde bıraktığı ağırlıktan güzel bir uyku çekerek kurtulabilirdi. Onu istediklerini yapmaktan alıkoyan düşüncesi değil, ruhuydu. Haksızlık etmeyelim Belacqua'ya; umursamıyordu kendini. Usu tüm önemsedikleri karşısında gerileyebilirdi, bu serseriden bıkmıştı.syf158
Budalalıktı bu, iyi biliyordu. Değişmek için çok çabalamış, bu zayıflığıyla alay ederek ya da kendi kendini korkutarak kurtulmaya çalışmış ama başaramamıştı. Daha da bezmiş ve kendi kendine, neysem oyum demişti. Düşüncelerinin ve çabalamalarının sonuydu bu. Neysem oyum, bu tümceyi bir yerlerde okumuş, hoşlanmış ve benimsemişti.
Ama Tanrı en azından iyiydi, her zamanki gibi, yalnızca ona nasıl ulaşılacağını bilmemiz gerekiyordu, işte böyle, syf159
Gölge yapıyordu,
Gözlerini kapatacak, böylece gün doğumun dan uzak duracaktı.
Aslında gözler nedir, aklın gizli kapıları değil mi?
Güvenle kapattı onları.
İyi bir eğitim görmüş ya da gözünü budaktan esirgemeyen biri olmak, ya bir soylu ya da bir dövüş horozu! Sık sık övündüğü gibi düşüncesinde yaşıyor olsa bile. O zaman kendini hazır hissetmesi için bunların hiçbirine gerek duymazdı. O zaman, geriye yalnızca uyumak ya da kitap okumak için çabalamak, sakince akşam duasını bekleyerek,
çünkü her şeyin söylendiği ve yapıldığı son çukurdu orası. Ama o zamana kadar beklememeyi yeğlerdi, oraya hemen gidip yerleşmek, kendini dünyada belki de tam evindeymiş gibi hissedeceği o an, dünyanın kıçına tekmeyi vurmasını beklemekten daha akıllıcaydı. Kalbinin içine tam anlamıyla giremiyordu ama dışına da çıkamıyordu. syf160
Aklını gülerek güçlendirecekti, gülme iyi bir sözcük değildi ama her anlamda işine yarayacaktı, düşünceye açık olacak ve onu parça parça edecekti. İşkence odasına doğru ilerlerken bir nesnenin (bu da doğru bir sözcük değil), bir vişnenin yendikten sonra ağızda bıraktığına benzer bir tat kala-caktı dudaklarında, ohne Hast aber ohne Rast Dayanıklılığı herkeste saygınlık uyandıracaktı.syf163
kıza göz kamaştırıcı biçimde gülümsedi. Kız kolayca unutamazdı bunu.
Bir damat gibi sıçradı masanın üzerine. Narkozcu çok formda görünüyordu, biraz önce sağdıç olarak bir evlilik törenindeydi, ameliyat kıyafetinin altında şık giysileri gizliydi, içinden dua etti ve aletin başını tuttu.
"Tamam mısınız" dedi Belacqua.
Karışım çok zengindi, bu konudaki tüm sorular yersiz kaçacak. Kalbi kendisinden uzaklaşıyordu Belacqua'nın, kafasının içine korkunç sarı darbeler iniyordu. "En iyilerinden biri" gibi kendisiyle ilgisi bulunmayan sözler işitti. Deyim güven verdi ona. Sağdıç vanayı çevirdi.
Aksi şeytan! Öldü!
Kalbini dinlemeyi tamamen unutmuşlardı.syf173
Adam kendini dingin ve düşünceli hissediyordu. Klasikoromantik bir emekçiydi öyleyse. Gülün güle söylediği sözler uçuşuyordu kafasında: hiçbir bahçıvan õlmemişti, virgül, gülle dolu bir bellek içinde. Kısa bir süre şarkı söyledi, birasından içti, bir gözyaşı damlası süzüldü gözlerinden, rahatlattı kendini.
Yaşam böyle işte. syf191
July 3, 2022
This has all the traces of Beckett's work to come: the dual obsession with stasis and motion, the meaningless of meaning and the something within nothing, the abstraction of all narrative and symbolism. Here, unlike his mature so-called 'minimalism', he writes in a rambunctious imitation of Finnegans Wake, centeted around a character named for Dante's Belacqua (a saved soul stuck in purgatory, too lazy to undergo the ascent to heaven) and with constantly allusive sentences in the Joycean alliterative prosody. It's way more a novel than a set of short stories, iterating the various minutiae of Belacqua's life in between his unlikely series of marriages, but in a Joycean-like inversion he seems to deconstruct the narrative by disregarding long term coherence for a fixation on the structure of shorter episodes.
It's more interesting to consider this without reference to Beckett's mature works, since while far shallower and less profound than any of Joyce it's still an aggressive effort and very talented, as we'd be led to ignore by historical retrospect. The Irishisms are very pronounced here, the same sorts of nonsense hijinks in a Flann O'Brien book and the same off kilter parodical tragedy of Synge's plays. The lengthy 'Wet Night' chapter, a dream of a nutty trial and school lecture, is a centerpoint as is the 'Miserable One' wedding charade, all wide collages of obscure sources and constantly shifting sign & signified; I think reading these helps confirm William Gass' declaration that Joyce imitation/expansion is something that must be overcome, since these big spectacles (fun on the manifest) are clear attempts to make meaningful webs of language, but I can neither imagine them warranting much attention to anyone, not even the Beckett scholars I'm familiar with. Definitely worth reading for Beckett fans or Irish literature lovers, but as with its more refined successor Murphy I imagine it's just prone to confuse anyone not familiar with the ideas and motifs Beckett is cloudily expressing.
It's more interesting to consider this without reference to Beckett's mature works, since while far shallower and less profound than any of Joyce it's still an aggressive effort and very talented, as we'd be led to ignore by historical retrospect. The Irishisms are very pronounced here, the same sorts of nonsense hijinks in a Flann O'Brien book and the same off kilter parodical tragedy of Synge's plays. The lengthy 'Wet Night' chapter, a dream of a nutty trial and school lecture, is a centerpoint as is the 'Miserable One' wedding charade, all wide collages of obscure sources and constantly shifting sign & signified; I think reading these helps confirm William Gass' declaration that Joyce imitation/expansion is something that must be overcome, since these big spectacles (fun on the manifest) are clear attempts to make meaningful webs of language, but I can neither imagine them warranting much attention to anyone, not even the Beckett scholars I'm familiar with. Definitely worth reading for Beckett fans or Irish literature lovers, but as with its more refined successor Murphy I imagine it's just prone to confuse anyone not familiar with the ideas and motifs Beckett is cloudily expressing.
April 3, 2018
as with everything Beckett writes, these stories are intriguing, as much for their content as for their autobiographical elements... it is interesting to see the first fiction attempts of Beckett, and one wonders why his writings often took so long to get published... less of the short sentences and wordplay and repetitiousness of his later work, but enjoyable all the same... plenty of references abound, not the least being the titular character's name being borrowed from Dante, and several references to Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"... religion, marriage, death, and ennui... another story, "Echo's Bones" was supposed to be included in this collection, but the publisher rejected it and it was unpublished until 2014... this is early Beckett, and one sees the future in fits and starts... quite...
October 3, 2022
Beckett triggers me. Besides Godot, his short pieces irritate the shit out of me. I wanted to dislike this work, and did indeed often find myself annoyed. Too much of Joyce to be comprehensible, not enough of Joyce to make it joyous. But then again, time after time, I was twisted into grinning, alas chagrined, and was forced to acknowledge an ingenuity in a particular turn of phrase. Beckett has a perturbing grammar, a dense and impenetrable foliage of vocabulary, and little to no grasp or care, of how to move a character through a succession of events in a plot. Yet Belacqua is real, exists inside of me, an impossible creature, utterly unserious. And thus I must bow in humble deference at least for now.
May 16, 2023
A un libro más de haberme leído suficientemente a este hombre y no volverlo a leer más
September 17, 2025
portrait of the artist as a young prick
often cannot follow what is happening but the point is the words are ricocheting around in my brain tickling and teasing all my faculties. every outing i've had with beckett has been a different level of pleasing frustration, of goggled boggled amusement. my irish roots are slaphappy. this man rerouted what language could do.
often cannot follow what is happening but the point is the words are ricocheting around in my brain tickling and teasing all my faculties. every outing i've had with beckett has been a different level of pleasing frustration, of goggled boggled amusement. my irish roots are slaphappy. this man rerouted what language could do.
April 5, 2024
Terrible!!
Can’t believe I even finished it…. Had no idea what was happening. There were flashes of humour and probably needed to be savoured and not rushed but I was desperate to move on to the next book!
Can’t believe I even finished it…. Had no idea what was happening. There were flashes of humour and probably needed to be savoured and not rushed but I was desperate to move on to the next book!
Read
November 28, 2025If there’s such a thing as an Irish flâneur, it is surely Belacqua Shuah in this short but sprawling tale of his life (and death) in 10 chapters, modelled very loosely on Divine Comedy from which the hero’s name is taken. Each short chapter plays with a stage of Belacqua’s life, from the pretentious student of Trinity College Dublin (‘Dante and the Lobster’), through his romantic infatuations (‘Love and Lethe’) to his marriage(s) (‘What a Misfortune’) and final illness and death (‘Yellow’).
James Joyce had a lot of time for Beckett and regarded him as a promising young novelist, which is just as well, because in fairness this first novel (1934) does owe quite a debt to Ulysses (1922), particularly in ‘Smeraldina’s Billet-Doux’, which reads like a comic take-off of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. That doesn’t weaken the book at all, however, because there’s nevertheless a distinctive universe here with all the traits I love in Irish writing: self-deprecating humour, of course, but also an appreciation of the natural world, an unaffected casualness and a lurking sense of melancholy.
It's difficult to follow in places - whoever wrote the back-cover blurb for this Picador edition clearly didn't get beyond the first chapter - and at one point, I determined to look up every unfamiliar word I encountered, but in the end, just went with the flow and was none the worse for that. I really didn’t mind being lost in a drunken haze (‘A Wet Night’) and while I probably missed many clever allusions, it’s so beautifully executed, I just enjoyed the ride. Ready for more Beckett (and Joyce), that’s for sure.
James Joyce had a lot of time for Beckett and regarded him as a promising young novelist, which is just as well, because in fairness this first novel (1934) does owe quite a debt to Ulysses (1922), particularly in ‘Smeraldina’s Billet-Doux’, which reads like a comic take-off of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. That doesn’t weaken the book at all, however, because there’s nevertheless a distinctive universe here with all the traits I love in Irish writing: self-deprecating humour, of course, but also an appreciation of the natural world, an unaffected casualness and a lurking sense of melancholy.
It's difficult to follow in places - whoever wrote the back-cover blurb for this Picador edition clearly didn't get beyond the first chapter - and at one point, I determined to look up every unfamiliar word I encountered, but in the end, just went with the flow and was none the worse for that. I really didn’t mind being lost in a drunken haze (‘A Wet Night’) and while I probably missed many clever allusions, it’s so beautifully executed, I just enjoyed the ride. Ready for more Beckett (and Joyce), that’s for sure.
October 4, 2022
'More Pricks than Kicks' is what I believe to be Samuel Beckett's first short story collection, and it contains the trademark minimalism and dark humour that would characterize his entire career.
"Dante and the Lobster," the collection's first story, opens with Belacqua, our hero, reading a part of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' and trying to make sense of the thing. It reads somewhat like a more punk version of a story from Joyce's 'Dubliners' - Belacqua Shuah is a very misanthropic, cynical person who is rather rude to different people he encounters throughout the story. He's also foolishly not quite as smart as he thinks, as demonstrated in instances with his teacher, who he seemingly fawns over as is implied by the narrative.
*
"Fingal" is another desultory story like the first, though this time Belacqua Shuah is on a date with a Winnie, who he then loses after hanging out with her on-looking a lunatic asylum to Dr. Sholto. It's primary purpose is to illustrate how pathetic, anesthetized, and impotent Belacqua is as a man.
*
"Ding Dong" is a story that further demonstrates Belacqua's misguided relations towards females. He first spots a child being hit by a cart en route to a pub, then is hit up to buy theatre tickets by a woman. He's bedazzled, and coerced into the purchase. Belacqua really doesn't have much stone, and seems perpetually put off and pushed around by his female dependency and incapability.
*
One thing I'll say in rejoinder to past observations is this: 'More Pricks' is a collection that has an anti-story format, akin to Joyce's 'Dubliners', yet very different, as there isn't even really an epiphany to any of the stories that clues us to the predominant theme of each tale. Beckett may be pointing out the futility of life here - the desultory nature of it - the Nothing of all Belacqua's interactions and mishaps. The structure of the first few stories is almost essentially even a non- or anti-structure - it resists the format typical of short stories where there is a character (or characters) who encounter a conflict, they confront it, they learn something from that conflict, and then there's resolution. Perhaps that reflects the nihilism of Belacqua the character - a form to accommodate the mess that was contemporary life for Beckett. They're cryptic tales, much like Joyce's, who Beckett was a surrogate son to, but I would say that they're even emptier on the face of it than the 'Dubliners' tales, which are much easier to pull a kernel of truth from as to theme.
*
"A Wet Day" features a dinner party with a panoply of characters that Beckett focalizes in free indirect style much as in the "Wander Rocks" section of 'Ulysses'. This is the first story in the collection to net Belacqua in a broader context in his native Dublin beyond his own indolence and self-centredness. Some of the voices are sketchily drawn, and Beckett dives in and out of them rather quickly, though I suppose that may be his purpose. The party itself as arranged by Callaken is raucous, boisterous, absurd - nobody quite knows who anyone is or cares, and all the voices intermingle like people shouting in the street. Perhaps Beckett makes a comment on the aimlessness and emptiness of the culture of the '30s? Somewhat like the nihilistic, broken, spoiled parties of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises'. The prose style in the section is pastiched, vignette - it's lacking in narrative authority perhaps to underscore the lack of authority present at the party - even the person hosting the party isn't quite determined, if you needed another argument for lack of authority. Belacqua then absconds with the Alba from the party and it's implied that they have sex. The story then ends with Belacqua still drunk, miserable, and walking away from her house. A sad portrait.
*
Another interjection: has Beckett created another 'Dubliners' in the wake of his master's influence? No, I would firmly say you will not find something in 'More Pricks' akin to the genius and richness of Joyce's early short stories. Most of the 'Dubliners' tales are among the greatest stories in English Literature, and as a collection, one of the greatest cycles ever written. 'More Pricks' is more so an apprentice work by Beckett - one where he was emulating Joyce strongly, and trying to create something out of his own life that could start his own mark in the literary world. It was unacknowledged during its initial publication, and when Beckett's popularity rose and readers rushed to 'More Pricks', he resented the attention because he considered it part of his juvenilia. I can see why, because the writing in 'More Pricks' seems unpolished compared to the brilliance of his late fiction, or his plays. It reminds me of how I used to emulate Joyce's writing (though not as well as Beckett has in this collection). However, 'More Pricks' is vital for understanding his career, and does contain brilliant moments.
*
"Love and Lethe" is a more conventional narrative, though one that breaks the fourth wall as previous ones have. It's about Belacqua making a botched suicide attempt with a girl named Ruby. Then they have sex. Sex and Death - desultory relationships? Cheque please!
*
"Walking Out" is probably one of the better stories that takes the concept of courting and turns it on its head. Belacqua is going to peep on two people in a forest who are banging - and his wife/fiancee Lucy is to meet him in the forest on horseback. She gets crippled by a carriage towards the end of the story after a heated exchange between them both, and the story ends somewhat abruptly - quite like one of Joyce's stories from 'Dubliners'. 'More Pricks' has for this reason been fascinating to see, because it shows how much Beckett emulated his surrogate father, trying to create his own, more modern 'Dubliners'. But it pales in comparison, primarily because Beckett clearly was writing in another style someone else already did rather than in his own voice. That's why many of the stories come off strained, abrupt, lacking in something. But it's essential to read because you get to see all the germs of Beckett's later writings, and how unique he was even at outset.
*
"What a Misfortune"
*
"The Smeraldina's Billet Doux" is a sappy letter chapter in the first person from a woman enamoured with Belacqua and who can't quite express it correctly. It's more of his female attention that he doesn't want. Not too notable.
*
"Yellow" is one of the best stories in the book. It shows Belacqua's growing solipsism in a literal and figurative sense as he lies in a hospital bed awaiting surgery. He hates intrusions from women and the outside world, and finds strategies in his mind to combat nuisances. This is the more literal solipsism. The figurative is when he's deriving phrases and words to say to people he deems incorrect, which is an act of mistranslation of the mind's ideas to a worldly defence. In some cases, he uses the wrong linguistic language - a bald-faced act of mistranslation. This underscores Beckett's growing discomfort with the style he used in 'More Pricks' - an off-shoot of Joyce's "scrupulous meanness" used in 'Dubliners', that actually becomes more engorged and loaded down with erudition and verbosity because Beckett had read 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegans Wake'. Far more broadly, it shows his discomfort with English to express himself, a language he abandoned for French because of the liberty it gave him from Joyce and other writers' influences, to which he later returned when he found his true voice: the Minimalist to end all Minimalists. Belacqua's convalescence, and later death in "Draff" could biographically prefigure Beckett's death in English, as he "went into the Silence" that his later career would obsess over.
*
"Draff"
*
Overall, 'More Pricks Than Kicks' is an interesting study in the development of Samuel Beckett's literary style, with the standout story being "Dante and the Lobster." As mentioned previously, it was not quite the high genius of 'Dubliners', but it had great moments, and prefigures the anti-story structures that would interest Beckett throughout his later career. I highly recommend to everyone, as there's some interesting writing in here, by a true Master of the Language.
"Dante and the Lobster," the collection's first story, opens with Belacqua, our hero, reading a part of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' and trying to make sense of the thing. It reads somewhat like a more punk version of a story from Joyce's 'Dubliners' - Belacqua Shuah is a very misanthropic, cynical person who is rather rude to different people he encounters throughout the story. He's also foolishly not quite as smart as he thinks, as demonstrated in instances with his teacher, who he seemingly fawns over as is implied by the narrative.
*
"Fingal" is another desultory story like the first, though this time Belacqua Shuah is on a date with a Winnie, who he then loses after hanging out with her on-looking a lunatic asylum to Dr. Sholto. It's primary purpose is to illustrate how pathetic, anesthetized, and impotent Belacqua is as a man.
*
"Ding Dong" is a story that further demonstrates Belacqua's misguided relations towards females. He first spots a child being hit by a cart en route to a pub, then is hit up to buy theatre tickets by a woman. He's bedazzled, and coerced into the purchase. Belacqua really doesn't have much stone, and seems perpetually put off and pushed around by his female dependency and incapability.
*
One thing I'll say in rejoinder to past observations is this: 'More Pricks' is a collection that has an anti-story format, akin to Joyce's 'Dubliners', yet very different, as there isn't even really an epiphany to any of the stories that clues us to the predominant theme of each tale. Beckett may be pointing out the futility of life here - the desultory nature of it - the Nothing of all Belacqua's interactions and mishaps. The structure of the first few stories is almost essentially even a non- or anti-structure - it resists the format typical of short stories where there is a character (or characters) who encounter a conflict, they confront it, they learn something from that conflict, and then there's resolution. Perhaps that reflects the nihilism of Belacqua the character - a form to accommodate the mess that was contemporary life for Beckett. They're cryptic tales, much like Joyce's, who Beckett was a surrogate son to, but I would say that they're even emptier on the face of it than the 'Dubliners' tales, which are much easier to pull a kernel of truth from as to theme.
*
"A Wet Day" features a dinner party with a panoply of characters that Beckett focalizes in free indirect style much as in the "Wander Rocks" section of 'Ulysses'. This is the first story in the collection to net Belacqua in a broader context in his native Dublin beyond his own indolence and self-centredness. Some of the voices are sketchily drawn, and Beckett dives in and out of them rather quickly, though I suppose that may be his purpose. The party itself as arranged by Callaken is raucous, boisterous, absurd - nobody quite knows who anyone is or cares, and all the voices intermingle like people shouting in the street. Perhaps Beckett makes a comment on the aimlessness and emptiness of the culture of the '30s? Somewhat like the nihilistic, broken, spoiled parties of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises'. The prose style in the section is pastiched, vignette - it's lacking in narrative authority perhaps to underscore the lack of authority present at the party - even the person hosting the party isn't quite determined, if you needed another argument for lack of authority. Belacqua then absconds with the Alba from the party and it's implied that they have sex. The story then ends with Belacqua still drunk, miserable, and walking away from her house. A sad portrait.
*
Another interjection: has Beckett created another 'Dubliners' in the wake of his master's influence? No, I would firmly say you will not find something in 'More Pricks' akin to the genius and richness of Joyce's early short stories. Most of the 'Dubliners' tales are among the greatest stories in English Literature, and as a collection, one of the greatest cycles ever written. 'More Pricks' is more so an apprentice work by Beckett - one where he was emulating Joyce strongly, and trying to create something out of his own life that could start his own mark in the literary world. It was unacknowledged during its initial publication, and when Beckett's popularity rose and readers rushed to 'More Pricks', he resented the attention because he considered it part of his juvenilia. I can see why, because the writing in 'More Pricks' seems unpolished compared to the brilliance of his late fiction, or his plays. It reminds me of how I used to emulate Joyce's writing (though not as well as Beckett has in this collection). However, 'More Pricks' is vital for understanding his career, and does contain brilliant moments.
*
"Love and Lethe" is a more conventional narrative, though one that breaks the fourth wall as previous ones have. It's about Belacqua making a botched suicide attempt with a girl named Ruby. Then they have sex. Sex and Death - desultory relationships? Cheque please!
*
"Walking Out" is probably one of the better stories that takes the concept of courting and turns it on its head. Belacqua is going to peep on two people in a forest who are banging - and his wife/fiancee Lucy is to meet him in the forest on horseback. She gets crippled by a carriage towards the end of the story after a heated exchange between them both, and the story ends somewhat abruptly - quite like one of Joyce's stories from 'Dubliners'. 'More Pricks' has for this reason been fascinating to see, because it shows how much Beckett emulated his surrogate father, trying to create his own, more modern 'Dubliners'. But it pales in comparison, primarily because Beckett clearly was writing in another style someone else already did rather than in his own voice. That's why many of the stories come off strained, abrupt, lacking in something. But it's essential to read because you get to see all the germs of Beckett's later writings, and how unique he was even at outset.
*
"What a Misfortune"
*
"The Smeraldina's Billet Doux" is a sappy letter chapter in the first person from a woman enamoured with Belacqua and who can't quite express it correctly. It's more of his female attention that he doesn't want. Not too notable.
*
"Yellow" is one of the best stories in the book. It shows Belacqua's growing solipsism in a literal and figurative sense as he lies in a hospital bed awaiting surgery. He hates intrusions from women and the outside world, and finds strategies in his mind to combat nuisances. This is the more literal solipsism. The figurative is when he's deriving phrases and words to say to people he deems incorrect, which is an act of mistranslation of the mind's ideas to a worldly defence. In some cases, he uses the wrong linguistic language - a bald-faced act of mistranslation. This underscores Beckett's growing discomfort with the style he used in 'More Pricks' - an off-shoot of Joyce's "scrupulous meanness" used in 'Dubliners', that actually becomes more engorged and loaded down with erudition and verbosity because Beckett had read 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegans Wake'. Far more broadly, it shows his discomfort with English to express himself, a language he abandoned for French because of the liberty it gave him from Joyce and other writers' influences, to which he later returned when he found his true voice: the Minimalist to end all Minimalists. Belacqua's convalescence, and later death in "Draff" could biographically prefigure Beckett's death in English, as he "went into the Silence" that his later career would obsess over.
*
"Draff"
*
Overall, 'More Pricks Than Kicks' is an interesting study in the development of Samuel Beckett's literary style, with the standout story being "Dante and the Lobster." As mentioned previously, it was not quite the high genius of 'Dubliners', but it had great moments, and prefigures the anti-story structures that would interest Beckett throughout his later career. I highly recommend to everyone, as there's some interesting writing in here, by a true Master of the Language.
July 27, 2021
Here the young Beckett takes a step towards the Beckett I first encountered in college, beginning my studies of the master’s oeuvres with the famous Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable trilogy. Here, however, in his first published complete book, we find the Irish master polishing up a bit of the mess that was his aborted (well, un-publishable mainly) Dream of Fair to Middling Women, rearranging the materials, and attempting some new, tighter prose using the same protagonist, Belacqua Shua. The new pieces struck me as the best here, tight in that way that good prose writing can be and which would come to mark Beckett’s later work, his honing each of his topics down to their essentials, tighter and tighter, until he was writing novels shorter than most short stories. Also the re-worked passages (which I did compare with Dream... as I had just finished reading it and had it at hand) were given mainly a few more hints of context, which went a long way toward regularizing and explaining them—also taking away much of the crazy, messy mystery of that raucous tome.
All-in-all More Pricks than Kicks still feels like a series of studies toward a novel, rather than a fully realized work. I disagree with those who claim it to be a novel since its ten episodes all deal with the same protagonist. It’s rather simply several disembodied moments of the non-continuum of Belacqua’s life gathered together. There’s little narrative arc, to my mind, or plan to the suite—rather simply what the author could say at that moment about that particular moment, or character. I don’t think they all necessarily evoke Belacqua either. Just because the narrator calls the protagonist by the same name in all of the tales means little. Especially when you consider the many interchangable M.s to come (Murphy, Malloy, Malone etc.) and how namelessness later comes to all of Beckett’s protagonists. It’s not yet all of a piece but rather reads like the salvageable pieces of failed attempts at novel writing. Even lacked any real plan or arc—and its intrusive narrator even boasted of its lack of either. Here most of the meta-narrative and intrusive, confused author is gone (again a function that tightens and distracts less) but I kind of missed him after a bit.
It’s comforting, in this re-read of Beckett’s prose works, for me, to know that he will solve all of these problems soon and write amazing and original works that read more smoothly and concisely than these two early efforts. On to Murphy.
All-in-all More Pricks than Kicks still feels like a series of studies toward a novel, rather than a fully realized work. I disagree with those who claim it to be a novel since its ten episodes all deal with the same protagonist. It’s rather simply several disembodied moments of the non-continuum of Belacqua’s life gathered together. There’s little narrative arc, to my mind, or plan to the suite—rather simply what the author could say at that moment about that particular moment, or character. I don’t think they all necessarily evoke Belacqua either. Just because the narrator calls the protagonist by the same name in all of the tales means little. Especially when you consider the many interchangable M.s to come (Murphy, Malloy, Malone etc.) and how namelessness later comes to all of Beckett’s protagonists. It’s not yet all of a piece but rather reads like the salvageable pieces of failed attempts at novel writing. Even lacked any real plan or arc—and its intrusive narrator even boasted of its lack of either. Here most of the meta-narrative and intrusive, confused author is gone (again a function that tightens and distracts less) but I kind of missed him after a bit.
It’s comforting, in this re-read of Beckett’s prose works, for me, to know that he will solve all of these problems soon and write amazing and original works that read more smoothly and concisely than these two early efforts. On to Murphy.
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