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Imagination Dead Imagine
تخیل را مرده فرض کن در اصل بخشی از یک نوشتهی بلند است که بکت آن را بسط و توسعه داده است. متن از وضعیتی صحبت میکند که تخیلی در حال مرگ است، اما خودِ تخیل از این وضع رو به نابودیاش آگاهی کامل دارد.ساموئل بکت نویسندهای است که منتقدان بسیاری در دورات حیاتش او را بزرگترین نویسندهی قرن بیستم میدانستند و همچنین تریلوژی یا سهگانهی «مالوی» را قلهی فعالیتهای هنریاش مینامیدند. بعد از مرگ اما شهرت او به سرعت رو به افول رفت، یا شاید درستتر است گفته شود کارهایش در یک وضعیت ابهام آمیزی قرار گرفتند، و کار به جایی رسید که اکنون او به طور اخص به عنوان نمایشنامهنویس «درانتظار گدو» میشناسند. زیرا به زعم عدهای این نمایشنامه بسیار کمک کرد تا مسیر تئاتر مدرن تغییر بیابد. شاید این تغییر دیدگاه و ارزیابی دوگانه به دلیل آثار متاخرش باشد، آثاری که یک عده معتقدند به مراتب بسیار کممایه و سطحیاند، هرچند به زعم عدهای این آثار متاخر اتفاقا از درونمایهی ژرفی برخوردارند. اما در هرحال بکت با نوشتههایش تحولی بزرگی در ادبیات بهوجود آورد به طوری که دیگر امکان ندارد در مورد نمایشنامه یا رمان مدرن صحبت کرد و اسمی از ساموئل بکت نیاورد.«تخیل را مرده خیال کن» ماهیتاً همان بکت است. اگر کسی مثال خوبی در مورد بکت بخواهد، تا از چگونگی نوشتههای او مطلع شود قطعا این کتاب یکی از بهترین نمونههاست. کتاب «تخیل را مرده خیال کن» پلات مشخصی ندارد، همچنین شخصیت پردازی، ساختار، درونمایه و دیگر عناصری که به طور سنتی از یک داستان انتظار میرود.تصاویر کتاب – تصاویری چون گویی که به تناوب در سیاهی و روشنی میغلتد، تجمعی متشکل از دو بدن، فیگورهایی به شکل جنین – میتوانند استعارههایی از خودِ زندگی باشند، اما همینها هم برای هر خواننده ممکن است معناهای خاص دیگری را بازنمایی کند. درواقع درکِ پارههای «تخیل را مرده خیال کن»، بسیار منوط به تجربهی زیستهی خوانندهاش است
- GenresFiction
16 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
4 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Beckett
915 books6,552 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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May 11, 2025
DUST INBREATHED WAS A HOUSE,
THE WALL, THE WAINSCOT AND THE MOUSE.
THE DEATH OF HOPE AND DESPAIR,
THIS IS THE DEATH OF AIR.
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
If you’ve ever gone far enough past the heavy blitz of hypertalk from our electronic media - in order to find greater meaning in your world - you probably know the Death of Air.
Listless stultifying boredom - a dull feeling of mediocrity, in yourself and the world. Sound pleasant?
Thought so. But guess what?
This is what’s beyond the last outposts of our selves within electronic civilisation. So by turning on our Android we are Re-Creating our Own(?) Worlds, says the insightful must-read book Technicity.
Has it come to that?
But you probably know it well, if you’re reading this. It’s like the Truman Show - if you remember that film. The world outside that media setup is much bleaker and blanker than our hyped-up selves can imagine.
But that’s the road to final peace and understanding.
And freedom.
Bunyan called it the Valley of the Shadow. John of the Cross called it the Dark Night of the Soul. There’s no glitz and glam in it - but if peace, rather than endless empty media talk and action, is your Only goal - you’ll hang in there and plow on through it.
Along that road you’ll see your treasured memories and attachments dwindle (gone are your happy ‘house, the wall, the wainscot and the mouse’). Gone eventually, too, are both ‘hope and despair - this is the death of air.’ Welcome to Death Valley - if that’s what it seems to you.
For one of the last things to go is imagination.
Another kind of death!
It’s a Huge Writer’s Block, as Eliot knew well. For after WWII, his poetical creations pretty well dried up, except for lighter theatrical works. That was even more extreme than Writer’s Block or even Burnout...
That was Imagination Dead - (just) Imagine!
Now, you may not know it, but Samuel Beckett was a bit of an ascetic, too, for much the same reasons as I intimated at the beginning - he chose Dante’s path out of Hell as the way to escape modern media madness.
For pop culture, though nothing like what it is today, had entered the scene, stage right, like an existentialist’s Rhinoceros!
I would agree with him, for I have similarly modelled my path on the Comedia. But it’s no fun! Listen to the first words of Imagination Dead Imagine:
“No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine.
“Islands, waters, azure, verdure, one glimpse and vanished, endlessly, omit. Till all white in the whiteness of the rotunda.”
The outer bleakness of this rotunda is the same as its inside, except that it is filled with feelings of combativeness, conflictedness - and even ardent compassion. For this is our dark inner self whom we are attempting to befriend - our lost self.
But why all the fuss in this conflict resolution?
When I was a kid, my self was a warm fuzzy feeling in response to pleasant circumstances - that’s the self I remember, just like many of my friends remember their childhood.
As a young adult, though, I was jarred semi-awake by sheer force of circumstance - and continued so, confused, up to late mid-age, because I never accepted a facile way out. I’m glad of this now.
For I no longer see my life as fuzzy or conflictive feelings, but as a simple apperception of these two separate modes of being within a greater sense of Being.
God, or Being is in charge, so my worries are few, likewise my passions - having been lessened by my advanced age.
I can now more closely appreciate the writings of Beckett, whose early works are cast in the conflictual mode of mid-age, and whose final works abound in the feeling of an utterly uncluttered appreciation of old guy's encounter with the bald facts of life. There is a mature meeting of both those two stages of life’s way in this short piece.
This, in the end, is “the still centre of our turning world.”
Nothing special.
Just being there.
So is this arduous prose simply symbolically suggestive?
Yes, that’s it - all is metaphor. Poetry in prose. Yet this, surprisingly, is a true metaphor of the very path to final happiness.
“No country for old men?”
I would disagree with those words, Mr. Yeats.
For the sharp constriction of the angst of youth is our necessary Purgation:
And its bleakness the very birth site of Nascent JOY.
For it is only HERE, in the Death of our troubled Imaginations, that we’ll finally find peace;
And as you walk on, ever “aux glaciers attentatoire,” ever bravely forward -
Wher’er you walk
Cool gales shall fan the glade,
Trees where you sit
Shall crowd into a shade.
For you will no longer have to 'turn on' a phony world to live in.
Imagination dead.
Imagine!
THE WALL, THE WAINSCOT AND THE MOUSE.
THE DEATH OF HOPE AND DESPAIR,
THIS IS THE DEATH OF AIR.
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
If you’ve ever gone far enough past the heavy blitz of hypertalk from our electronic media - in order to find greater meaning in your world - you probably know the Death of Air.
Listless stultifying boredom - a dull feeling of mediocrity, in yourself and the world. Sound pleasant?
Thought so. But guess what?
This is what’s beyond the last outposts of our selves within electronic civilisation. So by turning on our Android we are Re-Creating our Own(?) Worlds, says the insightful must-read book Technicity.
Has it come to that?
But you probably know it well, if you’re reading this. It’s like the Truman Show - if you remember that film. The world outside that media setup is much bleaker and blanker than our hyped-up selves can imagine.
But that’s the road to final peace and understanding.
And freedom.
Bunyan called it the Valley of the Shadow. John of the Cross called it the Dark Night of the Soul. There’s no glitz and glam in it - but if peace, rather than endless empty media talk and action, is your Only goal - you’ll hang in there and plow on through it.
Along that road you’ll see your treasured memories and attachments dwindle (gone are your happy ‘house, the wall, the wainscot and the mouse’). Gone eventually, too, are both ‘hope and despair - this is the death of air.’ Welcome to Death Valley - if that’s what it seems to you.
For one of the last things to go is imagination.
Another kind of death!
It’s a Huge Writer’s Block, as Eliot knew well. For after WWII, his poetical creations pretty well dried up, except for lighter theatrical works. That was even more extreme than Writer’s Block or even Burnout...
That was Imagination Dead - (just) Imagine!
Now, you may not know it, but Samuel Beckett was a bit of an ascetic, too, for much the same reasons as I intimated at the beginning - he chose Dante’s path out of Hell as the way to escape modern media madness.
For pop culture, though nothing like what it is today, had entered the scene, stage right, like an existentialist’s Rhinoceros!
I would agree with him, for I have similarly modelled my path on the Comedia. But it’s no fun! Listen to the first words of Imagination Dead Imagine:
“No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine.
“Islands, waters, azure, verdure, one glimpse and vanished, endlessly, omit. Till all white in the whiteness of the rotunda.”
The outer bleakness of this rotunda is the same as its inside, except that it is filled with feelings of combativeness, conflictedness - and even ardent compassion. For this is our dark inner self whom we are attempting to befriend - our lost self.
But why all the fuss in this conflict resolution?
When I was a kid, my self was a warm fuzzy feeling in response to pleasant circumstances - that’s the self I remember, just like many of my friends remember their childhood.
As a young adult, though, I was jarred semi-awake by sheer force of circumstance - and continued so, confused, up to late mid-age, because I never accepted a facile way out. I’m glad of this now.
For I no longer see my life as fuzzy or conflictive feelings, but as a simple apperception of these two separate modes of being within a greater sense of Being.
God, or Being is in charge, so my worries are few, likewise my passions - having been lessened by my advanced age.
I can now more closely appreciate the writings of Beckett, whose early works are cast in the conflictual mode of mid-age, and whose final works abound in the feeling of an utterly uncluttered appreciation of old guy's encounter with the bald facts of life. There is a mature meeting of both those two stages of life’s way in this short piece.
This, in the end, is “the still centre of our turning world.”
Nothing special.
Just being there.
So is this arduous prose simply symbolically suggestive?
Yes, that’s it - all is metaphor. Poetry in prose. Yet this, surprisingly, is a true metaphor of the very path to final happiness.
“No country for old men?”
I would disagree with those words, Mr. Yeats.
For the sharp constriction of the angst of youth is our necessary Purgation:
And its bleakness the very birth site of Nascent JOY.
For it is only HERE, in the Death of our troubled Imaginations, that we’ll finally find peace;
And as you walk on, ever “aux glaciers attentatoire,” ever bravely forward -
Wher’er you walk
Cool gales shall fan the glade,
Trees where you sit
Shall crowd into a shade.
For you will no longer have to 'turn on' a phony world to live in.
Imagination dead.
Imagine!
August 17, 2022
خب اصلش همینه بعضی جملههاشو نفهمی ولی بخونی و کیف کنی🙂
February 1, 2020
انسانهای بکت از تجربهی اومانیستیشان فراتر میروند و همزمان در آن غوطه ورند. شاید این همان ویران سازی کل نوشتار باشد؛به خصوص در ناداستان آخر دربارهی 'مرفی" :
<< تاریکی سیلانی از شکلها بود، گردهم آیی مداوم شکلها و سقوطی که منجر به تکهتکه شدنشان میشد. روشنایی دربردارنده اجزای سربهزیر یک جور چندگانگی نوین بود، جهان تن درون قطعات یک اسباببازی پاره پاره شده بود؛ تاریک روشن، حالتهای صلح داشت. اما در تاریکی نه اجزا وجود دارد نه حالتها؛ هیچ جز شکلهایی که درون تکههای تکوینی نوین تکوین مییابند و خرد میشوند >>
پ.ن: ترجمه از زبان انگلیسی؛ همان واژه در لغتنامه است؛ اما انتخاب واژه و شفاف بودن در مهدی نوید یا سهیل سمی بهتر است.
<< تاریکی سیلانی از شکلها بود، گردهم آیی مداوم شکلها و سقوطی که منجر به تکهتکه شدنشان میشد. روشنایی دربردارنده اجزای سربهزیر یک جور چندگانگی نوین بود، جهان تن درون قطعات یک اسباببازی پاره پاره شده بود؛ تاریک روشن، حالتهای صلح داشت. اما در تاریکی نه اجزا وجود دارد نه حالتها؛ هیچ جز شکلهایی که درون تکههای تکوینی نوین تکوین مییابند و خرد میشوند >>
پ.ن: ترجمه از زبان انگلیسی؛ همان واژه در لغتنامه است؛ اما انتخاب واژه و شفاف بودن در مهدی نوید یا سهیل سمی بهتر است.
March 16, 2018
The precursor to Ping. The progression toward Ping. The Prepinger? Le ProgPing? The PrePingCursionning?!? All, all.
If the schematic layout that Beckett dictates doesn’t make you giggle, you’re taking the Master far more seriously than he ever did. His “lessness” works are superficially horrific snapshots into various strata of dehumanization, psychic/corporal bondage, and pure hopelessness. Sure! But the careful reader will be tasked with any number of takeaways, perhaps my most frequent being, “Shit! What am I whining about? Life could always be like that!” And then I whistle down the dawn, just lazily strutting...
One feels Beckett’s pure joy in crafting these crypto-cuneiform observations of Hell and man’s negotiations within it. You can practically hear him cackling at the ABSURDITY of his scenarios. If that makes him a sadist bastard, than he, Blue Öyster Cult, and I are all making a career of evil. Join us?
If the schematic layout that Beckett dictates doesn’t make you giggle, you’re taking the Master far more seriously than he ever did. His “lessness” works are superficially horrific snapshots into various strata of dehumanization, psychic/corporal bondage, and pure hopelessness. Sure! But the careful reader will be tasked with any number of takeaways, perhaps my most frequent being, “Shit! What am I whining about? Life could always be like that!” And then I whistle down the dawn, just lazily strutting...
One feels Beckett’s pure joy in crafting these crypto-cuneiform observations of Hell and man’s negotiations within it. You can practically hear him cackling at the ABSURDITY of his scenarios. If that makes him a sadist bastard, than he, Blue Öyster Cult, and I are all making a career of evil. Join us?
Read
September 6, 2021😶من هیچ، من نگاه، من هیچ، من لال، من هیییچ😶
Read
January 16, 2023(Part of my current project of reading everything Beckett published in precise chronological order.)
Over the course of his life, Beckett wrote many narratives of solitary confinement. And, there's a clear trajectory to these many efforts: toward pieces that are ever simpler, ever more stark and concise. In the titular character of Murphy, the Malone of Malone Dies, and the Viktor of Eleutheria, for example, we find recognizably human characters who either seek out confinement and solitude (Murphy and Viktor), or have it imposed upon them by circumstances (Malone the old man left to die alone in his bed).
In All Strange Away, however, Beckett began taking this preoccupation in a much more radical direction - one in which he only pushed further and further as time went on. There, the narrator gives itself imperatives to imagine human figures locked into a nightmarish prison - an ever shrinking container whose interior alternates between blinding light and utter darkness.
Imagination Dead Imagine was written shortly after All Strange Away, and is something like an ultra-condensed re-writing thereof. Imagination Dead Imagine is only about 1/5 the length of All Strange Away, but it uses a similar conceit: two human figures are locked within a rotunda that hovers in a white, empty universe. Within this rotunda, light and temperature oscillate together: as the light brightens, the temperature increases, until at its peak it is uncomfortably hot; and as the light dims, the temperature decreases, until at its nadir it's freezing cold.
There is almost no narrative here. It reads a lot like the meticulous staging directions that Beckett wrote for his later short plays - as if he had been imagining this as a theatrical work, but decided to make it into a prose piece because it would be impossible to perform. Or alternatively, it's like a deadpan prose description of a living, moving sculpture: all we are given is what this world is like and how events unfold in it - no meaning, interpretation, or as Beckett says at the close of Watt, "no symbols where none intended."
Further, unlike Murphy, Malone, or Viktor, the figures encased in this strange prison aren't really characters at all. There is nothing to make them particular persons except their gender - one is a man, the other a woman. And, the only details that even make them human are their human bodies, and Beckett's brief, horrifying indications that they are both completely awake and aware of their plight.
Imagination Dead Imagine inaugurates my favorite phase of Beckett's prose. Here, it's as if he finally honed his lifelong concerns into their purest, most distinctive forms, producing a text that is unlike anything written by anyone else. I'm very much looking forward to re-reading the pieces he subsequently produced in this vein - for example Ping, Quad, and especially The Lost Ones, which is the text that introduced me to Beckett when I was 14.
Over the course of his life, Beckett wrote many narratives of solitary confinement. And, there's a clear trajectory to these many efforts: toward pieces that are ever simpler, ever more stark and concise. In the titular character of Murphy, the Malone of Malone Dies, and the Viktor of Eleutheria, for example, we find recognizably human characters who either seek out confinement and solitude (Murphy and Viktor), or have it imposed upon them by circumstances (Malone the old man left to die alone in his bed).
In All Strange Away, however, Beckett began taking this preoccupation in a much more radical direction - one in which he only pushed further and further as time went on. There, the narrator gives itself imperatives to imagine human figures locked into a nightmarish prison - an ever shrinking container whose interior alternates between blinding light and utter darkness.
Imagination Dead Imagine was written shortly after All Strange Away, and is something like an ultra-condensed re-writing thereof. Imagination Dead Imagine is only about 1/5 the length of All Strange Away, but it uses a similar conceit: two human figures are locked within a rotunda that hovers in a white, empty universe. Within this rotunda, light and temperature oscillate together: as the light brightens, the temperature increases, until at its peak it is uncomfortably hot; and as the light dims, the temperature decreases, until at its nadir it's freezing cold.
There is almost no narrative here. It reads a lot like the meticulous staging directions that Beckett wrote for his later short plays - as if he had been imagining this as a theatrical work, but decided to make it into a prose piece because it would be impossible to perform. Or alternatively, it's like a deadpan prose description of a living, moving sculpture: all we are given is what this world is like and how events unfold in it - no meaning, interpretation, or as Beckett says at the close of Watt, "no symbols where none intended."
Further, unlike Murphy, Malone, or Viktor, the figures encased in this strange prison aren't really characters at all. There is nothing to make them particular persons except their gender - one is a man, the other a woman. And, the only details that even make them human are their human bodies, and Beckett's brief, horrifying indications that they are both completely awake and aware of their plight.
Imagination Dead Imagine inaugurates my favorite phase of Beckett's prose. Here, it's as if he finally honed his lifelong concerns into their purest, most distinctive forms, producing a text that is unlike anything written by anyone else. I'm very much looking forward to re-reading the pieces he subsequently produced in this vein - for example Ping, Quad, and especially The Lost Ones, which is the text that introduced me to Beckett when I was 14.
November 27, 2017
موضوعي كه در خواندن اين كتاب، بارزتر از هرچيز بنظر مي رسيد، عدم توانايي خواننده، بنده، در فهم متن است. گرچه از آشفتگيِ در عين حال منظمِ ذهن و عبارات بكت، بعنوان دليلي بر اين ناتواني نميتوان گذشت؛ بشخصه فكر ميكنم دليل، بيشتر معطوف است به شيوه ترجمه مترجم و استفاده يا عدم استفاده از علائم نگارشي.
البته، نميدانم.
براي افتراق اين دو، بايد متنِ اصلي را خواند.
البته، نميدانم.
براي افتراق اين دو، بايد متنِ اصلي را خواند.
March 1, 2018
While it may have seemed nonsensical, reading it out loud became sort of hypnotic. The rhythm and cadence of the piece just really let me focus on the weight of words rolling off my tongue as weird as that may sound.
July 29, 2025
შავთეთრის ���ეკეტისეული და ყოვლისმომცველი საწყისია რადიკალური ყოფნა-არ ყოფნა, რაც არანაირ შუამავალ კონცეფციას არ მოითხოვს, ამიტომ ასეთი წარმოდგენის ხასიათი მიტაცებს ისე, როგორც არასდროს გამიტაცებდა შიგნეულის ძიება სადღაც “საყვინთაო შუამავლობაში”, რადგან საწყისი და სასრული აუცილებლად მყარ ფუნქციებს უნდა წარმოადგენდენ. ფუიჰ, ვუყურებ ამ სიცოცხლიდან გარდამავალ სიკვდილს და კიდევ ვფიქრიანობ დატოვა თუ არა კვალი და თუ კი ასეა რას შეიძლება მიეწერებოდეს ეს გაშეშების წამის დამჩნევა (თეთრისა და შავის, ქალისა და კაცის, სიკვდილისა და სიცოცხლის ფარგლებში, რა თქმა უნდა.)
ავმაღლდე სიცივის თეთრ სინათლეში…თუ ჩავიძირო სიცხის შავ სიბნელეში. ოცწამიანი დაცემა და ოცწამიანი ჰაერში გაყინვაა ჩვენი თანაზომადი სხეულების მოთხოვნა, რომ იარსებონ სიჩუმეში, იარსებონ უმოქმედო სხეულით, მაგრამ წარმოსახვის ძალით. ბეკეტის გამოძახილი ,,წარმოსახვის სიკვდილი წარმოიდგინე” მესმის, როგორც ,,წარმოსახვა. სიკვდილი. წარმოიდგინე” ან ,,წარმოსახვა მოკვდა, წარმოიდგინე”. ცნობიერმა შეიძლება სიკვდილთან ერთად წარმოსახვა დაკარგოს, მაგრამ სიკვდილზე წარმოსახვას ცნობიერი სიცოცხლეშიც საკმარისად ამარაგებს. რაც შემდეგ ხდება თეთრია ან შავი.
მოკლედ, სულ რომ არც თეთრი იყოს და არც შავი, ხედვა თუ დარჩა, თუნდაც ცალი თვალის ცნობიერით უცქერდე როტონდაში საკრალური სხეულების გაშეშებულ წარმოდგენას, მაინც გარდაუვლად გასხლტებოდა ტვინში იმედი მარგალიტებით ასაკინძი გონის გასაგრძელებლად და საბოლოოდ მთელი სამყაროს ამბიციურობა მოექცეოდა კაცობრიობის უკანასკნელ გაღვიძებაში.
ავმაღლდე სიცივის თეთრ სინათლეში…თუ ჩავიძირო სიცხის შავ სიბნელეში. ოცწამიანი დაცემა და ოცწამიანი ჰაერში გაყინვაა ჩვენი თანაზომადი სხეულების მოთხოვნა, რომ იარსებონ სიჩუმეში, იარსებონ უმოქმედო სხეულით, მაგრამ წარმოსახვის ძალით. ბეკეტის გამოძახილი ,,წარმოსახვის სიკვდილი წარმოიდგინე” მესმის, როგორც ,,წარმოსახვა. სიკვდილი. წარმოიდგინე” ან ,,წარმოსახვა მოკვდა, წარმოიდგინე”. ცნობიერმა შეიძლება სიკვდილთან ერთად წარმოსახვა დაკარგოს, მაგრამ სიკვდილზე წარმოსახვას ცნობიერი სიცოცხლეშიც საკმარისად ამარაგებს. რაც შემდეგ ხდება თეთრია ან შავი.
მოკლედ, სულ რომ არც თეთრი იყოს და არც შავი, ხედვა თუ დარჩა, თუნდაც ცალი თვალის ცნობიერით უცქერდე როტონდაში საკრალური სხეულების გაშეშებულ წარმოდგენას, მაინც გარდაუვლად გასხლტებოდა ტვინში იმედი მარგალიტებით ასაკინძი გონის გასაგრძელებლად და საბოლოოდ მთელი სამყაროს ამბიციურობა მოექცეოდა კაცობრიობის უკანასკნელ გაღვიძებაში.
February 14, 2024
‘…The extremes alone are stable as is stressed by the vibration to be observed when a pause occurs at some intermediate stage, no matter what its level and duration. Then all vibrates, ground, wall, vault, bodies, ashen or leaden or between the two, as may be. But on the whole, experience shows, such uncertain passage is not common. And most often, when the light begins to fail, and along with it the heat, the movement continues unbroken until, in the space of some twenty seconds, pitch black is reached and at the same instant say freezing-point…
The subject of Imagination Dead Imagine is exactly what its title says: envisage a world in which the imagination is dead. The constriction of Beckett’s range, the way the same themes are repeated, revolutionized, from work to work until the whole thing seems like a single block of marble, is uncommon in a writer of his stature. He began miserable, worked his way through to an art, which expressed that hopelessness affectingly and in a swarm of ways, and he seldom swerved from his logic of denial. He began disheartened and has been true to his despair. It took uncommon courage and willpower, in addition to great talent, to follow this logic of denial through to its deserted end. 2017, I gave this short prose a go.
The subject of Imagination Dead Imagine is exactly what its title says: envisage a world in which the imagination is dead. The constriction of Beckett’s range, the way the same themes are repeated, revolutionized, from work to work until the whole thing seems like a single block of marble, is uncommon in a writer of his stature. He began miserable, worked his way through to an art, which expressed that hopelessness affectingly and in a swarm of ways, and he seldom swerved from his logic of denial. He began disheartened and has been true to his despair. It took uncommon courage and willpower, in addition to great talent, to follow this logic of denial through to its deserted end. 2017, I gave this short prose a go.
October 30, 2019
I could read no other author but Beckett and be happy. Or would that be morose? Or dejected? Not sure, but I do love Beckett's writings immensely. He is infinitely challenging and at times all too obscure and unfathomable, with a grasp of word and phase and tempo that can be unnerving. I found this selection to be rather amazing. Brought to mind some sterile scene, endlessly reoriented space, repeatedly reconfigured bodies, rationality taken to the point of irritability. Short enough to not make you feel overly drained, but long enough to take hold of you in an almost physical way.
I always recommend Beckett. Highly.
I always recommend Beckett. Highly.
November 13, 2017
عبارات نا مفهوم و ناقص. اصلا چیزی از این کتاب نفهمیدم.
July 8, 2025
خیلی به این فکر کردم که ریویو بنویسم یا نه. از همون ۴ - ۵ صفحه اول. چیزی که من خوندم، به کل متفاوت بود با انتظاراتم. خیلی عجیبه، میدونین حس میکنم وقتی یه آدمی -توی این موقعیت، نویسنده- معروف میشه، دیگه هر چیزی که بنویسه، حتی اگه یه تعدادی کلمات بدون ارتباط پشت سر هم باشه، میگن «به به! عجب چیزی! ما توانایی فهمیدنش رو نداریم. وگرنه آقا/خانوم فلانی که قطعا درست مینویسه!» بحث اینجا خوب یا بد بودن نیست؛ بحث اینه که اگه یه متنی برای فهمیدن نوشته نمیشه، پس برای چیه؟ برای چی خونده میشه؟ برای نفهمیدن؟ ما میخونیم تا بفهمیم. حالا چه اون محتوا با ارزش باشه و چه فاقد ارزش.
۱۱اُم خردادماه ۱۴۰۴
(مطالعه توی مترویی)
۱۱اُم خردادماه ۱۴۰۴
(مطالعه توی مترویی)
September 5, 2007
Strange little 14-page essay? prose poem? about black/white, dark/light, cold/heat, and 2 sleeping? dead? figures in a dome. Feels vaguely science fiction-y, like 2001 or something. The prose is rhythmic and hypnotic, but not particularly sensical.
April 28, 2013
Excellent stream of consciousness short story filled with irony.
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