Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

1. What is Watt's role and purpose in the story, and how does his situation change throughout the novel?

2. Who is Mr. Knott, and what can we understand about his household and its inhabitants?

3. Does the story have a conventional plot, or is it intentionally plotless? If so, what is the main idea or central conflict?

4. How do the characters evolve or devolve throughout the story? Do they seem to learn or change, or do they remain static?

5. How does the novel use language, repetition, and circular logic to create a sense of absurdity or meaninglessness?

6. What is the significance of the ending, particularly the "Addenda"? What does the injunction "no symbols where none intended" mean in the context of the novel?

7. How does the novel explore the concept of sanity and madness, especially in relation to the characters' experiences and the reader's interpretation?

8. What does the story suggest about the nature of communication and the human attempt to find meaning in a confusing world?

9. How does the author's style, including the use of a narrative voice and language, contribute to the overall feeling or message of the novel?

10. Does the novel offer a particular view of the world, or is it designed to challenge the reader's assumptions and leave them with more questions than answers?

11. Why might a reader find Watt difficult to read or understand? What is Beckett's purpose in making it so challenging?

12. How can the experience of reading Watt be compared to other works by Beckett or to other works in the Theatre of the Absurd?

1. What is Watt's role and purpose in the story, and how does his situation change throughout the novel?

Watt travels to Mr Knott’s place to perform a stint as servant, first on the ground floor, then on the first floor, before leaving to be replaced another preordained servant. His status, duties and contacts with Mr. Knott do not change much throughout his stay. In fact, his knowledge (and ours) of Mr. Knott is still fairly limited at the end.

2. Who is Mr. Knott, and what can we understand about his household and its inhabitants?

We can only guess a few things about Mr. Knott: he has irregular sleep hours; he does not always eat his meals, the leftovers being given by Watt to a local dog; he has a piano that needs to be tuned, but we don’t know if he plays it; he has at least two servants and a gardener, the servants serving one year on the ground floor and one year on the first floor before being replaced by a new servant; he sleeps with his night clothes on top of his day clothes. The purpose of all this nebulous and subject to multiple speculations throughout the novel.

3. Does the story have a conventional plot, or is it intentionally plotless? If so, what is the main idea or central conflict?

We can’t really talk of a plot here, but more of a description or commentary of something that happens without any specific purpose but must happen as if preordained.

4. How do the characters evolve or devolve throughout the story? Do they seem to learn or change, or do they remain static?

I guess we can say that Watt learns about his duties in his two years of service but does not resolve anything which aroused some questions while he served on the ground floor about curious goings-on on the first floor. Overall, Watt does not seem to evolve at all throughout the novel.

5. How does the novel use language, repetition, and circular logic to create a sense of absurdity or meaninglessness?

The most potent method used to create this meaninglessness is the use of combinatorial lists of all possible actions or attributes relating to a given scene or character. It conveys a sense that nothing very precise can be known or remembered about these characters and actions; it also gives a sense of futility as quite often these repetitions do not add anything to a possible plot or development of the action.

6. What is the significance of the ending, particularly the "Addenda"? What does the injunction "no symbols where none intended" mean in the context of the novel?

Initially, I thought that each item referred to one of the several passages labelled with a question mark (?) within the text. But I quickly realised that it was not the case. Then the final injunction, which in the French version could be translated loosely as “shame on you if you see any symbols”, gives you some hint about the purpose of the addenda. In fact, it has none; I read somewhere that these fragments could be seen as “outtakes”, just like those we sometimes see in movies or TV series.

9. How does the author's style, including the use of a narrative voice and language, contribute to the overall feeling or message of the novel?

Whatever the angle or perspective you want to look at this, there is not much evolving in this situation; certain things happen repetitively, sometimes through a cycle, with no end in sight.

12. How can the experience of reading Watt be compared to other works by Beckett or to other works in the Theatre of the Absurd?

Considering this was one of his first works, one could think of it as a good entry point into his works; or, at least, it feels more accessible and less disorientating than his later trilogy (Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable). You can feel the influence of James Joyce in some aspects, such as the derision against the Irish, certain play on words to trigger some laughter (e.g. when he referred to Laurel and Hardy towards the end), the use of multiple languages (in the French edition, I noted also English, German and Latin), etc. It also hints at what will happen in Waiting for Godot (well, not much!).

1. What is Watt's role and purpose in the story, and how does his situation change throughout the novel?

Watt serves as the focus to carry the novel forward. The novel lacks a classic plot but at least we have Watt to lean on as he navigates both Mr. Knott's establishment and the world of words and how they rarely hold onto what they "mean".

2. Who is Mr. Knott, and what can we understand about his household and its inhabitants?

Mr. Knott is without any drive or motivation. Watt does not come to know much about him or even what he wants other than he clearly has expectations that are met....such as the left overs going to a hungry dog, and the old servants leaving when the new one arrives. Watt struggles to understand the underlying "system" of Mr. Knott and largely fails. Mr. Knott hence embodies unknowable systems.

3. Does the story have a conventional plot, or is it intentionally plotless? If so, what is the main idea or central conflict? As stated above, it is certainly not a conventional plot but it does have a logical chronology and we do learn about Watt from "Sam" and what Watt has told Sam in the past. The central theme may be that Beckett is trying out various ways of articulating that humans have a desperate need to understand, to explain, to categorize, to list, and to build intellectual and emotionally logical systems and Beckett is showing us, in these test cases, the underlying failure of that mode of being.

4. How do the characters evolve or devolve throughout the story? Do they seem to learn or change, or do they remain static?
Sam, our sometimes narrator, seems to learn more about Watt although that doesn't necessarily lead to understanding more about Watt. Watt is not static in that he is in a constant state of struggle to understand but he doesn't evolve to the point that his struggle is satisfied or even reduced.

5. How does the novel use language, repetition, and circular logic to create a sense of absurdity or meaninglessness? Becket's brilliance may be that he can get very very close to meaning and one's brain lights up with the humor of it or the correctness of it. One feels intuitively that he has touched on something. However, his words build more meaninglessness than meaning and one finally feels left out. In this way, we are very much like Watt, struggling to build a system and failing.

6. What is the significance of the ending, particularly the "Addenda"? What does the injunction "no symbols where none intended" mean in the context of the novel?

The addenda finally devolves into fragments and clips rather than attempting to hold together in full sentences. I suspect this illustrates the final way of looking at Beckett's tests. One can gather meaning from the fragments but they will not necessarily be the right ones, he has not given us symbols to lean on.

7. How does the novel explore the concept of sanity and madness, especially in relation to the characters' experiences and the reader's interpretation?
I don't think that is one of things that Beckett is focused on in this novel. The human brain breaks down because language and meaning break down but Beckett references this only indirectly. To the reader, Watt (and actually everyone else in the book) may appear and act "mad" but it is a need for order and their inability to produce order that is the main theme.

8. What does the story suggest about the nature of communication and the human attempt to find meaning in a confusing world? I think I have answered this one as best I can

10. Does the novel offer a particular view of the world, or is it designed to challenge the reader's assumptions and leave them with more questions than answers?
It is very clearly a challenge and yet Beckett wants the reader to be engaged in that challenge. He often makes the challenge funny. He refers to situations and circumstances that the reader will find amusing. He can make us visualize an alternate world in which people can barely exist in an understandable way, even walking and speaking "backwards"

12. How can the experience of reading Watt be compared to other works by Beckett or to other works in the Theatre of the Absurd? I have not read that much Beckett but I did at first feel that this book was a transition between some of Beckett's earlier works such as Mercier and Camier where he is investigating the absurd in a charmingly funny way and some of the later works where he has found how to cut through the exercises and get to the bitter core, where of course, words barely work at all. However, this was actually a very early work. He wrote it before Mercier and Camier. I guess he was just attempting ways of capturing that elusive brush of meaning and humor without actually hitting it.

1. What is Watt's role and purpose in the story, and how does his situation change throughout the novel?
His purpose seems to be to show how absurd life is. He moves from the ground floor to the first floor (or second floor?). And at some point after leaving Knott’s employ, winds up in an insane asylum. But large-scale situations remain the same; one gets the impression that Mr. Knott's house will run the same no matter who is there. He will cycle through employs in 2-year stints. Hence the repetition, I guess.

2. Who is Mr. Knott, and what can we understand about his household and its inhabitants?
He is Watt’s employer, a gentleman. His habits determine everything that happens in the house. He's an unseen force that impels and organizes the day's activities, but what Knott thinks, and why Watt must perform certain tasks remain a mystery. I think he only sees Mr. Knott once.

3. Does the story have a conventional plot, or is it intentionally plotless? If so, what is the main idea or central conflict?
It is essentially plotless. For example, on p. 31, the gentleman with the apron arrives at Mr. Knott’s house and before leaving, “made the following short statement.” Said statement being a rambling bunch of nonsense that changes from third person to first person and goes on for about 14 pages with random lists, a great deal of repetition, and anecdotes that make no sense. If there is a main idea, it is Watt’s struggle to understand Mr. Knott and his failure to do so.

4. How do the characters evolve or devolve throughout the story? Do they seem to learn or change, or do they remain static?
See above, question #1.

5. How does the novel use language, repetition, and circular logic to create a sense of absurdity or meaninglessness?
There’s the whole thing about Watt setting off toward the east, which repeats direction after direction (p. 23). The songs repeat apparently random letters and words. And Watt going around and around the house and trying the back and front doors (p29). These are just a few examples of linguistic repetition. But there is also the cyclical repetition of servants at Mr. Knott’s house, working for 1 year on the ground floor and one year on the first floor before being replaced.

6. What is the significance of the ending, particularly the "Addenda"? What does the injunction "no symbols where none intended" mean in the context of the novel?
The only idea I had about this is Beckett saying, “Don’t try to find anything meaningful or symbolic here.” I like Patrick's description of this section.

8. What does the story suggest about the nature of communication and the human attempt to find meaning in a confusing world?
One day, piano tuners visit the house, and Watt ponders the nature of their relationship and the conversation they have about the instrument. Watt struggles to understand this exceptional event (exceptional because the days and events at Knott’s house are regimented and repetitive), replaying it over and over until it loses all meaning, even the most literal. Maybe this is the point of all the repetition.

9. How does the author's style, including the use of a narrative voice and language, contribute to the overall feeling or message of the novel?
See above, especially #8.

10. Does the novel offer a particular view of the world, or is it designed to challenge the reader's assumptions and leave them with more questions than answers?
Its view of the world is absurdist – i.e., it seems to me Beckett is saying that one can struggle all one wants to find meaning in this word (and one might even manage to do this temporarily) but ultimately there is no order. The world is chaotic and therefore existence is meaningless. Maybe this is what he’s saying? Then again, we shouldn’t try to find any meaning in the book? (see #6 above).

11. Why might a reader find Watt difficult to read or understand? What is Beckett's purpose in making it so challenging?
It’s deliberately written to be difficult to understand. Random characters appear and discuss things that ultimately don’t matter. Or take actions for no apparent reason, e.g. Lady McCann throwing a stone at Watt.

12. How can the experience of reading Watt be compared to other works by Beckett or to other works in the Theatre of the Absurd?
I’ve never seen or read Waiting for Godot and now I don’t want to.

As I said in my review, I very much felt like I was reading about a minimally functioning autistic man, and so had a hard time putting aside that strong sense of a very altered reality perception in order to come up with "reasons" (1) for the story. I mean, I can layer things on, with Knott being a kind of indolent, inattentive god (2) and the seeking of higher status moving into the house and up the stairs (3,4,8) as a way to achieve fulfillment, always with the threat of being displaced for no reason you know, as a metaphor for human striving and random suffering. But actually, as a study of the rabbit hole of this neuro-divergent mind I had a strong sense of purpose (11) - the distorted, detail obsessed, lack of comprehension or even need for social interactions, was all so vividly brought across. And that makes for a better illustration of what humanity is, the extremity of an actual human not understanding or able to interact with the actual world gives us a reflection of ourselves distorted in a mirror but still a reflection.

For me it isn't so much a question of challenging or not challenging but of successful and unsuccessful passages - I don't blame myself as a reader when I'm confronted with experimental fiction, but the author is experimenting so sometimes it just doesn't work. And that's okay because sometimes it works brilliantly. Some scenes are incredible - the opening sequence on the park bench, several runs of the word play like with the pot or the holes in the fences. Others are just a drag. Enjoying experimental fiction I think means being able to shrug off the stuff that doesn't work - having a slightly detached experience as a reader (I will admit to skimming if I get bored of a passage that is not working for me!).