Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable Paperback – June 16, 2009

Once, our ancestors lit winter festivals like signal fires against the dark. Now, cocooned in artificial light and urban sprawl, we no longer fear the primal maw of darkness. But what if that maw is not without? What if it yawns within?Samuel Beckett’s Molloy trilogy stands as a kind of modern ritual, one not for summoning the sun but for staring into entropy’s unblinking eye. Beckett dismantles humanity piece by piece, unspooling the triumphs of culture, the illusions of order, and the very scaffolding of the self. His characters—Molloy, Moran, and the Unnameable—are pilgrims of unraveling, staggering through the detritus of identity, body, and mind.The trilogy begins with the crumbling of the known: the collapsing geometry of society, the smudging of personhood. By the third volume, The Unnameable, the very act of speech—of tethering thought to word—dissolves. Language, that last filament binding us to coherence, is frayed to its breaking point. What remains? A voice. No longer tethered to body, no longer certain of origin or purpose, it floats in the void, circling chaos like a moth around an extinguished flame.Beckett’s roots in Joyce are unmistakable, his tenure as assistant on Finnegans Wake leaving its mark. But where Joyce’s kaleidoscope refracts joy and play, Beckett’s lens crystallizes despair. The same inventive genius now sharpens itself to dismantle, not to construct.Even the faith of Beckett’s Irish Catholic upbringing does not escape unscathed. Heaven and hell are stripped of their grandeur, becoming stations on the conveyor belt of decay. Saints and rituals are reimagined not as pathways to salvation but as ornamentations of entropy. The cyclical Church year becomes not a beacon of renewal but a wheel grinding the faithful into dust.Yet, amidst the bleakness, Beckett’s artistry still astonishes. His words, like shards of broken glass, cut deep but catch the light. The humor, so dry it powders into dust, underscores the author’s assertion of the absurdity of our condition. This is literature as winter, relentless and stark, yet capable of beauty so cold it burns.For those willing to sit with the dark it offers a masterpiece of dissolution. Read it to face the void or merely to temper seasonal cheer. Beckett gives no promise of spring, but he holds up a mirror to the long night within.

These three novels are the best things I have read all year. Beckett is neglected to the detriment of Western Civilization. These are at the top of my 'read it again' pile. Also, this edition sat nicely in my hand as I read. The heft, the boards, the paper, and even the little gold ribbon bookmark made it a pleasure to hold and read. It balanced the bourbon that I held in my other hand.

There have been more great writers in English from tiny Ireland than anywhere else, and the gene has transplanted well, as anyone can see from American writing. Beckett didn't intend these books as a trilogy, but someone did, against his wishes, and THE UNNAMABLE, which belongs with ULYSSES and Flann O'Brien's THIRD POLICEMAN, is trapped with two lesser books. It is unique and hilarious, looking back at the narrator's unlikely self-deceived life and the aging process with grim accuracy. The mordant Celtic sense of humor takes over, leavening this heavy loaf into a remarkable soufflé. The most serious imaginable writer makes the unnerving process of living and dying tolerable and beautiful, bringing absurdity and love to bear in a way that lets the reader step away from his human experience to see what fools we mortals be. There's nothing remotely like it.

I had started to read this book in college. Then I got drafted into the infantry in 1969. I carried this book all through my combat tour and read it when I could, which was not too often because we were always patrolling in the armored cavalry. We didn't have many days off. Then, for my last 5 months in the service, I was able to read it off and on until I finished it. I was assigned to Ft. Hood, TX. There weren't many tasks I had to do there and I was able to slip them easily. So before I left each day, I read the book. Then, over the course of 50 years, I lost the book. A friend of mine from college reminded me of our late night sessions when we discussed the books of Samuel Beckett. In fact, he got his PHd by using his criticism as his thesis! I had forgotten how much I loved the 3 novels.

Book arrived on time. Early even. No complaints. I've owned this one before. Lost it. Ordered a new one. Looks exactly like the one before. Except the text seems remarkably fresh this time!

I haven't reread Samuel Beckett's famed Trilogy in its entirety since 1976, though I've certainly dipped into snippets many times over the ensuing decades. Recently I decided to have a go at the whole thing again, but I didn't want to bother with the small, clumsy Grove Paperback, or carry around three separate volumes. This Kindle edition turned out to be perfect. It's easy on the eyes, it's convenient, and it doesn't get in the way of the power of Beckett's words. How can I tell you what happens in these books, when experts argue over exactly who is who and what's what. All I know is, just as all those years before, I couldn't put it down. I went on and on until I read those famous words, "I can't go on, I'll go on." I guess we all will. Go on. Despite everything

Highly unusual style, but very interesting. This is not an easy read so be warned that it will take some effort on your part.

Honestly I'm a big fan of the absurdist, existential literature, regardless of national origin, and Beckett is the 2nd coming of Joyce you might say as he blows off the exacting slavery of classical mythic imitation and to my mind exposes the banality and fun of our absurdist existence in this human realm of ever reinvention of lunacy in endless recapitulations of what humans have praised as daily life and the foulness postmodern global existence if you want to call it that. You want the joy of free thinking and feeling in the midst of "modern" insanity together with a touch of dark Irish humor...you've found your man in Samuel Beckett, that skeptic of the 20th century and literary prophet foreshadowing our so-called "new" Millennium.