wotiwrote

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Beckett. He is undoubtedly best known for Waiting for Godot and his voluminous prose - both long and short pieces - is not widely read. His early stuff (like Woody Allen) is very funny - see More Pricks than Kicks and Murphy - but his later prose requires more effort to get the jokes. It could be said that he carries on where Joyce left off with 'Finnegans Wake' while managing to make the language more familiar while the meaning becomes more obscure. It is prose to be read aloud. Reading Beckett always makes you feel better about your feet, too.

Here is an excerpt from 'The Expelled', one of the Stories from 'Stories and Texts for Nothing'. It was written n 1946.

The fall was therefore not serious. Even as I fell I heard the door slam, which brought me a little comfort, in the midst of my fall. For that meant they were not pursuing me down into the street, with a stick, to beat me in full view of the passers-by. For if that had been their intention they would not have shut the door, but left it open, so that the persons assembled in the vestibule might enjoy my chastisement and be edified. So, for once, they had confined themselves to throwing me out and and no more about it. I had time, before coming to rest in the gutter, to conclude this piece of reasoning.

This reads, to me, like the internal commentary of a fall-guy from a silent movie. It also manages to be funny and touching simultaneously, a common trait in B's prose.

If you fancy giving his prose a try, start with Murphy and then look at The Complete Short Prose.