The Unnamable, Malone Dies, Three Novels: Molloy

Rate this play is a little bit tricky. We all know Beckett's importance and his contribution to Literature, but this is a heavy play to read.This e-book version is very good and comfortable to read, especially in not so big screens.
The only thing I missed was some keynotes or some notes about the play or Beckett's life. Maybe a little review on the play and its context, since I only was able to understand - or try - because I am studying it in college.

Fairly predictable throughout. Took several attempts to finish as it just didn't grip me like some of his other works. Formulaic and unrealistic. He's a great writer but this fell short of the mark.

Saw the play at the local university, and kept thinking about it. (Which, I suppose, it what one is supposed to do after an existential experience.) I only made it a couple of semesters as a philosophy major, so trying to think this one through was kind of a tail-chasing exercise. So, kindle to the rescue--I bought a copy of the play. Did it help? Well...Kind of. In the end, it is a lot more enjoyable to read the play and try to insert various existential realities into it than to just look it up on the internet and run with the reviews there. Hey, maybe that's what it means!

Before reading the trilogy, the only Beckett I'd read was "Waiting For Godot", which I loved. (Who doesn't?) It was profound, hilarious, a darkened neural skeleton of a play. So Beckett's work, especially his work on this trilogy of novels, is not something you'd immediately associate with bright summer sunshine and beach reading. And yet it was out on a beach berm at Isle of Palms in Charleston, SC, that I read the last 50 pages of "The Unnameable". And while sunburned in the August heat, with family close-by and joyous, I had one of the most profound literary and spiritual(?) experiences of my life. After an unknown length of time, I went to ride waves with a smile you couldn't wipe off my face, and an inner peace I hadn't had in quite a while.

Trying to explain an experience that ineffable is almost inevitably impossible. But how can I convince you to read this daunting work without giving you a flawed, if earnest, attempt at verbalizing why it was so awesome?

I am a psychologist/neuroimaging researcher gunning for a PhD, so I will use that background to try and explain the novel trilogy's effect on me. Going back to Descartes, a basic functional unit of the nervous system is the reflex. Tap right below the patella on your knee, your leg kicks (possibly against pricks). You have an input, it goes to a location further internal to the body, and this causes an output. Your nervous system basically breaks down to something like this for anything you do.

Some artists are concerned with the input. They give you a bounty of riches to manipulate your self. James Joyce and the majesty of "Ulysses" & "Finnegans Wake" come to mind immediately. Some artists are concerned with the output. They give you their work, and the artistic interaction gives rise to an output in the individual's behavior, which the artist seeks to manipulate. Performance artists like Marina Abramović come to mind.

Yet some artists, a precious few, care about what's *in between* this call and response. They seek to explore the black box. They seek to manipulate the foundation of your interaction with the world. They seek to explore the very core of your soul. Samuel Beckett, and especially this Trilogy of novels, is such a writer.

I will not recount the basic "plots" of each novel, as many other reviewers already have, I'm sure. "Molloy" begins sparse enough, with little attention paid to the normal literary conceits of place, plot, characterization, etc. I wound up reading "Molloy" 3 times. And it was not out of unconditional love for it. I read it once, which was difficult enough, then read the first 2 pages of "Malone Dies" and threw the trilogy down. I picked it up a year later, reread "Molloy", and got through half of "Malone Dies", which for me was by far the hardest of the 3 novels to read. "Malone Dies" is a Purgatory of sorts: the reader is now *in between* the beginning and ending of Beckett's entire literary goal of purging every recognizable element of fiction to see what is left, and reading "Malone Dies" feels like the birthing pains of this process. Yet by the end of it, you begin to see the baby crowning.

And then the 3rd time reading this trilogy, I launched into "The Unnameable" convinced that there was something of value here, despite the difficulty of "Malone Dies". And yeah, holy hell, there was value. Because by the end of the trilogy, that last 50 pages, Beckett has managed a feat that I have not seen any other artist achieve: he has trapped the reader, willingly and joyfully(!!!), into what I can only call total self-awareness without the "self". The writing becomes hypnotic, an endless cycle of short phrases, going in every direction of thought possible yet going nowhere, to the point where the idea of a literary "character" has no real meaning, as Beckett is now reading and elucidating *you*, the reader. He rides the waves of transient self-awareness as if trapped in a benevolent undertow, in a minimalist, repetitive rhythm, before he decides to bring you home to shore. And it is only by going through the previous 2 novels and their gradual disintegration of literary artifice that the reader can come to the meditative conclusion of it all: The journey through all this, cutting to the core of what it means to be human, results in an epiphany that can only affect the reader (at least, *this* reader) who has gone through the pain and tedium (but also beauty and brilliance and humorousness!) of text that has come before them. In the endless waves of contradictory impulses that form this section of the trilogy, we come to the contradictory truth of what it means to be alive: "..I can't go on, I'll go on."

Overwrought and silly? Probably. But I sure as hell know what I experienced from these novels. Hopefully you'll experience it too.

Beckett manages in this short play to say a lot more about life, death, memory, dreams, sickness, boredom, anxiety, family, than your average five-hundred-page novel. We meet four characters: Hamm, the blind cripple who is master of the house; Clov, the long-suffering servant (who may or may not be Hamm’s son); and Hamm’s old, decrepit parents, Nagg and Nell. In this claustrophobic setting where they languish, they are doomed not only to repeat the same actions over and over again, but to say the same things and tell the same stories over and over again; caught (as they are) in the insanity of routine, they ask: “Why this farce, day after day?”

It’s minimalist in style but from that comes a subtle insight into the power struggles between parents and children. Clov’s happiness and freedom (whatever these terms may mean in this universe) are sacrificed to Hamm’s needs and selfishness; and Nagg and Nell who were neglectful of Hamm as a child are now (in their old age) dependent solely on him. In one of my favorite passages in the book, Hamm promises Nagg a sugar plum if he listens to his story; Nagg reluctantly agrees but finds himself disappointed in the end, for Hamm has lied about the sugar plum. Dejected, the old man tells his son:

“I was asleep, as happy as a king, and you woke me up to have me listen to you. It wasn’t indispensable, you didn’t really need to have me listen to you. Besides I didn’t listen to you. [Pause.] I hope the day will come when you’ll really need to have me listen to you, and need to hear my voice, any voice. [Pause.] Yes, I hope I’ll live till then, to hear you calling me like when you were a tiny boy, and were frightened, in the dark, and I was your only hope.”

All the days and years have melted into one long, hopeless day: the characters sit in the gloom and wait for the world to end. Hamm says to Clov: “Yesterday! What does that mean? Yesterday!” Clov answers:

“That means that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day. I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.”

In the Confidence or “Con” Game, there is a term that refers to the ultimate goal of the short or long con: “End Game” (it’s also used by chess players). The use of this term by Raymond Khoury for the title of his current novel speaks to the long battle he has had with the man known as Reed Corrigan, who has made it his goal to finish off FBI Special Agent Sean Reilly.

THE END GAME is a Kindle eBook exclusive and continues the terrific suspense series featuring Reilly. It's no secret that Khoury follows a similar literary road map as such contemporaries as Steve Berry, Brad Thor and James Rollins. In fact, these four authors have inserted references and “shout outs” to each other within the pages of their respective series by mentioning each other’s lead characters. Khoury also collaborated with Berry on the eBook SHADOW TAG, allowing their characters to team up.

Khoury’s latest is an edge-of-your-seat thriller in which readers will be forced to sit by helplessly and watch how Reilly is thrust into a downward spiral that actually may finish him off once and for all. The mastermind behind this targeted attack is, of course, the man utilizing the Reed Corrigan pseudonym. Reilly cannot fight what he is unable to see or find, and that is the case here. Corrigan remains forever out of reach and can seemingly get to Reilly whenever he wants. He is already responsible for the death of Reilly's wife and injury to his young son, Alex. Now, Corrigan is fed up with toying with Reilly and is stepping up efforts to finally eliminate him.

THE END GAME opens with the torture and murder of award-winning journalist Kyle Rossetti. We then are taken into the life of a terminally ill man, Dr. Ralph Padley, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard who has made an incredible medical breakthrough --- something he refers to as a “pacemaker in a pill.” Things shift to Reilly and his partner, Nick Aparo, trapped in a snowbound car during a lengthy stakeout in New Jersey.

The paths of all three of these stories create just a few pieces of the puzzle. The rest of the novel is spent putting these and the other pieces together. Reilly receives an anonymous call to meet someone in New York City, but the caller never shows. It turns out to be Padley, who died before their meeting. This is the start of a confusing and rapid downward spiral that is Reilly's life.

The only person aside from archaeologist/novelist Tess Chaykin who believes that Reilly is being set up is FBI Agent Annie Deutsch. It will take a lot of work for Deutsch to keep Reilly safe while he continues to go after the person ultimately responsible for his misfortune: Reed Corrigan. With the help of two expert hackers, Kurt and Gigi, Reilly is making progress in discovering the true identity of Corrigan --- a man who may even be responsible for his father's death years earlier. Their inevitable showdown will keep the pages turning rapidly until the surprising climax.

THE END GAME is relentless and does not let up on the gas for a single moment. If you're not reading eBooks, you should make it a point to seek this one out as it continues one of the best series in thriller fiction today.

Reviewed by Ray Palen

I have a place in my heart for Raymond Khoury. The Last Templar, his first major release, led me to Steve Berry's Templar Legacy and then to James Rollins and company. In some ways I owe my current tastes in fiction to Khoury. The Last Templar started in a frenzy and Mr. Khoury has continued the pace through three additional thrillers featuring his dynamic duo. Now after over years absence FBI agent Sean Reilly and archeologist turned thriller writer, Tess Chaykin are back in The End Gam. The book shows an elevation in story telling and character development that has the reader cringing, gasping, cheering and, in one scene for me, tearing up.

This time Sean’s mission is personal, attempting to right a wrong from a previous encounter. Along the way, Sean is arrested on suspicion of murder and must find a way to get out and clear his name, but more importantly, find the Sandman.

The End Game is a fast paced, engrossing thriller that draws the reader into the story and makes you care about the characters’ outcome. What more could you want from a book.

P.S. You have got to read the e-short story by Raymond Khoury and Steve Berry called Shadow Tag. It includes not only Sean Reilly and Berry’s Cotton Malone but also Khoury and Berry as themselves, victims of a kidnapping.

Beckett manages in this short play to say a lot more about life, death, memory, dreams, sickness, boredom, anxiety, family, than your average five-hundred-page novel. We meet four characters: Hamm, the blind cripple who is master of the house; Clov, the long-suffering servant (who may or may not be Hamm’s son); and Hamm’s old, decrepit parents, Nagg and Nell. In this claustrophobic setting where they languish, they are doomed not only to repeat the same actions over and over again, but to say the same things and tell the same stories over and over again; caught (as they are) in the insanity of routine, they ask: “Why this farce, day after day?”

It’s minimalist in style but from that comes a subtle insight into the power struggles between parents and children. Clov’s happiness and freedom (whatever these terms may mean in this universe) are sacrificed to Hamm’s needs and selfishness; and Nagg and Nell who were neglectful of Hamm as a child are now (in their old age) dependent solely on him. In one of my favorite passages in the book, Hamm promises Nagg a sugar plum if he listens to his story; Nagg reluctantly agrees but finds himself disappointed in the end, for Hamm has lied about the sugar plum. Dejected, the old man tells his son:

“I was asleep, as happy as a king, and you woke me up to have me listen to you. It wasn’t indispensable, you didn’t really need to have me listen to you. Besides I didn’t listen to you. [Pause.] I hope the day will come when you’ll really need to have me listen to you, and need to hear my voice, any voice. [Pause.] Yes, I hope I’ll live till then, to hear you calling me like when you were a tiny boy, and were frightened, in the dark, and I was your only hope.”

All the days and years have melted into one long, hopeless day: the characters sit in the gloom and wait for the world to end. Hamm says to Clov: “Yesterday! What does that mean? Yesterday!” Clov answers:

“That means that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day. I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.”

I didn’t realize that this was a series as I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the book description before I downloaded it. Not having read the previous book(s) was like missing the first few classes of a college course on a subject you know nothing about and then trying to keep up. This is one of the main reasons I prefer reading stand-alone novels with a start from scratch beginning, middle and an end that is not continued.

This is a story of government conspiracy with a vigilante/super hero type FBI agent as the protagonist and a number of dark CIA super villain bad guys. There are many things wrong with this book. The plot is totally unrealistic with numerous holes and inaccuracies. A lot of things are not properly explained while some things are not explained at all. In one scene Reilly the protagonist recounts that what the government did to his family the previous year was too unbelievable to use as a plot in a fiction novel because it would not pass the required suspension of disbelief test. Really, so why did you use it in this novel dummy? I kept reading on hoping it would get better, but it became even more unbelievable and comic-book like. And to make matters worse the author’s verbose writing style is annoying and boring. His diatribes include copious amounts of faux techno-babble and government acronyms speak. It has too many characters to keep track of and there is just way too much going on.

Spoiler alert: It has the most ridiculous ending of any book I have ever read. Reilly discovers that the President of the United States is at the head of the conspiracy. The last scene has Reiley in the Oval Office threatening to go public with this information if the President refuses to agree not to run for reelection. I am not making this up. This is total rubbish and I certainly won’t be reading anything else by this author.

In his trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett explores the frailty of existence.

In the first novel, the unreliable narrator recounts his decline but through the monologue, the reader learns not so much his past as declining state of mind. From his phrases and sentences, we realize how far he has departed from reality and how little we can trust his words. And even Molloy couldn't trust his recollection of events and his perception of world. In the second part of the first novel, the narrator Moran, a private detective searching for Molloy, follows a similar decline into delusion and his world becomes as unreal as Molloy's. As if they are the same person.

In Malone Dies, an old man confined to an asylum recounts his story and that of a boy named Sapo. But here, as in Molloy, the unreliable narrator conveys not so much the events as his delusion and decline. And we see Malone's death on the last page of the novel through the paragraphs and sentences distorting into fragments to reflect the narrator's last thoughts.

“Lemuel is in charge, he raises his hatchet on which the blood will never dry, but not to hit anyone, he will not hit anyone, he will not hit anyone any more, he will not touch anyone any more, either with it or with it or with it or with or
or with it or with his hammer or with his stick or with his fist or in thought in dream I mean never he will never
or with his pencil or with his stick or
or light light I mean
never there he will never
never anything
there
any more ” from Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies.

In The Unnamable, the narrator asks " What am I to do, what shall I do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed?" As if only a nameless person, perhaps a nonexistent person, can seek to act and to live. The narrator claims to have created Molloy, Malone and other characters in Samuel Beckett's novels, and like them, he also struggles to communicate reality and follows the same path toward non-existence.

Beckett's trilogy is a postmodern fiction, not a meta-fiction but a story where the plot collapses and character and, even more so, style dominates. Through the narrators' babbling and occasional insight, through the fragmented thoughts and distorted sentences, we learn about their psyche, isolated and delusional. And we realize Beckett is describing postmodern men and women.

When I saw the very-small print of this book, bought used and printed in England, I almost didn't read it. But I'd never been disappointed in the author's previous books, so I started reading it anyway.
Several times in about 200 hundred boring pages, I almost stopped. But what the hell, it wasn't up to the previous Reilly stories, but it had to get better.
It's still as boring as it could possibly get. With gun in hand, Reilly watches the assassin inject a victim with a killing drug.
Then this trained FBI agent stands a few feet from the bad guy and can't hit him with an automatic handgun... then even as he stood at the window he missed him on the ground twenty feet away. Oh well, still lots of pages left to the story! About as believable as if the ground had opened up into a tunnel!
The final few pages were ridiculous; what a plot!
I hope I don't weaken and buy the next Reilly story! I just realized I have confused Sean Reilly with Steve Berry's Cotton Malone stories. Guess I'm reading too many books!
Norm

In his trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett explores the frailty of existence.

In the first novel, the unreliable narrator recounts his decline but through the monologue, the reader learns not so much his past as declining state of mind. From his phrases and sentences, we realize how far he has departed from reality and how little we can trust his words. And even Molloy couldn't trust his recollection of events and his perception of world. In the second part of the first novel, the narrator Moran, a private detective searching for Molloy, follows a similar decline into delusion and his world becomes as unreal as Molloy's. As if they are the same person.

In Malone Dies, an old man confined to an asylum recounts his story and that of a boy named Sapo. But here, as in Molloy, the unreliable narrator conveys not so much the events as his delusion and decline. And we see Malone's death on the last page of the novel through the paragraphs and sentences distorting into fragments to reflect the narrator's last thoughts.

“Lemuel is in charge, he raises his hatchet on which the blood will never dry, but not to hit anyone, he will not hit anyone, he will not hit anyone any more, he will not touch anyone any more, either with it or with it or with it or with or
or with it or with his hammer or with his stick or with his fist or in thought in dream I mean never he will never
or with his pencil or with his stick or
or light light I mean
never there he will never
never anything
there
any more ” from Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies.

In The Unnamable, the narrator asks " What am I to do, what shall I do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed?" As if only a nameless person, perhaps a nonexistent person, can seek to act and to live. The narrator claims to have created Molloy, Malone and other characters in Samuel Beckett's novels, and like them, he also struggles to communicate reality and follows the same path toward non-existence.

Beckett's trilogy is a postmodern fiction, not a meta-fiction but a story where the plot collapses and character and, even more so, style dominates. Through the narrators' babbling and occasional insight, through the fragmented thoughts and distorted sentences, we learn about their psyche, isolated and delusional. And we realize Beckett is describing postmodern men and women.

This play is mythical for some but it has a less eschatological meaning than "Waiting for Godot". It is more locked up in an individual personality. As much as "Waiting for Godot" could have been seen as deeply schizophrenic, "Endgame" is psychotic, a psychotic vision of the isolated individual in some kind of more than self-centered, in fact self-locked psyche, locked onto himself by himself. And of course we remain in a, obsessively male-dominated world.

There are officially four characters. But in fact two are really active. In the dustbins you have Nagg the father and Nell the mother of Hamm, a crippled and blind individual who is more or less the father of Clov who is his slave, younger, physically active though entirely dependent but maybe not forever.

The room in which these characters exist is a miniature of the psychology of a person who is completely cut off from the world. This person is Hamm. We are inside his brain. For him the world is dead, though he is the one who is a living dead since he is crippled, i.e. unable to move, and blind, i.e. unable to see. He has to be moved around and someone has to see for him and tell him what can be seen. The room has an outside kitchen, an extension that is not the outside world but that is reachable only to one character, Clov who goes to it now and then, though it is the Arlésienne of the play, the one utem you speak if constantly but never see.

Hamm henceforth asks his son Clov to check the world through windows that are too high for direct vision, built too high since windows don't grow on houses that don't grow naturally in the earth, hence purposely positioned too high. There are two windows, Beckett's obsession of duality, one looking over the land and the other looking over the sea, but both land and sea are absolutely desolate, empty, dead. To see through the window Clov has to use a ladder and then a telescope to see what is far away, to have some perspective. I just wonder why they don't use a periscope. After all a house does not come with a telescope, so they could have had a periscope. That would have made things too easy I guess. Beckett wants things to be complicated for his very simple-minded characters.

Hamm lives with vague, evanescent memories of his own parents who are in the trashcans, in other words trashed. Nell, the mother, will appear once only and disappear to be later declared dead. And that will be the end of the first female character of Beckett's plays, a short-lived and sacrificed human entity, a very sexist vision of the woman. Nagg, the father, will appear a first time to ask his "pap", either the tit of a mother or a feeding bottle, or the soft and semi liquid stuff that is fed to babies on the way to more consistent food, and this "pap" is refused. We can see the mother fixation of that grandfather. He has regressed a lot, methinks. He will be given a biscuit (English meaning of course, hence a cookie) by Clov. The second time Nagg comes out Nell will come out too and Nagg will tell her a story, the story of the tailor, a story which has a strange anti-Semite flavour, and yet seems to be a rewriting of some old Germanic medieval story about a brave tailor who kills seven flies at one blow. But this tailor here is incompetent and he asks ever increasing delays because he fails some section of the striped trousers he is supposed to make for an Englishman. "I've made a mess of the seat." "I've made a hash of the crutch." "I've made a balls of the fly." Then these obscene, "indecent" says the Englishman, difficulties are compared to the six days of Genesis, hence with the creation of the world by God. The punch line is supposed to be funny: "But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world ... and look ... at my TROUSERS." And that is a lot more indecent still and totally gay we would say today.

Note in this second appearance of Nagg, first and last of Nell, Nagg tries to reach Nell and kiss her. But the trashcans are too far apart, on purpose of course. No sex we are British, aren't we? Castrating disposition, and disposal, of the two oldies by Hamm himself of course.

The third time Nagg comes out it is at the request of Hamm who wants to tell a story and promises a bon-bon that becomes a sugar plum that will never be delivered anyway. Empty promises, even worse than Indian giver, and Nagg will be pushed back down into his trashcan, or should I say dustbin, dust to dust, hence to death. Nagg goes back into his reservation and will be declared crying in there.

Hamm is the center of this room-world, crippled and blind. He uses still and probably used in the past his parents for his own sake and then rejects them into oblivion or death just the same way he has rejected the world into death. Then he exploits his own son, if he is his own son, to take care of him since he is crippled and blind. And his requests are capricious and tyrannical. Nothing surprising in that. The play is then about the total tyrannical dependence an older crippled and blind father imposes onto his own son, if he is the son, till, and that is the stake, the son sees a boy outside and runs away abandoning his dear father. That's the end. It is finished as is repeated many times in the play, from beginning to end.

The world then is not dead because of some cataclysmic apocalypse decided by God or decreed and implemented by humanity but because of the total self-centered father locked up onto himself. The only people he acknowledges must be his slaves in a way or another, his toys even, and he has the right of life and death over them, or so he thinks.

The game then is not a playful game but it is Clov, Hamm's game, the animal, "mammal" Beckett says in the play, Hamm has hunted and then locked up in his egotistical or is it ego-testicle blindness. The endgame is no longer the end of a game but the end of the venison Hamm has reduced his own son, if he is the son, to be. This works in English, but the French title does not at all carry this double-entendre, double meaning, though "Fin de Partie" may have an open sexual innuendo this time, like the fly of the trousers that had been "made a balls of." Since "une partie" is nothing but a ball, a testicle, generally in the plural, "les parties", hence with another innuendo about a one-balled man, or the castration of one ball. The title anyway implies the end of a game in which Hamm was holding Clov by the balls, so he thought, till Clov saw a boy and ran to him and Clov was the one who was holding Hamm by the balls and his leaving leaves him ball-less. Hamm has lost his game, his venison, but also his balls if we integrate the castrating meaning of the French title, a castrating meaning that is present all the time in Hamm's tyrannical requests and imposition.

A boy is the messenger, like in "Waiting for Godot," that the world is not completely dead, that there is some life out there. But he is only seen by Clov through the window overlooking the land, but Clov's reaction is immediate.

He, a grown man, in his newly donned Panama hat, tweed coat, raincoat on his arm, umbrella and bag, in one word dressed for the road, runs out to meet and capture a boy. Then what? The what! The theme is openly paedophiliac but also the reproduction of Hamm's hunting which may mean that Clov was Hamm's little boy captured in an ancient hunt.

That's where we can doubt the filiation of Clov to Hamm. It is never clearly said but it is probable. He might only be the younger human male Hamm captured a long time ago, and then Clov is on the road running out to do the same in his turn for his own benefit. And the end will be a new beginning exactly similar to the beginning of this endgame.

This play might sound absurd but it is not. It is the realistic denunciation of the enslavement of the young by the old, of their exploitation till the old die or are relegated into the trashcans, or should I say dustbins, of death. Then the young who are now middle-aged take over the hunt, the enslavement and the exploitation till they die or are relegated to the trashcans, etc.

Society is the dictatorship of the old over the young with a purely demographic rotation based on age only, from the older generation to the generation just lower in age forever over and over. There seems to be no escape to that fatality.

This leads to the idea that Beckett was living the years after WW2 in an extremely pessimistic mood. The Cold War led him to see and represent a world that is dead, that has no history anymore, in which biology is the only rule, henceforth and therefore in which survival is only individual provided you can find the slave you need or, if you are too young to be a slave master, the master you need in order to mature to take over later. The survival to which some philosophers want to reduce human life to in the name of science, thus reducing man to a blind mammal.

Beckett's world is a world of total dependence, of total absence of freedom, of total ruins, but all that is totally enclosed in one's own vision of reality that evades any kind of sense and meaning for that particular anyone.

Not absurd but totally and deliriously psychotic as well as anti-historical, un-human and anti-social. Is it Beckett's vision or is it Beckett's representation of a standard vision of his time? No one can answer this question, and certainly not the copyright holder, Jérôme Lindon and then Edward Beckett, who sticks to the letter of the plays and the stage directions and refuses any kind of side-tracked interpretation that could lead to a completely new vision of Samuel Beckett's work. Luckily his power does not extend beyond the borders of France. Beyond one can think differently.

I just wonder what that vision could become if Beckett could see our world of hyper-virtual-reality-communication-cum-social-networking. Could a psychotic post-modern vision of his type survive and thrive in our modern world of total drowning in the multiple and never-ending flow of unforeseen and unforeseeable expansion?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This is the BEST book Raymond Khoury has written! As much as I loved The Last Templar, this one beats it! I really love that Reilly is the "star" of this book. So many unanswered questions and missing parts of his life are answered, and we get to see what a totally KICK *** guy he is when out from under the restrictions of the FBI. There are a few new characters that help lighten some of the more suspenseful scenes, and one scene that broke my heart. My only, ONLY disappointment is that this book is not currently available in the US and that so many people will not read it because of that. While I love the smell and feel of a book, I would rather have this book on my tablet than to not have it at all. Thanks Raymond for giving me the change to hang out with Tess and Reilly again!

Raymond Khoury has once again delivered a masterpiece!! I have read every Khoury book that he has ever written! One thing I look for to keep me coming back to the author is if he or she can still surprise me. After a while some authors grow stale and that surprise is lost. NOT.WITH.KHOURY!!

The End Game had me from the opening paragraph and held me until the last period! Raymond Khoury seamlessly weaves his last two books into this one. If you've read the other books then you know exactly what Raymond is referring to when he references his previous stories. If you haven't, then he brilliantly fills in the gaps for you so you are not lost as to what is going on! Just incredible!!

From the prologue to the last chapter, Raymond effortlessly weaves suspense, action, and thrills into a story that will have you turning page after page and reading hour after hour without even realizing it!

With reappearances of our favorite people such as Nick Aparo and Tess Chaykin, to those whom we are not so fond of in Reed Corrigan and Frank Fullerton, Raymond gives you the sense of familiarity you like from a series with the same characters! And Sean Reilly is up to his old tricks again, as well as throwing in a few new ones!

There won't be any spoilers here! Just high praise for another classic from Raymond Khoury. I highly recommend this book as well as all the others Raymond has written! So, throw your responsibilities aside, grab that cup of coffee and your kindle, and prepare for a ride you won't soon forget!!

Having read this because I could get it through Kindle Unlimited, I found it interesting and suspenseful. I didn't realize at the time there were other books in the series (none of which I had read), so I found myself playing a little catch-up. However, the author did explain things that had happened in the previous books throughout this book, so I wasn't lost. That said, the biggest disappointment, and the reason I gave it only 3 stars, was the complete lack of editing. This e-book was riddled with so many typos and grammatical errors, I felt like I was reading a first draft rather than a final novel.

ENDGAME

I admit that when I first read this play (I have, as of yet, never seen it performed) I was a bit mystified. I was already a fan of Beckett having just finished the first volume of his Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. So I was prepared to give Beckett the benefit of the doubt and assume that my mystification was at least partially due to my own inability to grasp what Beckett was attempting. Ultimately I found a collection of essays that I thought was quite helpful in elucidating the "meaning" of the play, though "meaning" has to be put in quotation marks since a number of the essays argued, in effect, that the play's lack of meaning was its "meaning" (I am, of course, simplifying a great deal, but I am thinking in particular of Theodor Adorno's claim that "Understanding Endgame can only be understanding why it cannot be understood"). I would like to recommend the collection Twentieth Century Interpretations of Endgame to anyone who is struggling with this play as I was.

Samuel Beckett is often charged with having an unrealistically bleak and pessimistic view of the world, or of being a nihilist, but after reading the essays in the above collection, and reflecting a great deal on the play, I am convinced that the message of this play is far more positive than people usually imagine. Actually, I am convinced that almost all the commentators on this play (of the ones I have read which is certainly only a small percentage of the total) have missed the main point that I think Beckett is trying to communicate in this play.

There is no doubt that the meaninglessness and repetitiveness of existence and human life is a theme of the play, and a theme of Beckett's work in general, but I am convinced this is not the final word. I hope to explain in my review why I think that is the case and why I have decided to christen Beckett as the "Irish Buddha" in the title of my review.

So why do I think the play is at least potentially more optimistic than often assumed? One of the constant themes of the play seems to be that nothing really ever changes. Clov has wanted to leave for a long time but never does. The characters have the same, or very similar conversations with each other over and over. The characters seem to be living after some kind of apocalypse, but there is ultimately no indication that the world was ever really any different than it is right now. As Clov says "All life long the same inanities" (45). Earlier in the play Clov asks "Why this farce, day after day?" and Hamm responds "Routine. One never knows." Clov and Hamm also make a number of comments about the ultimate meaninglessness of existence. At one point Hamm asks tentatively "We're not beginning to...to...mean something?" and Clov replies "Mean something! You and I, mean something! (Brief laugh) Ah, that's a good one!"

So it seems as if the image of human life Beckett is presenting is one of meaningless repetition and suffering. Clearly it would not be accurate to call this an optimistic view of human life (though one might argue it is a realistic one). But I think there are a few reasons why this ultimate "repetitive meaninglessness" is not the final story in the play.

First, I believe the play is fundamentally about qualitative change, or the way that tiny quantitative changes eventually, seemingly miraculously, produce qualitative changes. This is the theme that it seems to me nearly all the commentators miss, or at most they hint at it. For example, there is a very interesting essay in the collection I referenced above by Martin Esslin titled "Samuel Beckett: The Search for the Self". Martin Esslin argues that Beckett's minimalism is a method for driving a shaft "deep down into the core of being" and achieving truly universal significance "by having been freed from all elements of a naturalistic social setting and external plot" (26). Esslin goes on to argue that Beckett's minimalism allows him to concentrate on the theme of two people who are dependent on one another but want to leave each other. Beckett's minimalism is merely a means for removing all the accidental circumstances that ordinarily accompany such a situation so that his analysis will apply anywhere such a dynamic is acted out (between a father and a son, teacher and student, two lovers, or even between parts of oneself).

I agree with Esslin about Beckett's use of minimalism, and I also agree that the dependent relationship between Hamm and Clov is one of the primary themes of the play, but to me this is merely a specific instance of the more general theme I am highlighting. Being trapped in a relationship that has run its course is one example of a situation where qualitative change might seem impossible. It is one example of a situation where we can become trapped in habits to the point of hopelessness and despair. The reason I do not believe this play is as bleak as everyone seems to assume is because I believe there are at least hints throughout the play that suggest that Beckett does believe qualitative change is possible even in situations where we have become so entrenched in habits that change seems impossible.

The very first line of the play is "Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. (Pause.) Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap" (1). I did not immediately get this reference, but one of the essays I read (I forget which) clarified it by explaining that there was a Greek philosopher who raised the paradox of when grains of sand become a heap. You can drop one piece of sand at a time, and there will eventually be a point when you have a heap of sand. But when does it happen? It is hard to imagine any single grain of sand being responsible for such a qualitative change. We can never really say "Before that particular grain of sand was dropped there was not yet a heap, and after it is dropped there is a heap". And yet, there is certainly a point in time when you do not yet have a heap, and a later point in time when you definitely do have a heap. How does this happen? Beckett, with this allusion, seems to be highlighting the seemingly miraculous process through which continuous quantitative changes suddenly produce qualitative change and that seems to me to be the primary theme of the play. Clov has been saying that he is going to leave for a long time but he never does. Each day is the same as the last. How could one more day make a difference? How could one more day be the day that is responsible for producing a qualitative change? Of course, Beckett does not tell us whether Clov actually leaves. He leaves it open.

But there are at least two places in the play where I think Beckett suggests that he believes qualitative change is possible (whether it is possible for Clov or not). One is when Hamm and Clov are discussing some seeds that Clov had planted. Hamm asks "Did your seeds come up?" and later Clov replies "If they were going to sprout they would have sprouted. (Violently.) They'll never sprout!" (13). Clov may be right, the seeds may never sprout, but he is wrong to assume that if they were ever going to sprout they would have sprouted already. That is a false inference. I think Beckett uses this image to remind us that things could be changing below the surface. We might not see any change from day to day, and indeed, a plant grows too slowly to actually see it growing, but things might be happening outside our field of vision, and then one day, things are different, the plant has sprouted, though we might not understand how it happened. This is a hopeful message, I think, because it means that we are not eternally chained to our habits.

The clearest evidence that Beckett believes in qualitative change comes near the end of the play. Clov says "I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go. (Pause.) Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand, that either" (81). I cannot remember where I read it, but I read somewhere that Beckett believed that human life was essentially torn between engrained habits, which eventually become boring, and transformations of those habits, which imply suffering. Clov is here torn between his habitual life, which has become dull and repetitive, and a new life. It would probably be going too far to claim that Beckett is being an optimist here since Clov essentially has a choice between boredom and suffering, but I think it would be good to remember another aspect of the play that a number of commentators have drawn attention to. Beckett's staging of the play (with two windows looking out onto the outside world) suggests that it is possible to view the action of the play as a kind of internal dialogue taking place within someone's head (the windows, of course, being the eyes, and different characters representing different parts of the self, or different faculties). It seems to me, if we read the play that way, then the ultimate message of the play is that we are not eternally chained to our own engrained habits of thought, though the process of change may involve suffering. This, to me, is an optimistic message, unless by optimism we mean the belief that the world is all roses and sunshine, where no one ever has to suffer or struggle. But that is simply delusion, not optimism.

One final reason I believe this play is slightly more hopeful than people imagine is because I believe that Beckett is destroying illusory desires. That is the reason I gave this review the title "The Irish Buddha". The Buddha taught that our suffering is a result of our ignorant desires. We believe that by chasing such desires we will be able to accomplish something, but the constant flux of reality makes any permanent success impossible. So life is a never-ending quest for an illusory goal. I believe that Beckett has a similar view of life. In the essay "Endgame and its Scorekeepers" by Richard Goldman, which can also be found in the collection I referenced above, Goldman compares Beckett to T.S. Eliot. In The Waste Land (Norton Critical Editions) Eliot eulogizes a past wholeness, which has disintegrated and left merely fragments that Eliot tries to shore against his ruins, in a present wasteland. For Beckett there is no illusion of a past wholeness. This is always how life has been, and it is always how it will be. I believe that the illusion of a past wholeness (a wholeness Eliot found in Christianity) is one of the illusions that the Buddha would attempt to cure us of. There is a famous saying in Buddhim, "This is it", which simply means, there is nothing that we are waiting for. Life is, right now, the same as it always has been, and always will be, so if we cannot find what we are looking for in the present moment, we will not find it in the past or the future either, and our search in the past or future is precisely what keeps us from finding what we are looking for in the present. It is, in other words, our illusory hopes that stand in our way. So when someone like Beckett attempts to destroy those illusory hopes, by simply pointing out that they are, in fact, illusory, those who are attached to those illusory hopes will view such a person as "negative" or "nihilistic", but since Beckett is, in my opinion, destroying something that is already "negative" and a source of suffering, his ultimate goal becomes quite "positive", just as the Buddha's goal was not despair, but freedom from suffering. I am convinced that Beckett's vision is ultimately a positive one

ACT WITHOUT WORDS

I am less certain what to make of the short Act Without Words, also contained in this volume. On the one hand, it suggests parallels with the Buddha again. The character winds up lying under a tree, seeming to have stilled his desires, he no longer grasps at the carafe when it is dropped and dangled in front of his face, just as the Buddha sat motionless under the Bodhi tree while he was assaulted by desires. This would suggest the character in the play has succeeded in a process of ascesis, and freed himself from desire.

On the other hand, in Buddhist iconography the Buddha is always pictured sitting under the Bodhi tree, while the character in Act Without Words is lying on his side. This difference seems significant to me, and suggests that the character in this play has simply succumbed to despair.

It reminds me of something that the Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj says in I Am That. (an excellent book by the way), "Weak desires can be removed by introspection and meditations, but strong, deep-rooted ones must be fulfilled and their fruits, sweet or bitter, tasted" (97). The Buddhist claim that our desires can never truly be satisfied can lead to either enlightenment or despair, depending on the situation. If you tell someone who still possesses "deep-rooted desires", the kind that cannot simply be rooted out through meditation but must be acted upon, that their desires cannot possibly be fulfilled, you are more likely to produce despair than enlightenment. I do not think the character in the play has succeeded in removing his desires, he has simply convinced himself that they can never be fulfilled, and that has produced despair. I think that is probably why he is lying down rather than sitting. The only solution in that case would be to act on those deep-rooted desires and taste their fruits.

But what do I know? After all, "a hair's breadth separates the false from the true" so it is often difficult to tell them apart. At any rate, despite the fact that Beckett gives you almost nothing to hold on to (in either play) there is still much food for thought contained between the covers of this slim volume.

In his trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett explores the frailty of existence.

In the first novel, the unreliable narrator recounts his decline but through the monologue, the reader learns not so much his past as declining state of mind. From his phrases and sentences, we realize how far he has departed from reality and how little we can trust his words. And even Molloy couldn't trust his recollection of events and his perception of world. In the second part of the first novel, the narrator Moran, a private detective searching for Molloy, follows a similar decline into delusion and his world becomes as unreal as Molloy's. As if they are the same person.

In Malone Dies, an old man confined to an asylum recounts his story and that of a boy named Sapo. But here, as in Molloy, the unreliable narrator conveys not so much the events as his delusion and decline. And we see Malone's death on the last page of the novel through the paragraphs and sentences distorting into fragments to reflect the narrator's last thoughts.

“Lemuel is in charge, he raises his hatchet on which the blood will never dry, but not to hit anyone, he will not hit anyone, he will not hit anyone any more, he will not touch anyone any more, either with it or with it or with it or with or
or with it or with his hammer or with his stick or with his fist or in thought in dream I mean never he will never
or with his pencil or with his stick or
or light light I mean
never there he will never
never anything
there
any more ” from Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies.

In The Unnamable, the narrator asks " What am I to do, what shall I do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed?" As if only a nameless person, perhaps a nonexistent person, can seek to act and to live. The narrator claims to have created Molloy, Malone and other characters in Samuel Beckett's novels, and like them, he also struggles to communicate reality and follows the same path toward non-existence.

Beckett's trilogy is a postmodern fiction, not a meta-fiction but a story where the plot collapses and character and, even more so, style dominates. Through the narrators' babbling and occasional insight, through the fragmented thoughts and distorted sentences, we learn about their psyche, isolated and delusional. And we realize Beckett is describing postmodern men and women.

Beckett's second play "Endgame," translated from French by his own hand into English, is a vision of the world at its end. It focuses on the few surviving human beings who are themselves facing mortality; the betrayal they face from their own bodies as their physical forms break down and the end of life becomes imminent. I freely admit that I didn't understand everything Beckett was doing in the play, with fragmentation, repetition, extensive pauses within the dialogue, and allegorical referencing. I looked into educated sources on the play and found that there are allusions to the death of Christ and to Dante's "Inferno," which upon reflection become clearer to me now. I also recognized allusions of my own, particularly the parallels between the slave-son Clov and Prospero's savage servant Caliban: Clov's relationship to his father-owner Hamm is more forgiving and less vile than that between the two men in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," but the similarities are definitely there. Specifically, the line from Clov -- "I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others" -- harkens back to Prospero and his daughter Miranda giving the man-beast language and understanding.

Beyond the allusions are Beckett's own personal ideas about life and death, loneliness and family, powered by a fairly pessimistic and dark view of the ultimate fate of humanity and humankind. As a main player in the philosophical ideology and existentialist movement of The Theatre of the Absurd, his stance makes sense. The world within his play IS absurd, as well as meaningless and a bit inhumane. So, making sense out of non-sense is the key to the reading experience -- or, refusing to make the attempt to unravel the play in order to find some common understanding and just choosing to go with the flow of dialogue and action that is presented. I tried a little of both, which was frustrating and challenging while still being somewhat enjoyable.

The companion piece to "Endgame" is "Act Without Words: A Mime for One Player," which borrows motifs, characters, allegories and tone from its predecessor. While it might be much more effective and interesting if seen in performance, the actual reading of five pages filled with nothing but repetitive, tedious stage directions is less than a fulfilling experience. But the main event, "Endgame," is the reason for this book, and if you want a taste of that absurdist, existential playwriting that Beckett and Ionesco made famous, this and "Rhinocerous" are good places to start. And, of course, there's always "Waiting For Godot."

Beckett writes from the edge. The voices (and they seem more like voices then characters) that narrate these books are those of wretches occupying some dying twilight world of their own dwindling consciousness, faced with their own immanent dissolution. They are literally just on this side of aphasia and death. The prose in each of these is singular. You could recognize one of Beckett's sentences in a heartbeat. There is, to my knowledge, just no one else who writes like this, or who would want to try. These three novels are books of sentences. Not chapters, not sections, not paragraphs, but of one skittering clause chasing after another in this dark, staccato style that seems to refuse any progression. They babble, repeat and curl back into themselves with the sort of logic you usually only here from sad, raving homeless people. Yet they are also weirdly affirming in spite of their darkness, you get the sense that these voices are forever circling the void, merely perpetuating themselves by some act of sheer will that is as futile as it is inevitable. What do you do when you can't go on? You go on.

This wonderfully desolate and austere trilogy is only going to work for you if you already have some affinity for Beckett's work. If you want to get some idea of where he might have been going with 'Waiting for Godot', this could well be the answer. In some ways, the journey (internal/external) is like 'King Lear' for our times: a bleak and unrelieved search for meaning, purpose, and some sense of closure or conclusion. As you might suspect at the begining, the prospect of success is slight. Why then take the time to plough your way through a trilogy, which depicts characters becoming increasingly enfeebled and incapable, just as the language becomes reduced and impoverished?
Beckett's skill with language, is paradoxically to do more with less: even as the language breaks down, and mirrors the characters' own deterioration, the words are made to work harder, and by some strange alchemy they do, conveying a moving and strangely beautiful desolation from the waste and decay from which they are conjured. I think it's impossible to read this without seeing the parallels in our own atomised and materialistic lives (McCarthy's 'The Road'?), and the knowledge that at some future point we all must find our individual paths down desolation row. Essential reading for all those who value self-awareness, and the search for meaning.

In these three narratives, Beckett has pretty much re-engineered the form of the novel. Characters meld, descriptions fluctuate. All the props of modern fiction are dispensed with. Strangely enough though, it is through these narratives of meaninglessness that meaning is found in the humorous ironies, in the brutal depictions of human life.

Even more fascinating than the "lyrical prose" and the passages of dark humor moving among strange characters in mundane settings, is the artistic mind that lurks behind these composed lines. If you read a biography of Beckett (see my review of DAMNED TO FAME), the episodes of his life are far more fascinating than any work he created. This is not to denigrate his fiction at all, but rather to suggest that much of it can be grasped better by understanding the biographical details of its author.

Reading Samuel Beckett is demanding work, no question. The austere complexity of the writing that ebbs and flows through the grim and comedic episodes, requires a real commitment from the reader. In THREE NOVELS, Molloy is by far the most accessible and coherent - poetic passages shine through the grim visions. Beckett's comedy is most developed in this novel. The Unnameable, however, is a fractured monologue, the mental terrain stark and anonymous. Not light bedtime reading.

With this trilogy, the brilliance of Samuel Beckett shines on, mostly in the darkest of nights. His literary legacy is still reverberating ...

Parataxis

The Cloud Reckoner

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts

(old review from April 2005, on "Malone Dies")

This is the story of Malone, an old man about to die who can't do much except breathing. He's in a hospital room, maybe, and he tries to write a story, or stories.

It's a major book and it's a classic. I really loved it. I like Beckett anyway, but this book is truly awesome. Reflections on writing, living, etc. It's very ironic at times and the stories Malone writes can be really twisted. Some of which is really icky ick but unless you mind things that go off the beaten path, you'll dig it.

What else to say... it's a first person narrative, except for the parts that actually are stories written by Malone. The figure of Malone, alone in this strange room, is reminiscent of that of a feotus; and indeed, Malone sucks the corner of his pillow like a baby, and is treated just like a baby, since he cannot live on his own due to his very old age. The walls are also described as bones at some point, like a skull, I think, it's a bit like Malone is trapped in a head, which is the usual condition of our consciousnesses (or souls). The narrative solely comes from malone's trapped consciousness, it's what Genette would call "focalisation zero", if i'm not mistaken, which I could very well be, having skipped that book at uni. Basically, the narrator is far from omniscient and only knows what the character knows; which is logical since the character, Malone, is also the narrator. You get tons of mise en abymes with the fact that Malone, a character-narrator, writes stories. Stories within the story.

Major book of the 20th Century, I totally recommend it for anyone who likes good literature. And anyone who breathes, yeah, if you breathe, you need to read "Malone Dies". By the way, if Malone sounds like Alone, it's not a coincidence. Malone is always alone and yes he does die too, alone. Deep book about the human condition.

Samuel Beckett, Endgame, A Play in One Act, Followed by Act Without Words, A Mime for One Player (Grove, 1958)

Samuel Beckett's plays are known for being obtuse while entertaining; Endgame is no different where this is concerned, but it is also arguably his most powerful work. We are presented with four characters, three of whom cannot move and one of whom cannot stop moving, in a relentlessly bleak landscape that, while it is never explicitly stated, seems to be post-apocalyptic. It is possible that these four are the last people left alive on earth, and their collective health is failing. Beckett uses this absurd, if gripping, mise en scene to reflect not only on both the banal and the dramatic in interpersonal relationships, but on how screwed up the world is in general. What caused these four people to be the last on Earth? And are they, in fact, the last on Earth in a literal sense, or is it just that they have become so isolated the rest of the world has forgotten about them? And can we (and the other characters) trust anything that Clov, the sole character capable of movement, is telling them? We get no answers; we are expected to supply them ourselves, of course.

Endgame is, in this volume, followed by Act Without Words, a behaviorist melodrama taken to absurd extremes, with one man in a desert setting unable to reach a carafe of water that is dangled (presumably, by a supreme being) just out of his reach, despite objects being delivered to him that should by rights help him reach it. As with most of Beckett's work (much of which, by the way, can be found free online at samuel-beckett.net, including the entire texts of these two plays), the comic and the tragic (or, I should say in this case, the endlessly frustrating) blend marvelously into one ugly morass of emotion. Great stuff, this. ****

This book is an easy, thorough introduction to endgame play which would serve well anyone already moderately well versed in chess but who hasn't delved deeply into the end game yet. It nicely fills the much needed void between the puerile, survey-style, woefully incomplete "become a chess master in 30 short minutes!" books, and the pedantic, unreadable, "king and pawn vs knight" dictionary-sized tomes which no chess-mortal stands any chance of ever plodding through or retaining anything but a fraction of.

Ward's "Endgame Play" covers the basic mating patterns in an easy to follow, clearly explained, logical format (and it doesn't put you to sleep!). Between every few moves is an enlightening annotation about why the text move is ideal, and at times also provides alternate less-preferable lines (but these lines don't drag on so long that by the time you've finished playing them you've forgotten the initial position and point entirely). This makes clear not only why certain moves are preferred, but also why players fall prey to common pitfalls.

All in all it's a very thorough an enjoyable endgame study, and would be perfect for the burgeoning serious player with a hole in their endgame or who'd like to delve more into piece play. The rank beginner may find it over their head as it does presuppose a level of competency.

Samuel Beckett writes about subjects that appear tedious to the outside world, but if you persevere, the characters come to life, rich with detail. The 3 books are about a man who is lost and can't find his way home, a man and his son who get lost looking for someone, and a dying man confined to his bed. These topics may appear mundane on the outside, but if you're willing to explore the world the author creates, you'll find more lurking beneath the surface.

The last book was difficult to finish, simply because it doesn't have a traditional storyline. It's a sort of monologue of contemplation on existence, the inner thoughts of a character who is trying to rationalize himself either into or out of existence. It's interesting, but I had to read through in small doses. All three books are good, but it's definitely for those looking for a more challenging read.

THREE NOVELS BY SAMUEL BECKETT: MOLLOY MALONE DIES THE UNNAMABLE. By Samuel Beckett. 414 pages. New York: Grove Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8021-5091-8 (pbk).
There are many good reasons for reading Beckett's Trilogy. There is, in the first place, his beautifully clear and supple prose, a prose that moves with ease from the simple and straightforward treatment of everyday matters through to passages of intense lyrical beauty, or to equally moving outbursts of extreme brutality and obscenity. There is also Beckett's wonderful sense of humor, and readers will often find themselves chuckling at his eccentric characters and their zany carryings on. There is the unique effect produced by the general strangeness of his novels, with their odd characters moving through vividly realized landscapes which seem real enough but in which many of the happenings are either inexplicable or left unexplained.
There are also such things as his compassionate treatment of animals, for although Beckett seems most of the time to have little love for his fellow men, the intensity of his love and respect for the humbler creatures of the earth - donkeys, sheep, pigs, bees, birds, etc., - can be overpowering. Here, for example, is Beckett in 'Malone Dies' (p.304) describing, in his powerful and beautiful prose, a grey hen : ". . . this big, anxious, ashen bird, poised irresolute on the bright threshold, then clucking and clawing behind the range and fidgeting her atrophied wings, soon to be sent flying with a broom and angry cries and soon to return, cautiously, with little hesitant steps, stopping often to listen, opening and shutting her little bright black eyes"
There is here a total identification with a creature we would normally have difficulty identifying with, and a very real compassion. Like Molloy,Moran, and Malone, the hen is trapped: trapped in the universe - and trapped in a body. Like them, too, it desires happiness and is averse to suffering. It is experiencing the agony of incarnation, the agony of being in a body. It suffers from heat, cold, thirst, hunger, fear, desire, confusion, frustration, loss, pain, injury, terror, and ultimately death. It also endures many of the other afflictions that we too must somehow suffer through and try to survive - all the while uncertain as to how we got here, why we are here, and where we are going, and desperately searching for some meaning, some explanation, some way out.
Beckett is not easy to read. His books demand real stamina. They give us a world in which, despite its occasional hilarity, none of us can feel truly comfortable for nothing in it makes much sense. For Beckett, as for the Buddhists, a continuous self is a mere illusion and has no real existence - hence the indeterminacy of his characters, and the melting of Molloy into Moran, Malone into Macmann, etc. Ultimately unreal, and thus without meaning, they move painfully, but also comically, through a world in which the link between cause and effect has been broken - a world which is itself therefore meaningless, and in which redemption can come only through art since in a world emptied of absolute meanings there can only be fictions. While each of us is unconsciously busy creating the fiction which is our self, and helping to sustain the larger fiction which is society, Beckett was consciously creating his own fictions. But they are all fictions and all ultimately without meaning. Or perhaps one could say that the meaning is that there is no meaning.
Despite this general meaningless, however, readers who patiently work through these books will find much to reward them. They offer us a true, though grotesquely exaggerated, vision of life, albeit one in which there is much that is grim and disgusting. They also offer a marvelous field for the play of Beckett's comic genius, and he can rarely resist poking fun at the kind of mind produced by the massive organized pedantry which passes for education in the modern world. And finally, we should not forget those moments, more precious for their rarity - moments such as Molloy's vision of the young woman on the beach who wishes to help him - when there is an inexplicable intrusion of sheer goodness and beauty into his grim world. Perhaps Beckett was not quite the misanthrope and pessimist he liked to pretend. He was certainly one of the wittiest, and beneath his tough intellectual carapace there is a warmth and love he never did succeed in wholly disguising.
The Grove Press edition of Beckett's Trilogy is printed in an ugly heavy blunt font; comes with that special contribution to the modern reader's hell - one of those cheap-and-nasty glued spines which split easily; and (like many of Beckett's books) is riddled with typographical errors and misprints. Potential readers would probably be better off finding the physically more handsome and durable Everyman edition, though whether it offers a more accurate text I don't know.

As somebody who has been a big fan of Raymond Khoury, since his first best seller " THE LAST TEMPLAR"
I can safely say! "THE END GAME" will be, his next best seller. Yes! It's that good! I read
20 plus books a year, I know a good a good book, when I read one.
Once again. Reilly and Tess take us on another great adventure. Only this time. It's not a rollercoaster ride.
Nope! It warped factor 9. As soon as you turn the first page it's fast forward to the very end.. So what is
the new book about? This time Reilly on the run from both the FBI and the CIA for murder. With the help of Tess and
a few of his FBI buddies. Who must help clear his name. Hot on Reilly's tail, is Sandman(Who has a bad habit of
killing people) Thanks Mr Khoury for the great read. Looking forward till your next book

These three novels are the best of the 20th century.

They contain all the beauty, despair, and spareness that makes Beckett the patron writer of our century. They get at the core of what it means to be a self in the midst of the void, having, against one's will, a self's attendant thoughts, words, stories, and imagination. "I, say I. Unbelieving" says Beckett in the first line of The Unnamable, and you can believe him. These novels are as metaphysical as novels get, asking sincerely what it means to be. And asking just as sincerely if language can ever help us figure that out.

Each novel, with Molloy on his crutches, Malone in his death-bed, The Unnamable in his skull, is screamingly funny and cryingly horrible. Beckett's sense of the absurd and the ridiculous are only matched by his encyclopedic knowledge and overwhelming but strangely life-affirming pessimism, which helps us go on as we laugh at the world's collection of whimsies.

There are no novels better. There are few funnier. There are none containing more truth.

In "King Lear" Shakespeare asked far more questions than he could answer, and by the end of the play little was resolved: unfit leaders would perpetuate the march of folly. Shakespeare's work followed many themes from "Oedipus" and both spoke to the ethos of their times. If any twentieth century play deserves to be considered the heir to "Oedipus" and "Lear" then Beckett's "Endgame" should rank right along with the other two. In Beckett's finest theatrical work, he places a blind man in Job's world, but in this case there is no answer from the heavens; instead Hamm, Clov, Nagg and Nell have to invent their own worlds, reconstructing the past and deconstructing themselves while Beckett himself reconstructs and deconstructs theater. One line best sums up the play and provides probably the best motto for the twentieth century: "the end is in the beginning and yet you go on." Many have seen this play as a dar! k Kafkaesque nighmare, but I see it as a true existential affirmation of what Camus saw as acting in good faith--choosing to play the game and go on with life even though there is little reason to play on.

It's hard to top Beckett when it comes to sheer density of prose. His trilogy here is considered one of the greatest sets of novels in the 20th century, and it's a rightly deserved reputation. Here Beckett does two neat tricks over the course of the three books, first he gradually strips the story down to its very essence, that being words and sentences and phrases to the point where the story is almost pure thought processes. Second, and this is probably harder, he manages the trick of taking an absolutely bleak view of life and making it absolutely hilarious. Through absurd situations, witty asides and just general black humor there are fewer works of literature that will literally have you laughing out loud while forcing you to confront the possible pointlessness of life. At no point is any of this easy reading, Beckett's prose can be politely described as relentless and the words just keep coming, maintaining an odd, jerky sort of rhythm that manages to pull you along so that the books read much faster than you might expect. And even though it's a trilogy mostly in spirit, there are some definite progressions from book to book. Molloy is the easiest to read and makes the most sense, even if its circuitiousness can be madly frustrating sometimes. And for some reason Beckett pulls an absolutely bizarre switch halfway through that I'm not smart enough to understand. But for the most part it's fairly accessable. Malone Dies is as bleak as the name implies and is probably the funniest in a black humour sort of way. I actually found this one easiest to understand though, but that's probably not the case with everyone. And then you hit the last book The Unnamable (which I saw someone jokingly once refer to as "The Unreadable") which brings Beckett to the absolute pinnacle of his style. There's barely any description to give the reader a visual image, and whatever descriptions there are always shift, never staying still. The novel is pure thought, a series of knotted sentences managing to convey a whole range of emotions and somehow achieving a strange beauty in the process. The final few words of the novel probably sum Beckett up just as much as anything else. These aren't novels you read for plot, but for the writing and his prose makes it all worthwhile. For those readers who don't mind doing a little work in their reading to be rewarded, Beckett is probably the place to go. This trilogy stands as one of the more uniquely beautiful pieces of the 20th century. The Nobel Prize was justly deserved.

Once again Raymond Khoury delivers and delivers big time. End Game is an amazing ride from beginning to end. Whether you are and avid reader of Raymond's novels or this is a first time read you will love this thriller. The story moves fast between the action going on around the main character and the jump to his first person narrative. This will be hard to put down as each chapter will leave you wanting to know what is next. A nice touch with supporting cast that satisfies the geek side of some of us. I really had to pause and image her as Wonder Woman. :-)

If this is your first Raymond Khoury novel, you will be grabbing the rest to read and then doing End Game one more time.

What the audience is met with is full-blown confusion. Thefirst scene opens with a brief tableau, a frozen frame depicting thetwo main character Clov and Hamm, the latter confined to a chair and the other dressed in shabby clothes, face expressionless, standing and looking into the audience. Beckett intends for the audience to be shocked and to be left unrestful. Beckett wrote Endgame to illustrate human suffering and the meaninglessness of routine. People who are not courageous enough to experience anything other than the monotony of life, people who lack any imagination and creativity. It is the extent of unfeelingness and total oblivion of emotions that detaches the characters in the play from what we may perceive as "realistic". On the first reading, one may be put off entirely by the repetitive questions and actions but with a closer second reading, the quality of Beckett's dramatic technique becomes palpable. Beckett's ingenuity of writing a play devoid of a plot shows that a dramamtist is not always bound to plot as most people assume. Anyway, here is a quote from the play to consider: "All life long the same questions, the same answers..........have you not have enough of this..this...this thing?"

'endgame' is one of Beckett's most famous works, generally considered to be his theatrical masterpiece, as a master and servant fight it out at the end of the world in somebody's decaying head. Despite some very gallows humour, this is the Beckett aesthetic at its bleakest.
'Act Without Words' is very different. The philosophy may be familiar - man's struggles to survive in a world powered by unseen, malevolent, sadistic forces - but this is treated almost (self?) parodically. The play's main interest lies in its form. Throughout his career, Beckett has been paring down his language to the limits of concision - here he finally abandons it, giving us a mime more than a little influenced by the slapstick silent cinema that has always fuelled his work. I guess this is genuinely a case where you have to see it to appreciate it, but I had fun imagining proto-Beckett Buster Keaton in the role.

Another bestseller (I predict) from Raymond Khoury! He has once again proven himself to be a master storyteller, carefully weaving a plot through his characters and his cinematic writing style.

Written through the eyes of FBI Agent Sean Reilly, Khoury takes us into the mind of a desperate man risking his family, his career and his own life to find closure and justice. In every novel to date, Reilly has lost pieces of himself and gained something new in their place. This book is a true test of character development, presenting us with a very different version of Reilly than we met over 10 years ago in The Last Templar. However, as the T's get crossed and I's get dotted, every thought and action stay true to the evolution of the character that Khoury has so carefully crafted.

Trust me, this is a book you want to get your hands on now! Just make sure you clear your weekend...once you pick it up, you won't be able to put it down!!

Beckett's so called trilogy of brief novels is a true masterwork of stream of consciousness prose. Beckett has pushed the boundaries of the novel in this great collection, beginning with Molloy (perhaps his finest work), which recounts the narrative of a man decaying either in an asylum or in jail. The detective who is employed to find him has an increasingly similar experience to the narrator's in this bizarre meditation on the horrifically uncanny aspects of modernity. Beckett has stripped the novel of plot and intelligible characters; we are left with dark landscapes and interior thoughts which are both poetic and tragically moving. The unnameable is the least formally conventional of the three, as the borders of the narrator are blurred with the totality of Beckett's fictional universe. This work is dark and filthy like the best of modern prose. It is a Joycean tract of the unconscious mind. Beckett is also particularly admirable here for translating his own French prose into English. A truly cutting edge artist and visionary writer.

A reader as myself would hesitate to review this play which requires the schollar. So, last having read existential philosphy 30 years ago, my impressions serve as my limited contribution. End Game qualifies as unique illustration of a manner of thinking, and as such I would agree this play powerfully contributes. What more dramatic way to illustrate hopelessness,purposelessness,and every deficiency than this play, the ultimate absurdity. In fact it is somewhat ridiculous to continue reading on after the first couple of pages. The content here is that we are without content, the epitome so to speak of meaninglessness. Is this some great drama? One would suspect many ordinary writers capable or more capable of the dramatic and written achievement, and so I have difficulty proclaiming excessive fame to this author on this play. End Game seems more an illustration or example than an great achievement; a progression (purgation?)rather than tour de force; a segue of philosophy to the stage, but falling short of quality I normally would subscribe to a great work of art.

Raymond Khoury is a master at weaving suspense, intrigue and action throughout a story–and he’s never done it better than in The End Game. The plot moves a breakneck speeds, keeping the reader engaged and on the edge of their seat from the very first page.

The End Game isn’t just Raymond Khoury’s best book in years, it’s one of the best books of 2016!

It's a pity more people don't read Beckett and cannot seem to enjoy him. The trilogy stands right up there with Ulysses as perhaps the greatest work of the century. With Beckett, who needs a plot? Prose has never been more austerely beautiful and never will be again, after Beckett. Yes, there are some maddening scenes in these three inter-related novels and, yes, there is no conventional "plot," but what we have is a distillation of the bare-boned dilemma of existence. When sad, pathetic, tormented Malone (let's not kid ourselves, he's Everyman) lies in his forlorn room watching the sky from his window, there is no more beautiful poetry in the English language. The moon, in Beckett, is truly the moon. At his very greatest, when he is wringing that stark, cold cosmic beauty from despair, Beckett is the finest writer of the century, better even than Joyce. Such a sad shame that this great trilogy will never be read or appreciated except by such few people. It's just the best there is. Period.

I really enjoyed this fast paced novel. The book is very believable where the good guys wins. The book also touches on some interesting possibilities as a way of murdering and also returning some one back to life from what we currently believe to be clinically dead. Highly recommend.

Sharply influenced by James Joyce, this trilogy by Samuel Beckett is a truly remarkable achievement. It is a poetic descent into complete obscurity, words removed from their subjects, relations with no establishments. The first novel, Molloy, at least bears the semblance of a plot, and is, in my opinion, the weakest of the three. It tells two seemingly unrelated stories through a strict stream of consciousness technique. The second novel, Malone Dies, is much more abstract, bearing only a touching relation with actuality, the decaying stories and thoughts of a man resolved to die, a man trying to find his epitaph, a man in fear of the void in which there is only silence. The third novel, The Unnamable, is a unique piece in world literature. It is a novel about words, words speaking about words, narrated by a voice whose existence is melts and transforms with his ideas, an entity whose being is confirmed only by his speech. It is, to my mind, the most extreme form of stream of consciousness writing, bearing no relation to actualities, to reality, only related to ideas. The story, if one can call it that, is simply the story of the voice that tells it, a voice that wishes for the silence, that wants to find an end, the perfect sentence, the perfect phrase, who wishes to be still but is afraid to be still, who speaks words of no meaning, speaks only to avoid the silence that lies beyond his reach. This last novel is truly astonishing. A warning though: do not look for any sense of plot, character, or even reality in these books, for they are thoughts removed from the objects of thought.

Mr. Khoury again takes us on an adventure with our beloved Reilly and Tess, while introducing some wonderfully compelling new characters. I'm never disappointed with Mr. Khoury's work and once again he has entertained me very well indeed with this novel. The dialogue is witty and well done. The characters come to life and I found myself completely caught up in their world. The pace is fast, moving from one perilous situation to the next. Definitely worth a read, as are all of Mr. Khoury's novels. Do yourself a favor and dive into his stories!

Beckett is not for everyone. Obviously. In the first novel of this trilogy there are at least three pages about the narrator sucking on pebbles. Ridiculous, of course. Kind of the point. If you wonder why that should matter, this isn't a book for you. Let me put it this way, if Kenneth Patchen went back in time and had a baby with Hieronymus Bosch and that baby was tutored by Arnold Schoenberg (also with a time machine) and grew up to study how to make time machines in the hope that he might one day exist, he'd eventually write the first ten pages of "Molloy". The only mystery is why he didn't already do that. It's a bit like what Camus would have written after the car crash if they'd given him a pen on his way to hell. But in a good way. After all, hell is only a concept looking for a box that fits. It's aimless, pointless, depressing, etcetera. Whoopee! One of the narrators doesn't even have arms or legs and worries about this sort of thing, kind of. Read it. Or don't. Beckett's dead, what does he care? "[death is] a day like any other day, only shorter." Oh, and the murder scene in "Malone Dies" is one of the best murder scenes ever.

Scott Ritter is one of the handful of people that have first-hand knowledge of the politics and intrigue on the part of the Israeli lobby and the Clinton administration (Madeline Albright) that made it impossible for Sadam to comply with the UNSCOM disarmament requirements to lift the embargo that Albright admitted was responsible for the death of over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis and led to the corruption of the UN's Oil-for-Food program. This is a must-read for those who want the real truth of what ultimately led to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

WOO HOO! What a thrill ride THE END GAME was!! Raymond Khoury has outdone himself again! This book is amazing! It's filled with mystery, intrigue and suspense. It is everything you expect from Mr. Khoury and a whole lot more. Reilly and Tess are running full speed, chasing down secrets from Reilly's past, so I suggest you buckle up and hang on tight. You are about to go on one heck of a ride!!

Three powerful novels, each unique and perhaps so like (and unlike) the others in style that they stand together as much as apart, and readily stand up to evaluation, even deconstruction. I found, having never read Beckett before, The Unnamable to be the finest of the three; each reader though takes a different view. I appreciated the total lack of concern with the modern conventions of the novel in the last work, and The Unnamable lives up to its title in many ways, but draws the reader in to a world of exquisite minimalism and modernity. If experimental work of a higher order is your goal, you can hardly do better than Beckett.

Beckett's commentary on the human condition, with all its loneliness, apparent inanity, and futility is full of humor. When Moran is dispatched to find Molloy, he never sees him even though Molloy contemplates him as A and C on the first few pages of his own monologue. The Unnamable only makes sense (and it makes perfect sense, in fact much more than Molloy and Malone Dies) when you realize what the unnamable is. It is always three feet away from Malone, sees him only from the waist up, is forced to go in and out until it repeatedly vomits, associates himself with Ma(n)hood, and weeps continously with waste from his one eye. It is a male reproductive organ convinced that it is human, making up stories to attempt to understand its existence, and it actually seems more alive than Molloy, Moran, and Malone! It explains everything that happens (the strange shifts in night and day, hard and soft, the lack of limbs that it thinks it has lost) in the Unnamable. This brilliant technique shows mans ultimate ignorance of himself and his attempt to rationalize an existence he cannot understand. As the genitals serve man in a purpose they cannot understand and consider torture in creating life and removing poisons from the body, so does the irrational suffering of the human condition serve a higher purpose even though we cannot comprehend what it is or even what we are from our vantage point.

An excellent fast-paced and captivating story. I really could not put this book down and enjoyed reading it from start to finish. The action and characters were riveting and I can't wait to read more works from this author.

Totally bare in the conventional aspects of drama, Beckett's skewed humor depicts a meaningless world without hope or happiness. Taking the uncertainty of the human situation to the edge, Beckett summarized his views at his deathbed "What did you find to enjoy about life?"....."Very little." (approximately)
As such, Beckett's repitiveness shows the monotony and boredom of existence. Some people, who find his plays painful, would be in a state totally akin to Beckett himself. I get more enjoyment out of reading the plays than watching them performed. They are too slow and devoid of action to be filmable. The sense of humor is not redemptive to life, but merely shows the bleakness more sharply by contrast. I personally prefer Camus to Beckett, who at least has a slightly more balanced view of life, if not more meaningful.

One thing you can always expect from Raymond Khoury is a good read. No matter his subject or era he writes good suspenseful stories. I can pick up one of his book without wondering if it will be good. His stories always are.

I am subtracting one star only because of the weakness of the middle novel, _Malone Dies_. The middle novel serves only to help set up the final novel, _The Unnamable_, which is one of the most intense epic jam journeys in the history of English ficticious literature. _The Unnamable_ is so awesome, so intense, that I almost forget what the first two novels were about. In some ways I don't even care. All I care about is _The Unnamable_. I vaguely remember that _Malloy_ was about some..guy riding around aimlessly on his bicycle; as for _Malone Dies_, I don't remember much at all, exept that it was lackluster. But the third novel more than makes up for all of this. It must be remembered that _The Unnamable_ is an abstract, far-out work of art. It is not exactly a clearly written guide-to-life, or anything like that. It is an epic poem of unbelievable profundity, an enjoyable and invigorating journey into the farthest depths of abstract madness.

This book had suspense, thrills, conspiracy theories, government villains and FBI heroes that will keep one thinking for years to come. There were moments of a bit of excess detail in my opinion, but it's mostly justified in the end. Definitely worth reading.

In these three stories Beckett takes us inside the mind of the genius in a way that no other writer has done. He is a genius who knows that he is, but knows also that only he, if anyone, can know what that means. It cannot be told, or shared, so he is locked away in perpetuity with the only thing he knows, and everything else he does, or says, is by proxy.
The characters in his other stories and plays are about as wretched as it is possible to get, and in The Unnameable, Beckett allows us some insight into his relationship with these obsessions. Beckett looks at what has come out of the mouths of his characters and is as astonished as the reader. He has no idea where it came from, except that it came from him. In the end, he is forced to investigate what 'him' is, and this leads him to confront some of the deepest questions of life. To an ordinary mortal it is almost impossible to believe the level of intellectual activity in Beckett's brain, which can subtend simultaneous parallel streams of words in the way that one imagines Bach and Mozart were consciously able to conceive of polyphonic music of the most fearsome comlexity.
It does not make for easy reading, although there are passages that may be taken alone that are austere and terrifylingly astringent, such as the depiction of the gruesome Moran and his hideous parental role, but for those who see reading as something you can get better at as you go on, then this trilogy is the reading material beyond which few would need to aspire.

The lyric of the old fading consciousness has no better voice in literature than Beckett. He tells the tale of human life at its end in his own language of musical feeling. It will not exactly cheer you up but will give you the feeling of a very distinct individual creative voice. The question of course is how much of this stuff the person can take. Mailer said of Beckett ' we are not all impotent' but at the age of ninety Malone may be right.

I wonder however if there is not another way of thinking about the last time of fading, and suspect that there is. The Jewish idea that the great are informed thirty days before their death of the impending event and can thus prepare and part from their loved ones with dignity, is something to keep in mind as an alternative. "When I go we all goes" says Joyce Beckett's great teacher , but who knows maybe there is a more honorable way of going in which we think more about those we are leaving behind than we do about our own lonely journey to the next world, or not.

I was reading parts of this book while my Grandmother was dying in the hospital, so you can imagine my state of mind after I reached the end of a paragraph. Actually, sections of this trilogy are howlingly funny, especially Molloy, easily the most accessible of the trio. Malone Dies and The UnNamable both start out coherently, then drift onwardly into a sea sick like eulogy which might drive a reader mad. Stick with it for the language however and let yourself wander along with Beckett even if you find yourself on the brink of collapse. The literary equivalent of being on a raft, lost in the ocean

Dedicated to truth, Sean Reilly not only is a superlative FBI Agent, but is also trying to discover the truth about his father's suicide. Could the latter be related to the government he so proudly serves?

The quotation reproduced above comes from the inside front flap of the dustcover of the Everyman's Library edition, and while such flaps in Everyman rarely reveal much about the contents of the books they cover, this quotation seems quite appropriate.
People seem to be upset by Beckett's techniques in writing these novels. Some have even alleged that Beckett (gasp!) has attempted to write a novel without any features of a normal novel. This misses the point of modernism and, while some reviewers may prefer the linearity of the traditional novel (while not, of course, being bad at literary criticism), this misconception of linearity must be corrected. Whereas writers like Conrad (even though Conrad never admitted being an Impressionist writer) cast a haze over his prose desciptions to obscure his readers' vision, modernists give us crisp clarities, but provide us with only the minutest of details. Here, we see the influence of abstract art on literature--especially the dynamism of Marcel Duchamp. By this I mean that modernists attempted to show all stages of motion at once, as in Duchamp's famous painting "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2"--the nude is depicted as a brown blur, and Duchamp shows all stages of the nude's descent. In modernist literature, there are frequent references to earlier events, and there are references to future events. This is evident in _Ulysses_, an epic work of modernism by James Joyce, from whom Beckett himself learned numerous literary techniques.
But also, we see the strong influence Proust had on Beckett. In what has been called, by some critics, the greatest novel written (A la recherche du temps perdu, or Remembrance of Things Past), Proust attempted to write a novel in which the main theme was memory. Proust takes a bite of a Madeleine pastry, and through association, remembers all his life when this bite invokes a childhood memory. But Beckett writes often of people who can remember hardly anything at all: in _Waiting for Godot_, Vladimir and Estragon can barely remember past yesterday. What is meant by this? I believe, Beckett is saying that in this modern (and, by his later career, postmodern) world, we can find nothing that will invoke memory. Our childhoods do not contain high times with tea and Madeleines. Furthermore, his characters do not have anything, even if their childhoods did have the comforts of Proust's (which is highly unlikely).
People are also often startled by the stream-of-consciousness technique used by modernists. But with Beckett, this technique was a means of filling the silence of loneliness. Molloy sees only this man who comes to take away the pages and give him money. Modern humanity is alone; therefore, humans mutter to themselves to pass the time and fill the void.
In works of modernism, we find the constant themes of dynamism memory, and the loneliness of humankind; especially in Beckett's work. I hope that this review has been helpful to those who feel intimidated by Beckett's work: sometimes a few small bits of criticism can get you thinking well and deeply when reading a work.

Blurbs and paeans tend to fall into the trap of imitating Beckett himself. Simply put, Beckett is the one writer who writes solely about meaninglessless in the ripest yet bleakest English ever written (Don't worry -- it's not really "translated" from the French). Thankfully, he spares us more often than not meaningless' corollory, madness. What is left is keen, honest blackness within the straightjacket of rational ratiocination. Beckett is sheer, black joy. If I had to pick two writers to spend eternity with (I won't have this luxury, I'm sure) it would be Beckett and Tolstoy.

CIA agent framed for several murders must find a evil former agent in order to clear his name and to find out information about his father who he believes was murdered when he was a child and also to help save his son he only recently found out about recover from the emotional damage caused by being a part of an experiment by the same agent. Fast paced with a twist ending.

The above reviewers have said enough and nicely that in terms of Beckett. Get this editon. It holds nicely, the pages not only turn well with easy indention of the fingertip, they feel nice. Everyman's editions are foresighted enough to sew in a ribbon marker for that quote of the day or night or hour. The introduction is wonderful - economic and yet fulfilling - the intersection of Kierkegaard's idea of the Author and our own realization of the Author Beckett reigning in the excess of post-Finnegan AuthorJoyce brings clarity to these readings.

Raymond Khoury does it again. I did not want to put this down. My wife hates it when I'm so into a book because I do not want to do anything else but read, including eat. From the beginning to the end, I could not put this down. Sean O'Reilly is the perfect hero in that he's flawed, but tries to always do the right thing. The only problem I have with this book, is that I have to wait for the next Sean O'Reilly book to come out again.

"Endgame and Act Without Words" brings together 2 theater pieces by Samuel Beckett. The book is translated from the French by the author.
"Endgame" is a strange, surreal play about the relationship between a chair-bound man and his caretaker. It has both humorous and sad aspects as these characters deal with their past history. Pain and physical decay are significant themes in this play. Storytelling is an important motif here: Beckett seems to be asking if stories liberate or enslave us.
"Act Without Words" is a one-person mime in which a performer interacts with various moving props onstage. Overall, these two pieces did not make that great an impact on me; I was really expecting more. I recommend the book if you're interested in theatrical surrealism.

Sometimes I go through long periods of time where I forget why I'm into books and writing and everything. It all seems so boring and stupid, and then life does, too. Months or years go by before I find a book like one in this trilogy.

I actually haven't finished it yet, but finishing it is the last thing I want to do. I laugh and marvel often when I read this book and often at the same time. I've never laughed at such terrible pronouncements.

It's true what they say about there being no real plot or exposition. It's difficult to find a place for this book in literature. You don't feel quite right calling it a novel, or novels, or poetry. Every page or so there's a sentence, or a pair of them, that's just a singular marvel. It's as though you took a hilarious comedian, gave him eternal life, and then caught up with him a hundred thousand years later when he was ragged and insane and forced him to write a book, which he ended up really giving his all to in spite of himself.

If you're tired of trying to decypher that Old English iambic pentameter, but you still want a play that's worth your time in reading, Endgame is a must. In the Theatre of the Absurd format also used in Waiting for Godot, Beckett once again poses questoins about life, existance, friendship, and the existance of a "God." The play can be read in under two hours with some minor outside interference, but you won't beable to think about it's content for less than 200 hours after you finish. Personal experience is that it is not a work to be read alone. Share it with your friends. It's a great conversation piece because of the multitude of levels and ideas that it presents. This is Beckett at his finest and any scholar who has not as of yet read it should not consider himself a true scholar until he has. What else is there to say other than stop reading my review and start reading Endgame, you'll be glad you did

Endgame is a beautiful example of why Samuel Beckett is hailed as one of the greatest playwrites of the 20th century. Beckett, one of the most profound exestentialists of all time is famous for not only his brilliant dialouge (so real and beautiful) but also for his amazing characters. Endgame is a perfect example of this.
If you are considering reading this play, or any other by Beckett, I suggest you prepare yourself. Do not expect Death of a Salesman here, because you are going to get the exact opposite. Without proper analyzation, Endgame appears to have no real meaning or plot so to speak. Baisically, it is about two men struggling to get along with each other, one whom had raised the other since birth. The entire one act play is based on their rising conflict with each other, and on the developement of both the major characters, Clov and Hamm. Although this may seem to you as not much to base a play on, the art of exestencialism is based on human emotion and existence. Therefore, it is the perfect place to describe a character in depth. If you are still having difficulty understanding the meaning of Endgame, analyze it as a feud between an aging father and a teenage son. The aging father yells and is tired of the teen, but still wants to hold him. The teen is tired of the father, but still listens to him until a certain line is crossed. That line will become clearer in Endgame by Samuell Beckett, a true masterpiece, which I highly recommend.

Beckett's literature can so often be prided on portraying the struggle of the pointlessness of existence versus the hope that is created by the denial that all humans are immersed in. This play is a certain exception.

All hope in Beckett's theatre is ironic and only meant to be seen as a bi-product of human desperation, however this ironic hope is the element of his plays that make them relevant to the human condition. The lack of this hope in endgame is what means this play is simply unhuman.

In 'Waiting for Godot' the flimsy pathetic hope is generated by the idea that Godot will eventually turn up. In 'Endgame' there is no hope for the future of any kind seen in any of the characters. The only any way upbeat contributions come from Nagg and Nell's memories which are irrelevant to their current situation and even more irrelevant to their future (reinforced by the death of one of them).

This play is a pale shadow of 'Waiting for Godot' and it is 'Waiting for Godot' I would recommend as more relevant to what Beckett had to say as well as some other plays from his collected works such as 'Krapp's last tape' 'Ohio inpromptu' or 'Rockaby'

In the second diagram of the book, Ward asks which is the quickest route for a King to travel from a4 to h4: straight across the row, or by way of d7 and e7. The answer, of course, is that they take the same number of moves. This is probably obvious to many chess players, but for some reason this seemed relevatory to me. Ward then explains why this is useful in knowing how to use your King aggressively in the endgame.
The book has more advanced material than this. It's a short book, but each page has two columns of text, and there is a lot of text, not just diagrams and move lists. What I like best is that Ward doesn't just gush over great moves by master players, something I've never found helpful. He explains the ideas and spells out that which advanced players may find obvious.

I have been reading Khoury for a long time. The end game is complex, suspenseful and educational. What impressed me most, is the well researched technicals. Khoury is right up there with the top Thriller writers.

In the second diagram of the book, Ward asks which is the quickest route for a King to travel from a4 to h4: straight across the row, or by way of d7 and e7. The answer, of course, is that they take the same number of moves. This is probably obvious to many chess players, but for some reason this seemed relevatory to me. Ward then explains why this is useful in knowing how to use your King aggressively in the endgame.
The book has more advanced material than this. It's a short book, but each page has two columns of text, and there is a lot of text, not just diagrams and move lists. What I like best is that Ward doesn't just gush over great moves by master players, something I've never found helpful. He explains the ideas and spells out that which advanced players may find obvious.

I have been reading Khoury for a long time. The end game is complex, suspenseful and educational. What impressed me most, is the well researched technicals. Khoury is right up there with the top Thriller writers.

AN INFERIOR EDITION! There is no question about the value and importance of Beckett's trilogy. But why get this edition rather than the Grove paperback? It is, after all, well bound, neatly typeset, and opens more easily than the paperback.

But the edition has misprints that makes it markedly inferior to the Grove edition. For instance, in the Everyman edition of Malone Dies we read "a lack of rupees" (224) which makes no sense. The Grove edition has the correct phrase--"lakh of rupees"--which may send readers to a dictionary (lakh is a number, one hundred thousand), but does make sense, and is a sign of Malone's background otherwise lost.

I got the Everyman edition expecting much better. But having seen the carelessness with which it was produced, I can only recommend the Grove edition. Most of the Beckett scholarship is keyed to that edition anyway.

This play appears to demonstrate a great deal of situations that appeal and connect will all of us. Despite being absurdist, it is performed in 1 room, like realisim. When played exactually to time and using the effective use of pause, this play can demonstrate excellently what every day life is really about.

It seems like most of the reviews for this book fall into one of two categories. Either the reviewer thinks these novels are exquisite for what they are to a literary movement, or else they don't like them because they're boring and nothing happens. It's true that these books stand up to thorough academic scrutiny, but I also think they're fun to read. They are by no means plot-driven novels. If you're looking for a good story, keep looking. But whether or not you're able to make it through all three of these novels probably has more to do with your taste in reading than your intellectual abilities. If you're a casual reader of popular fiction, you probably won't enjoy these novels much, but if you like Joyce, Kafka, and Eggers, you'll love Beckett.

Regarding the statements made in samm2's review below, I am not familiar with the school of psychology that deems it valid to judge someone's sanity based on a work of fiction he or she created. Really, this claim is a blatant fallacy, perhaps indicating the reader should spend more time with the text before bombastically labeling the author a schizophrenic. Beckett is no provider of instant gratification -- he teaches us to dig deeper, into the places where both pain and happiness are enmeshed and inseparable. Yes, all his work displays more or less the same themes -- this is what is called artistic vision, and the astute reader will know not confuse it with mental illness.

I bought a copy of this one "sight unseen" but was surprised to find that it's aimed at a much lower level of player than are most Batsford books. If you are just starting out I recommend it, but if you are over 1650 or so you should buy Soltis' book.

I'm currently a student at a college in Baltimore Maryland. One of my assignments, given to me in my Intro. to Drama class, was to read the play "Endgame" ,by Samuel Beckett, that was found in my textbook. Overall, I thought that the play was different, well written and intriguing. The reason it was different to me was because of the way I pictured it in my head. With Nagg and Nell in the bins and Clov right beside Hamm and Hamm being pushed around the room made me image it incorrectly in my mind. I pictured a dark room in a basement of an old and cold castle with almost no light allowed to go in to the room. And with Hamm in the center of the room and Clov on one side of him and Nagg and Nell on his other. The way that the play is written is not the way I'm use too. I felt that the play went very fast. Yes I know that there were a lot of pauses in the dialog to break everything up, but it seem to flow quickly. I also think that it had to do with the conversations between Hamm and Clov. Samuel Beckett does not use a lot of tone changes in this play. Clov's voice seems not to change at all. his voice to me would sound old, tried, weak and overworked. As for Nagg and Nell their tone does not change during the whole play. I pictured their voices as very slow, calm, tried and weak. Hamm's tone does change during the play. It happens mostly when he is giving orders to Clov. Hamm's voice to me sounds sharp full of character, strong, wise and powerful. The play really intrigued me because I was wondering what the end would bring. I was a little bit confused on what was going to happening in the end of it all. Would Clov leave Hamm, would Hamm die, would the world end, does the sun come up and change things to the perfect ending I was hoping for. I guess I 'll never no the whole end to the play. I was very surprised about how much I really liked the "Endgame". And I plan to read more things by Samuel Beckett.

Several days ago in my thirteens I attended this playgame. I must say, that I have never seen any of his playgames till now yet. That means I hadn't been allowed to understand the role of actors and the sense of the whole game before I started to focus on reading Becketœ autobiography and to acqaintance with his key playwritings. This game has helped me to see our life in a new way and associated a lot of thoughts and questions about humanbeing and nature at all. Absolutely fascinating. Don't miss it....

The Everyman's Library is a wonderful edition and does Beckett and the modern novel justice as an artist and a art form
In Molloy you will read over a 100 pages with no paragraphs. There is little in the way of plot, characters, dialog,etc. If you want to "read" a modern novel, here it is. Kind of like atonal music. Intellectually you know you are supposed to be
impressed,but it is very hard to "get it".
Malone is somewhat easier to read with two characters and paragraphs but that is as about far as Beckett will go in accomodating his readers. Nobody does much,or goes anywhere.
I can be as patient as the next reader. After all I actually read War and and even Joyce's Ulysses.This was my third shot at Beckett's Big Three. But finally I gave up again. I guess this
stuff is just over my head.

My graphics class had a choice between Godot and this to render the costumes for. I chose this one, with the idea that they were birds, and a keeper. Though seemingly obscure, the absurdities of the play made it work. This is an excellent read for anyone who likes a good absurdest play, and is willing to dig through some lengthy dialogue to get there.

I know this play is suppose to be a classic and a master of it's genre. But if this is the best this genre can produce, this genre must be worse than "Plan 9 From Outer Space". The play is trite and cliched. It's whole meaning is that everything is meaningless. Is it just me or is that a bit ironic? Unless you have to read this play for school, don't read it. If I had gone to see this play in a theatre I would have walked out after 5 minuntes. Why can't people write good and decent plays like Shakespeare or Sophoclese. (I know I spelled them wrong, Sorry.) This new genre of pointless dialogue is, well, pointless. I wonder if all of these playwrites are writing these plays and laughing at the fools that think they are good. Beckett is probably laughing in his grave because he is still fooling people. If you like non-sense, and you like to look like you are philisophical, go ahead and read it, but don't say you weren't warned.

If one has read the early poems, the stories in More Pricks Than Kicks, plus Murphy, Watt and the three stories that precede the trilogy, one feels flooded with sameness in Molloy and Malone Dies, surfeited with hate, doubt, distrust and incomprehension. The sameness of Beckett's themes alters only with the withering of Beckett's talents. Malone, like Sam in Watt as well as the narrator in "Stories" as well as Moran and Molloy, creates plots only to destroy them. In this respect, the narrator-artists are identical to Beckett himself. Twenty years - twenty years will pass between Molloy and "Imagination Dead Imagine" where Beckett has no plot, no dialogue, no characterization, no theme- expect the theme of killing his imagination. Thirty years will pass between Molloy and Company and, aporetic [unable to move] as always, Beckett is still rewriting "Imagination Dead Imagine". For a detailed understanding, read The Insanity of Samuel Beckett's Art, available on the store.com.

I am a diagnosed manic depressive with psychprenic tendencies and all I took salvation in was directing plays. My most theraputic play ws Engame, what a beautiful saga. That saved me from many terrifing nights alone with my mind. Samuel Beckett is in my mind is my savour.

Beckett is not an author your average reader would pick up on his or her own, and certainly not for leisure reading. The classroom, namely that of a college and more specifically within a literature program, is the venue of works like those of Beckett. Predictably, then, these three novels don't exactly make for swift reading. That said, the readability of Beckett's trilogy (specifically towards the end) degrades sufficiently that said "average" reader will gain little or nothing from the experience..

"Malloy" is the most engaging work of the three, and is as much of a "romp" as can be found in serious literature, as its title character, an apparent mental defective and cripple, wanders the countryside stumbling into misadventure on a quest to visit his mother. Some of the passages herein are outrageously funny, and "Molloy" seems, at least nominally, an exploration of human cognition and the tendency of the human brain towards obsession and obscurity. Though of a high literary value and exquisitely composed, "Molloy" manages to be a fulfilling read.

This is continued somewhat with "Malone Dies," however, the second half of this novel is where the trilogy begins to break down in readability and interest. There are still many intriguing passages here, however, and though the narrative thread is lost halfway through, the title character's mental journey and "stories within the story" are engaging enough to keep one interested through most of the book.

Lastly, "The Unnameable" is a testament to literary foppery, having no narrative, no discernible characters, and no plot. I don't mean to sound as if I am so mainstream a reader that I have no capacity for unconventional works (be they in prose, poetry, film, music or otherwise), because I know that "Unnameable" is indeed a compositional experiment in prose and even philosophy. Yes, Beckett was an iconoclast in this way, but one must ask oneself: at what point is an author's work so advanced and sophisticated that it defies his readers' comprehension, and worse, what good is such sophistication and artistry in avant garde expression if no one but its creator can enjoy any of its meaning? This is the problem with "Unnameable": the reader knows he has in his hands a work of art, but it flows by without resonance, as a paragraph one reads without retaining any of its words and which one feels the need to re-read. Imagine THAT, at novel length. Not very fun, is it? Ultimately, there ought to be some love for the joy of reading on the part of the WRITER.

That evaporates in "The Unnameable," and much to the reader's detriment.

I though i was a big fan of postmodernism until I was told that this is one of the essential texts of the movement. I enjoyed Waiting for Godot, but found this book to be completely unbearable. I couldnt even get through the first of the three short novels in it. There is no plot whatsoever, which is, of course, the point, but it doesnt make for an enjoyable read.

Unnamable? I would say more like unreadable. If I struggle through physics or biochem, et cetera, at least I understand the world much better than I did before. Here? A whole bunch of struggle with very little gain. This guy is a coat-tail specialist, a former (and lucky) secretary for Joyce.

"Endgame" is a crude and despicable play. It's not a classic and a pitiable excuse of a play. Utterly useless and does not deserve our time. The characters are one dimensional, lacking, and unrealistic. The plot is morally confusing and worthless. I do not recommend.

Samuel Beckett writes stylish prose in two languages but to no purpose.

Being James Joyce's secretary apparently ruined him as a writer, especially since they were associated while Joyce was composing WORK IN PROGRESS a.k.a. FINNEGAN'S WAKE, arguably the most superfluous and unreadable modernist work ever (unless, of course, you're an academic or a linguist).

The three Beckett novels in this "trilogy" (why it's so called escapes me) are exercises in pointlessness. Some academic has made the argument that Beckett is to prose fiction as Kandinsky was to painting, which amounts to damning him with fatal praise. A novel can't be "abstract", words don't work that way.

Beckett's works became shorter and shorter as he went on, an understandable development since he had nothing to say. His magisterial command of English and French was as useless to his sensibility as it would have been to a Neanderthal's.

"Modernism" has thrown up a few masterpieces: Proust, Musil, Joyce's ULYSSES, the best of Virginia Woolf. But Samuel Beckett doesn't belong in their company and his fame among academics and their ilk demonstrates that self-deception is alive and well in lit crit.

I have always enjoy Mr .Khoury books story line and plot always has a hook , He is not afraid to kill off character who is well liked or you think has major part in book .
By using our history in the back ground in his story line always makes the story more interesting to me .President who think anything they do makes them a patriotic . Other good read .
Thank you