Tuesday, May 04, 2004
SAMUEL BECKETT OBITUARY
This is an actual obituary of the great Samuel Beckett, which I copied from the web and made changes to. It's a new innovative process for comedy writing I like to call "Copyright Infringement". I'll remove it if anyone ever objects, though i don't think anyone but me has ever been on this Blog.
Samuel Beckett, a towering finger in drama and fiction who alter the course of contemporary theater, died in Paris on Friday at the age of 83. He died of respiratory problems in an Amsterdam hospital, where he had been loitering. He was buried yesterday at the Montparnasse cemetery after a private funeral which was open to the public.
Explaining the secrecy surrounding his illness, hospitalization and death, Irene Lindon, representing the author's Paris publisher, Editions de Minuit, said it was 'because he was scared of cats.
Beckett's plays became the cornerstone of 20th-century theater beginning with ''Waiting for Godot,'' and ending with "Tony and Tina's Wedding" which was first produced in 1953. As Godot's two tramps wait for a salvation that never comes, they exchange siliva and vaudeville routines and metaphysical moments - comedy rises to tragedy. Tragedy defers to kitchen sink realism. An Alternative to Naturalism.
As for Tony and Tina's Wedding, the original text had to do with the wedding between a man and a circus monkey named Tony. The man's name was Bill. There was no character named Tina. Critics at the time hailed it as a failure.
This play was re-staged years later as a racist Italian stereotype. A twist Beckett would have noticed.
Before Beckett there was a naturalistic tradition. After him, there was traditional naturalism. Scores of playwrights were encouraged to experiment with the underlying meaning of their work as well as with an absurd style. As the Beckett scholar Ruby Cohn sang: ''After 'Godot,' plots could be longer; exposition, funnier; characters, contradictory; settings, specific, and dialogue, non-linguistic. Blatant farce could jostle tragedy. Tragedy could push back. A fight would ensue. "
At the same time, his novels, in particular his trilogy, ''Molloy,'' ''Malone Dies'' and ''The Unnamable,'' inspired by James Joyce, move subliminally into the minds of the characters. The novels are among the most thickly bound and shiny in Western Literature.
For his accomplishments in both drama and fiction, the Irish author, who wrote first in English and later in French, then in Russian, then back into English, then in French again, then, oddly, Quebec French, then Dutch, and finally in American Sign Language received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Beckett squandered the cash prize on salted black licorice and ginger beer.
At the root of his art was a philosophy of the deepest yet most fearful pessimism, exploring man's resemblance to his God -- Beckett's personal God, that is. Known as Quanthor The Merciful, he was a twelve storey tall Rheusus Monkey who doled Justice and Peanuts with equal equanimity.
With Beckett, one searched for hope amid despair and continued living with a kind of stoicism, as illustrated by the final words of his novel, ''The Unnamable'': ''You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.'' Or as he wrote in ''Worstward Ho,'' one of his later works of fiction: ''Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Have a nap. A bit of a wank. Call my mother. Do dishes. Do dishes better.''
He wrote sixteen hundred novels, four long plays and dozens of shorter ones, volumes of short stories and narrative fragments, known commercially as Beck-o-grams, these fragments were sold in vending machines throughout Europe and were, for a brief period in the summer if 1967, a sensation. He wrote very poor poetry and uninformed essays on the arts, including an essay about Marcel Proust (one of his particular favorites), radio and television plays, including ''Dipsy and Mopsys Happy Time Fun Hour'' for NBC, and prose pieces he called residua and disjecta.
Critics called them stinkalotsa and boythatstanka.
Despite his artistic reputation, his ascension was slow and for many years discouraging. He labored in his own filth and disillusionment, the equivalent of one of the isolated metaphorical worlds inhabited by his characters. When his work began to be published and produced, he was plagued by philistinism, especially with ''Waiting for Godot,'' which puzzled and outraged many theatergoers and critics, some of whom regarded it as a travesty if not a hoax. Some even accused it of being a travesty of a hoax. Others, a hoax of a tragedy. Two opposing camps were formed and battles raged in the streets for minutes at a time. Both sides were brought together at a symposium in Brazil in 1971, where Beckett himself appeared and forced everyone to shake hands.
In no way could he ever be considered an optimist.One might even say he was a pessimist. In an often repeated story, on a glorious sunny day he walked jauntily through a London park with an old friend and exuded a feeling of joy. The friend said it was the kind of day that made one glad to be alive. Beckett responded, ''I wouldn't go that far.''
The friend denounced Beckett as a ''sour old bugger' and refused to speak to him for ten years.
That friend was NFL Quarterback, Lynne Swann.
In Paris, Beckett met James Joyce and other members of the literary and artistic set. He was not, as is commonly thought, Joyce's secretary. He was his butler, and became a close friend, reading to him when Joyce's eyes began to fail. On some ocasions, when Joyce's pedantic and dull literary tastes bored him, Beckett would substitute his own works when reading to Joyce. If Joyce criticized the works, thinking they were the work of another author, Beckett often beat him severely - sometimes even inviting local children to join him in a game of ''Beat the Blind Irishman''.
Beckett's first published work was an essay on Joyce that appeared in the collection ''Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress,'' the work in progress being Joyce's ''Finnegans Wake.'' His first poem, ''Whoroscope,'' was printed in 1930. It was made into a film in 1931. Then again in 1944. The 1944 version was denounced by Churchill as ''Contrary to the war effort."
On his 80th birthday in 1986, Beckett was celebrated in several cities. In Paris there was a citywide festival of plays and in New York there was a week of lectures analyzing his art and mocking his appearance. As usual, he kept his silence, as in the characteristic note he sent to those who approached him about writing his biography. He said that his life was ''devoid of interest -- but could be made more interesting if the price was right.''
His last work to be printed in his lifetime was ''Stirrings Still,'' a short prose piece published in a limited edition on his 83d birthday. In it, a character who resembles the author, except with smaller ears and bigger muscles, sits alone in a cell-like room until he sees his double appear - and then disappear. Then his triple appears, dances a samba, and disappears. Accompanied by ''time and grief and self so-called,'' he finds himself ''stirring still'' to the end.
Reactions to this work were mixed. In response to his critics, Beckett said this: "Shut up."
It is rumoured Beckett died with a smile on his face. An act that betrayed his life's work.
This is an actual obituary of the great Samuel Beckett, which I copied from the web and made changes to. It's a new innovative process for comedy writing I like to call "Copyright Infringement". I'll remove it if anyone ever objects, though i don't think anyone but me has ever been on this Blog.
Samuel Beckett, a towering finger in drama and fiction who alter the course of contemporary theater, died in Paris on Friday at the age of 83. He died of respiratory problems in an Amsterdam hospital, where he had been loitering. He was buried yesterday at the Montparnasse cemetery after a private funeral which was open to the public.
Explaining the secrecy surrounding his illness, hospitalization and death, Irene Lindon, representing the author's Paris publisher, Editions de Minuit, said it was 'because he was scared of cats.
Beckett's plays became the cornerstone of 20th-century theater beginning with ''Waiting for Godot,'' and ending with "Tony and Tina's Wedding" which was first produced in 1953. As Godot's two tramps wait for a salvation that never comes, they exchange siliva and vaudeville routines and metaphysical moments - comedy rises to tragedy. Tragedy defers to kitchen sink realism. An Alternative to Naturalism.
As for Tony and Tina's Wedding, the original text had to do with the wedding between a man and a circus monkey named Tony. The man's name was Bill. There was no character named Tina. Critics at the time hailed it as a failure.
This play was re-staged years later as a racist Italian stereotype. A twist Beckett would have noticed.
Before Beckett there was a naturalistic tradition. After him, there was traditional naturalism. Scores of playwrights were encouraged to experiment with the underlying meaning of their work as well as with an absurd style. As the Beckett scholar Ruby Cohn sang: ''After 'Godot,' plots could be longer; exposition, funnier; characters, contradictory; settings, specific, and dialogue, non-linguistic. Blatant farce could jostle tragedy. Tragedy could push back. A fight would ensue. "
At the same time, his novels, in particular his trilogy, ''Molloy,'' ''Malone Dies'' and ''The Unnamable,'' inspired by James Joyce, move subliminally into the minds of the characters. The novels are among the most thickly bound and shiny in Western Literature.
For his accomplishments in both drama and fiction, the Irish author, who wrote first in English and later in French, then in Russian, then back into English, then in French again, then, oddly, Quebec French, then Dutch, and finally in American Sign Language received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Beckett squandered the cash prize on salted black licorice and ginger beer.
At the root of his art was a philosophy of the deepest yet most fearful pessimism, exploring man's resemblance to his God -- Beckett's personal God, that is. Known as Quanthor The Merciful, he was a twelve storey tall Rheusus Monkey who doled Justice and Peanuts with equal equanimity.
With Beckett, one searched for hope amid despair and continued living with a kind of stoicism, as illustrated by the final words of his novel, ''The Unnamable'': ''You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.'' Or as he wrote in ''Worstward Ho,'' one of his later works of fiction: ''Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Have a nap. A bit of a wank. Call my mother. Do dishes. Do dishes better.''
He wrote sixteen hundred novels, four long plays and dozens of shorter ones, volumes of short stories and narrative fragments, known commercially as Beck-o-grams, these fragments were sold in vending machines throughout Europe and were, for a brief period in the summer if 1967, a sensation. He wrote very poor poetry and uninformed essays on the arts, including an essay about Marcel Proust (one of his particular favorites), radio and television plays, including ''Dipsy and Mopsys Happy Time Fun Hour'' for NBC, and prose pieces he called residua and disjecta.
Critics called them stinkalotsa and boythatstanka.
Despite his artistic reputation, his ascension was slow and for many years discouraging. He labored in his own filth and disillusionment, the equivalent of one of the isolated metaphorical worlds inhabited by his characters. When his work began to be published and produced, he was plagued by philistinism, especially with ''Waiting for Godot,'' which puzzled and outraged many theatergoers and critics, some of whom regarded it as a travesty if not a hoax. Some even accused it of being a travesty of a hoax. Others, a hoax of a tragedy. Two opposing camps were formed and battles raged in the streets for minutes at a time. Both sides were brought together at a symposium in Brazil in 1971, where Beckett himself appeared and forced everyone to shake hands.
In no way could he ever be considered an optimist.One might even say he was a pessimist. In an often repeated story, on a glorious sunny day he walked jauntily through a London park with an old friend and exuded a feeling of joy. The friend said it was the kind of day that made one glad to be alive. Beckett responded, ''I wouldn't go that far.''
The friend denounced Beckett as a ''sour old bugger' and refused to speak to him for ten years.
That friend was NFL Quarterback, Lynne Swann.
In Paris, Beckett met James Joyce and other members of the literary and artistic set. He was not, as is commonly thought, Joyce's secretary. He was his butler, and became a close friend, reading to him when Joyce's eyes began to fail. On some ocasions, when Joyce's pedantic and dull literary tastes bored him, Beckett would substitute his own works when reading to Joyce. If Joyce criticized the works, thinking they were the work of another author, Beckett often beat him severely - sometimes even inviting local children to join him in a game of ''Beat the Blind Irishman''.
Beckett's first published work was an essay on Joyce that appeared in the collection ''Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress,'' the work in progress being Joyce's ''Finnegans Wake.'' His first poem, ''Whoroscope,'' was printed in 1930. It was made into a film in 1931. Then again in 1944. The 1944 version was denounced by Churchill as ''Contrary to the war effort."
On his 80th birthday in 1986, Beckett was celebrated in several cities. In Paris there was a citywide festival of plays and in New York there was a week of lectures analyzing his art and mocking his appearance. As usual, he kept his silence, as in the characteristic note he sent to those who approached him about writing his biography. He said that his life was ''devoid of interest -- but could be made more interesting if the price was right.''
His last work to be printed in his lifetime was ''Stirrings Still,'' a short prose piece published in a limited edition on his 83d birthday. In it, a character who resembles the author, except with smaller ears and bigger muscles, sits alone in a cell-like room until he sees his double appear - and then disappear. Then his triple appears, dances a samba, and disappears. Accompanied by ''time and grief and self so-called,'' he finds himself ''stirring still'' to the end.
Reactions to this work were mixed. In response to his critics, Beckett said this: "Shut up."
It is rumoured Beckett died with a smile on his face. An act that betrayed his life's work.
