Table Of ContentBECKETT 
BECKETT 
VIVIAN  MERCIER 
New  York /  OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS /  1977
BECKETT /  BECKETT
A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true. 
OSCAR WILDE
Copyright © 1977 by Vivian Mercier 
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-42658 
Permission to use copyright material is hereby gratefully acknowledgcd: 
To Les Editions de Minuit for the quotations in French from  En attendant Godot, copy 
right  1952  by  Les  Editions  de  Minuit;  L'Expulse,  copyright  1955  by  Les  Editions  de 
Minuit; Molloy, copyright 1951  by Les  Editions de Minuit; Poemes, ©  1968 by Les Edi 
tions de Minuit. 
To Faber and Faber, Ltd., for extracts from All That Fall, Eh Joe, Embers, Film, Footfalls, 
Happy Days, Krapp's Last Tape, Play, That Time, Waiting for Godot, Words and Music, 
all by Samuel Beckett; and from Our Exagmination  .  .  . by Samuel Beckett and others. 
To John Calder  (Publishers)  Ltd. for extracts from  Malone Dies, Molloy,  Poems in Eng 
lish,  Proust, Still, The Expelled, Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit, The Unnamable, 
Watt. 
To  Calder  and  Boyars,  Ltd.,  for  extracts  from  Enough  and  Ping  (published  in  No's 
Knife), First Love, HolV It Is, Lessness, The Lost Ones, Mercier and Camier, More Pricks 
Than Kicks, Murphy. 
To Grove Press, Inc., for extracts from Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces, copy 
right ©  1957 by Samuel Beckett, copyright ©  1958, 1959, 1960 by Grove Press, Inc.; More 
Pricks Than Kicks (The Collected Works of Samuel Beckett), all rights reserved (first pub 
lished by Chatto and Windus, London,  1934); Happy Days, copyright ©  1961  by Grove 
Press, Inc.; Proust, all rights reserved, first published 1931; HolV It Is, copyright ©  1964 by 
Grove Press, Inc.; Ends and Odds, copyright ©  1974, 1975, 1976 by Samuel Beckett; Film, 
copyright ©  1969 by Grove Press, Inc., Film (script) copyright ©  1967 by Samuel Beckett; 
Words and Music  (from Cascando and Other Short Dramatic Pieces), copyright 1962 by 
Samuel Beckett; Eh Joe, copyright ©  1967 by Samuel Beckett; Play, copyright © 1964 by 
Samuel Beckett; Murphy, first published 1938; Watt, all rights reserved; Poems in English, 
copyright © 1961 by Samuel Beckett; Waiting for Godot, copyright ©  1954 by Grove Press, 
Inc.; Molloy, Malone Dies and The Un namable  (from Three Novels), copyright © 1955, 
1956, 1958 by Grove Press, Inc.; Endgame, copyright © 1958 by Grove Press, Inc.; The Lost 
Ones,  copyright© this  translation, Samuel  Beckett,  1972,  copyright © Les  Editions de 
Minuit, 1970, originally published in French as Le Depeupleur by Les Editions de Minuit, 
Paris, 1971; First Love and Other Shorts, copyright ©  this collection by Grove Press, Inc., 
1974,  all  rights  reserved;  Stories  and Texts  for  Nothing,  copyright  ©  1967  by  Samuel 
Beckett; Mercier  and Camier,  copyright © this translation,  Samuel  Beckett,  1974,  copy 
right © Les Editions -de Minuit, 1970, all rights reserved. 
To New Directions Publishing Corp., New York,  for quotations from James Joyce,  Finne 
gans Wake: A Symposium.  Copyright Sylvia Beach  1929. All rights reserved. 
Printed in the United States of Anlerica
To Eilis
PROLOGUE 
(Spoken by the Author in his Own Person) 
The second  New York  production of Waiting  for  Godot, 
imported from  Los  Angeles, had an all-black cast:  an early 
proof of the universality of the play.  On Friday nights dur 
ing  the run,  the  theater  was  turned  into  a  seminar  room 
after  the  final  curtain.  A  panel  of  "experts" - a  psycho 
analyst, an actor,  an English professor,  and so  on - sat on 
stage and conducted a dialogue with those in the auditorium; 
admission  was  free.  The night I attended  this symposium, 
the ITlOSt  effective  contribution was  made by a member of 
the  audience who  asked  the panel the rhetorical  question, 
"lsn' t  Waiting  for  Godot a sort of  living  Rorschach  [ink 
blot]  test?"  He was  clapped and cheered by  most of those 
present,  who  clearly  felt  as  I still do  that most interpreta 
e 
tions  of that play - indeed qf  Samuel  Beckett's  work ..a  s .. \..  
whole - reveal  more about the psyches  of  the people  who 
offer  them  than  about the work  itself  or  the psyche  of its 
author. 
To this  rule,  if it is  one,  I  don't profess  to be an excep-
.. 
Vll
Vlll  PROLOGUE 
tion:  on the contrary, the book that follows  will be seen  to 
offer  a  rather personal view  of  its  subject - though  not,  I 
hope, a wildly  idiosyncratic one.  Not that I  can  claim any 
special  intimacy  with  Beckett  the ·man:  I  have  met  him 
only  three times  and,  out of  respect  for  his  privacy,  made 
very  few  notes  after  these  meetings.  I  have  also  received 
about a dozen letters from him1 one or two of which might 
be described as  self-revelatory, but I have  quoted only pas 
sages that are factual and neutral in tone, and very few even 
of those.' 
What makes  my  view  of  Beckett personal is  chiefly  the 
fact  that,  having  attended  the  same  boarding-school  and 
university as he did, I was  constantly aware of him as some 
not very much older than myself (thirteen years), from 
on~ 
the same rather philistine Irish Protestant background, who. 
had become the sort of avant-garde  artist and critic  that I 
longed to be. 
" 
A brief chronicle  of  this  long-distance  relationship  with 
Beckett TIlay not be entirely without interest. Born in April 
1919,  I entered Portora  Royal  School,  Enniskillen,  in  Sep 
tember  1928,  just over  five  years  after Beckett's  departure. 
It was  not until  1934,  however,  that  I  first  heard  of  him; 
the  news  must have  made  a  great  impression,  for  I  have 
kept its  source  ever since - a leaflet entitled  "Old Portora 
Union:  Terminal  Letter  No.  35."  The  then  Headmaster, 
Rev. E. G. Seale, distributed his "letter"  (dated July  1934) 
to all present members of the school as  well as  ttold  boys." 
J. 
Having mentioned a book by another alumnus,  Chartres 
Molony, Seale continued: 
But Old Portorans seem to be going strong in the lit 
erary world. S. B. Becket [sic]  has now brought out a vol-
· 
PROLOGUE  IX 
ume entitled "More Pricks  than Kicks."  It is  described 
as  "A  piece  of  literature  rnen10rable,  exceptional,  the 
utterance  of  a  very  modern  voice."  The  Spectator 
de~ 
voted a  column of criticism,  mostly favourable,  to  this 
book. We must heartily congratulate its author on such a 
reception  to  his  first  "vork  of fiction.  His  "Proust"  was 
published a couple of years earlier. 
Although  is  in  Northern  Ireland,  so  that  the 
~nniskillen 
subsequent banning of More Pricks than Kicks in the Irish 
Free State had no legal effect  I noticed that the book 
there~ 
did not turn up in the school library:  Portora in those years 
was  just  beginning  to  admit  that  it  had  been  the  alma 
mater of Oscar \\Tilde and wanted no fresh  notoriety.  All  I 
could do was  to look up the Spectator review and try to dis 
cover  what  this  strangely  named  book  \vas  about.  (Any 
Portora boy of that vintage would have recognized, as  I did, 
the  allusion  to  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul:  in  the  King 
James  Bible,  the  voice  from  Heaven  says,  ttl t  is  hard  for 
thee  to kick against the pricks.")  I also identified Beckett, 
wrongly,  as  the captain  in  an  old  photograph  of a  cricket 
first  eleven.  Our  senior  French  master,  S.  B.  Wynburne, 
had been an  exact  contemporary and  close  academic  rival 
of Beckett at Trinity College, Dublin. 
I  myself  entered  Trinity  in  1936  at  the  same  age  as 
Beckett had done and was  accepted by the same  Dr. 
tutor~ 
A ...A  .  Luce.  Like Beckett, I  read  Honors French  with  Pro 
fessor  T. B.  Rudmose-Brown; my other lIonors subject was 
English;>  which Beckett had also read for  a time before giv 
ing it up to concentrate on Italian. Facts like these explain 
the emphasis on Beckett as  a member of a 
particular_soci:~tl 
class  and ethnic grouping,  with a  particular  type of  educa-
X  PROLOGUE 
tion,  especially  in  Chapters  3 and  4  below.  Beckett  is 
2, 
unique,  as  we  all  are,  but he has  not descended  from  an 
other  planet.  Irvin  Ehrenpreis,  in  his  exemplary  life  of 
Swift,  anxious  like  me  to  present  his  subject  as  neither  a 
deity  nor  a  monster,  has  drawn  a  number  of  parallels  be 
tween  the  future  Dean  and  his  contemporaries,  including 
of course some of his fellow-undergraduates. 
After  the  Trinity  B.A.,  Beckett's  and  my  paths  in  life 
soon  diverged sharply, but I  remained constantly  aware of 
him.  In '1938,  while  still  an  undergraduate,  I  read  Kate 
O'Brien's  enthusiastic  review  of  Murphy;  when  she  men 
tioned the novel again later in the year,  I decided to spend 
a  quarter of my weekly allowance  on the single  copy  of  it 
that had languished  on  Hodges  Figgis's  shelves  for  several 
months.  I  fell  in love with the book at once and reread  it 
every year until it was  lost or stolen about 1945.  By  then  I 
had also read Proust, the essay on Joyce's Work in Progress, 
• 
and,  under  the  watchful  eye  of  a  Trinity  librarian,  the 
banned More  Pricks than Kicks.  Quite possibly  my  Ph.D. 
thesis,  for  which  I  received  a  Trinity doctorate in  Decem 
ber  1945,  was  the  first  to  pay  serious  attention,  however 
briefly,  to  Beckett's  fiction.  I  had already  praised  Murphy 
in  print,  in  the  Jan uary-March  1943  issue  of  the  Dublin 
Magazine,  while  reviewing  Eric  Cross's  The  Tailor  and 
Ansty; 
... Irish  literature  for  the  past  twenty  years  has  re 
mained  in  the backwater  of dialect  reportage.  Joyce  at 
least mingled inlagination with his realisnl, but his suc 
cessors have largely ignored the fantastic side of Ulysses. 
Only during the last three or four years have two books 
appeared which  contain both Joyce's  ingredients-Sam-