Beckett's Words: The Promise of Happiness in a Time of Mourning

329 Pages·2015·1.312 MB·English

by  Beckett, Samuel, Kleinberg-Levin, David Michael

Beckett’s Words
The Promise
of Happiness in a
Time of Mourning
i
Also available from Bloomsbury
Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, James Knowlson
Samuel Beckett: A Curated Life, Judith Wilkinson
The Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett, Charles A. Carpenter
ii
Beckett’s Words
The Promise
of Happiness in a
Time of Mourning
DAviD KleinBerg-levin
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
iii
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2015
© David Kleinberg-Levin, 2015
David Kleinberg-Levin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
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accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-47421-685-2
PB: 978-1-47421-683-8
ePDF: 978-1-47421-686-9
ePub: 978-1-47421-688-3
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
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The dog believes that his master is at the door. But can he also
believe that his master will come the day after tomorrow?
Can someone have hope only if able to talk? —Only someone
who has mastered the use of language. Situations of hoping
are instances of this complicated form of life.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
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vi
COnTenTS
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations x
Prologue: Nothing . . . But Words: Words and Tears 1
PArT One No Theodicy: A Chance of Happiness?
85
1 Negative Dialectics 87
2 In the Secret of Guilt: Punishment as Meaning 97
3 Political Theology: Old Dictations, Old Knots 107
4 Ending the Endings: The Endgame of Theodicy 119
PArT TWO The Utopian Idea: Remembering the
Future in the Past
127
1 Paradise: Nowhere—But Here! 129
2 Tales for Children: Retrieving the Enchantment 139
3 Hope and Despair in a Time of Mourning 145
4 Waiting: In the Meantime 155
5 In the Event of a New Word 159
PArT THree After Hegel, Beckett’s How It Is:
Approaching Justice with Infinite Slowness
173
1 Swamp: Justice in the State of Nature 175
2 The Struggle for Acknowledgement and
Recognition 185
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viii COnTenTS
3 Cruelty and Kindness: Humanity in Question 207
4 The Human Voice: Of Promises and Solaces 217
5 Redeeming Words 221
6 Where in the World is Justice? 229
Notes 257
Bibliography 299
Permissions 308
Index 310
ACKnOWleDgeMenTS
I would like here to remember and acknowledge, with heartfelt thanks, a
few friends with whom, since I began to contemplate writing something on
Beckett, I have enjoyed conversations that have contributed in significant
ways to making this present work a much better undertaking than it
otherwise would have been. Hoping that my increasingly weak memory is
not failing me, I wish in particular to thank Jay Bernstein, Gerald
Bruns, Seamus Carey, William J. Earle, Doris Gahler, Robert Hullot-Kentor,
Michael McGillen, Gregg Horowitz, John S. Rockwell, and David C. Wood.
It should of course be understood that I alone am responsible for the words
in this book.
I thank the Samuel Beckett Estate, Grove Atlantic, and Faber & Faber for
permission to use textual material from Beckett’s published works. See the
permissions page at the end of this volume.
For the cover image of Et in Arcadia Ego (1618–1622) by Giovanni
Francesco Barbieri (Il Guercino), I thank the Soprintendenza Speciale per
il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale
della Città di Roma. This lovely painting, which I am very fond of, is on
exhibit in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
The book’s cover
Only a part of the painting is shown on the cover of this volume. Not shown
is the second, younger shepherd, whose gentle visage is lit up by the sun
shining into the clearing. Also not shown is an owl, Minerva’s delegate,
perched on the branch of a tree overlooking the skull. The skull that the two
astonished shepherds encounter, evoking the lonely soliloquies of Beckett’s
prose “skullscapes,” should remind us that, even in paradise, it is Death that
writes the last sentence. The lower tree branch, gesturing on the right,
minatory and ominous, suggests Death’s bony fingers, extending the justice
of the word.
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