I can't go on, I'll go on.

Beckett's characters, including Molloy and Moran, seem to be filled with a longing to stop. They want to rest, sit, lie down. They want to die, or at least to live without movement or emotion.

"Beckett Sitting"

Moran has his grave prepared:

"As long as the earth endures that spot is mine, in theory. Sometimes I went and looked at my grave. The stone was up already. It was a simple Latin cross, white. I wanted to have my name put on it with the here lies and the date of my birth. Then all it would have wanted is the date of my death. They would not let me. Sometimes I smiled as if I were dead already."

To sum up: Life is grim and it makes you unbearably tired.

Never Trust Molloy

As a narrator, Molloy is as unreliable as they come. He contradicts himself on every page. Often even within the same sentence:

     "They looked alike, but no more than others do."

     "I wasn't sure at the time and I'm still not sure, though I've hardly thought about it."

     "I don't know. I knew it and I did it, that's all I know."

Nothing surrounding Molloy -- his identity, his world, his past, what he's doing, where he's going -- is certain. He lives in a great fog of confusion. We're never sure or what is real because Molloy doesn't know. He actively changes his memories. He lies.

In fact, everything is so uncertain and so contradictory that, in the end, Molloy simply comes to a standstill. When we last see him, he is lying in a ditch.

     "Net result, I stayed where I was."



Further Reading

Molloy in Bloom: http://implicatedisorder.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/hello-world/

Molloy: As the Story was Told. Or not: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25781255

"You must choose between the things not worth mentioning and those even less so."

Reading is Hard Sometimes

Molloy is a tough little book. It's split into two sections. The first half consists of a long monologue by Molloy in which he is journeying to find his mother. The first paragraph is 1 page long, the second paragraph is 90 pages long. Suffice to say, getting through the first half of the book isn't easy.

Beckett is not an easy author to read -- but -- "He is a serious writer with something serious to say about the human condition: and therefore one of the dozen or so writers whom those who are concerned with the modern man in search of his soul, should read."

So, we have to ask, are you concerned with the modern man in search of his soul?

If you are, then hang tough and read this book. It's too hot to do anything else anyway.

Selection for July & August

A hyper-dense minimalist novel with no plot.

Great for the beach!