Samuel Beckett Seminar
I take my seat in a small square room with fifteen other people that I do not know. The seminar for this first week is on Samuel Beckett. He is a part of my course and I will return to him in the coming weeks, but prior to this evening I was not overly familiar with his work. All I knew was that he had a certain sort of reputation; a literary playwright among other things…our tutor asks what we thought of First Love and Other Novellas. A few people chip in and add their intellectual comments. I listen, agreeing mostly and wondering whether to comment or not. I am not a natural speaker in a group of people. Then, much to my dread, the tutor goes around the room asking each and every one of us in turn for our opinion. I am at once both nervous and grateful that I did actually read a significant chunk of this book.
It is getting nearer and nearer to my turn and I can feel my mouth going dry. Finally it is my chance to speak. I comment that Beckett’s characters are somewhat dark, yet within that there is a lot of humour and I had no idea that his writing was so funny. I see a couple of heads nodding in agreement. Emboldened by this I continue saying that Beckett’s way of writing is very uncensored, it’s as if his thoughts are pouring out of him and spill out to be immortalised in ink on the page. I’m also intrigued by Beckett’s linguistic games and the attention that he gives to the sometimes inadequate function of language itself to describe meanings.
I love Beckett for the fact that he was something of a revolutionary and he refused to let his plays be performed in front of segregated audiences. Beckett is someone I want to know more about, but for now all I can do is soak up other people’s comments and come back to him at some point in the future.
Right before I log off, I need to brag a little bit. I have just bought the nicest running shoes that I have ever owned. Parks Marathon, here I come!