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How It Is
“It is one thing to be informed by Shakespeare that life “is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing”; it is something else to encounter the idea literally presented in a novel by Samuel Beckett. But I am reasonably certain that a sensitive reader who journeys through How It Is will leave the book convinced that Beckett says more that is relevant to experience in our time than Shakespeare does in Macbeth. It should come as no surprise if a decade or so hence How It Is is appraised as a masterpiece of modern literature. This poetic novel is Beckett at his height.” — Webster Schott
“A wonderful book, written in the sparest prose. . . . Beckett is one of the rare creative minds in our times.” — Alan Pryce-Jones
“What is novel is the absolute sureness of design. . . built phrase by phrase into a beautifully and tightly wrought structure — a few dozen expressions permuted with deliberate redundancy accumulate meaning even as they are emptied of it, and offer themselves as points of radiation in a strange web of utter illusion.” — Hugh Kenner
“A wonderful book, written in the sparest prose. . . . Beckett is one of the rare creative minds in our times.” — Alan Pryce-Jones
“What is novel is the absolute sureness of design. . . built phrase by phrase into a beautifully and tightly wrought structure — a few dozen expressions permuted with deliberate redundancy accumulate meaning even as they are emptied of it, and offer themselves as points of radiation in a strange web of utter illusion.” — Hugh Kenner
111 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
Samuel Beckett
798 books6,054 followersSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in France for most of his adult life. He wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.
Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1984 he was elected Saoi of Aosdána.
Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.
Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1984 he was elected Saoi of Aosdána.
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April 2, 2023
''There is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.''
-Samuel Beckett
and the mud yes the dark yes the mud and the dark are true yes nothing to regret there no
Literature- What does it mean? What is its role in human life? How many forms could it have? What norms it to be adhered to? Does it really have any norms? Should it conform to any genre/s? What is a genre in the first place? And Who defines them? How to write it? And what is it in the first place? And what about words-how cruel they could be? Doesn’t it that words should have some mercy on characters? be Are they capable of portraying human life? Shouldn’t they give some space to the personas of a narrative? And Narrative- how it should be or more appropriate question is, could be? Is it necessary to have one at all? And author- who is god in the world of his/ her creation- what is his role? What does he want to convey? What is the point of his writing in the first place? Shouldn’t an author impart his/ her characters- features, strengths, mindedness, memories, at least something to do with? Should an author make his/ her characters, feeble, weak, amorphous, crippled- not only physically but emotionally too? Isn’t inhumane of an author to dispense such traits? Should or could an author be so potent to do whatever he/ she may please with his/ her literary progeny?
These are some of the questions that pop up out of nothingness and encompass your mind with an air of weirdness. Literature is often said to mirror our society as it is supposed to take a cue from humanity. However, it could be otherwise too, can’t society look upon the literature to evolve. If we observe the discussion closely, we may ascertain that both humanity and literature go hand-in-hand, in other words, both evolve simultaneously. We could find clues from the progress of art movements in our history, for how does it evolve from idealism, romanticism, realism, modernism, and then to post-modernism. Of course, these subjects interest the critics, since an author doesn’t give a damn about movements, genres, forms, etc; one just has to do one’s job- that is to write whatever way one may please to. Well, at least authors such Beckett have the might to do as they want, since they are the omnipotent beings of their oeuvre- wherein all rules, norms watch themselves to be annihilated into nothingness. But, could we endure such literature? Is that a way to write at all?
Authors like Beckett pamper their worlds with miseries, weakness, confusion, feebleness, angst, ironies, non-expressions, ruminations, and nothingness; but it is in a quite humane manner, for human life is full of these. One could actually feel the panting of one’s heart when reading the vibrating, pulsating, and trembling text. It reminds me of what George Orwell once advised about literature, that it should be simple and clear, accessible to all; but the motives of authors could be poles apart, for Beckett doesn’t write for everyone.
all I hear leave out more leave out all hear no more lie there in my arms the ancient without end me we're talking of me without end that buries all mankind to the last cunt they'd be good moments in the dark the mud hearing nothing saying nothing capable of nothing nothing
How It Is. Well, you may be left quivering with anxiety and frustration even after finishing the book, thinking about the questions- how it is, how was it, how it could be . It is an outrageous piece of literature that may look dense, demanding, exhausting, unreadable, and almost impenetrable at the outset, but as you spend time with it you start relishing it for it may not be a coherence of form but it is definitely a coherence of vision. Right from the word go, we are thrown into the familiar world of Samuel Beckett wherein the protagonist is as feeble and weak as it could be, he is being ripped off any sort of form, identity, comforts, consolations, even memories- neither of himself nor of anyone else; in other words, the protagonist has robbed off anything which defines our being, he is just an aimless, demented consciousness of someone or something, which is roaming around endlessly in this cruel world or the purgatory of Beckett. The non-being of Beckett tries with all his capabilities and faculties to break free from this hell but eventually to no effect, that’s how it is. But that is not what you read Beckett for, since that you know as you embark upon his literary horizon, you read it for the artistic pleasure it might yield, for the aesthetic beauty it might radiate.
It would be quite an understatement to say that the book is challenging, for that’s what exactly Beckett writes for, to push the literature to its most extreme limits so that it comes closer to resemble our life; his works invariably portrays the human existence, as no one else can do. The sentences (or should we say an assortment of words) are like pulsating ripples that keep dancing on the surface of your consciousness throughout the book and the interesting part is that these ripples may settle in whatever way they please, mostly unexpected and on each reading may provide different meaning altogether.
how it was my life we're talking of my life in the dark the mud with Pim part two leaving only part three and last that's where I have my life where I had it where I'll have it vast tracts of time part three and last in the dark the mud my life murmur it bits and scraps
Beckett’s world is bleak as it offers a tragicomic outlook on human existence and what better way to convey it than through the cyclic, confused, ironical, irrational text. The language used by the author is coarse, oblique, and aberrant, probably to portray the limitations of the narrator. The narrative of the book is inward, orbitual, chaotic, and self-referential, it is made up of false starts, self-corrections, interruptions, and repetitions; repetitions- as we see in the Molloy trilogy too- form an important element of the narrative- as we see in novels of Thomas Bernhard too, though here it is stylistically different. It reminds me of Maurice Blanchot too, for his works push the limits of literature to such extent; like Blanchot, Beckett raises the prospect that writing itself is an event and so is subject to indeterminacy.
there he is then at last that one of us there we are then at last who listens to himself and who when he lends his ear to our murmur does no more than lend it to a story of his own devising ill-inspired ill- told and so ancient so forgotten at each telling that ours may seem faithful that we murmur to the mud to him
Our narrator finds himself plunged into the mud of nothingness with only having a sack which helps him with habitual requirements or sometimes even that doesn’t happen so; however, the purpose of the mud is to keep a man going despite all. We are just given with a character alone embedded in constant darkness, what else is required and that’s all we have been provided, that is how it is. He remains stuck in the endless mud no matter how rigorously he endeavors, there seems to be no key to his conundrum as if he is thrown deep down into this existential limbo from which he cries his heart out or the voice itself to come out of this hell of nothingness.
hard to believe too yes that I have a voice yes in me yes when the panting stops yes not at other times no and that I murmur yes I yes in the mud yes for nothing yes I yes but it must be believed yes
He rambles and cribs half- baked meaningless thoughts, through interior monologue with his imaginary (or real) companion- Pim, who is just one of the many probable ones, one never comes to know- he is what Pim to him. It could be his inner voice or of someone else, we never come to know it, we could never know. The narrator has no past, present, or future, there is no trace of his being, neither could be; some may say that the literature here is extremely cruel as it just muscles down the narrator, doesn’t even allow him any sort of solace from this existential condemnation. He is unremittingly repeating himself, perhaps over years or millennials, there is no birth no end nihilo ex nihilo. However, it inevitably digresses me towards the idea of infiniteness and the recurring nature of the universe itself, for all voices may either represent all beings (non-beings) or one or different versions of oneself repeating itself infinitely through space and time.
so in me I quote on when the panting stops scraps of that ancient voice on itself its errors and exactitudes on us millions on us
Death is the most shimmering of those jewels which one may found in Beckett’s world, it is one of the constant themes of his works. However, probably here, it is either about tortuous worldly existence or some sort of existential limbo (perhaps in some afterlife) in which the unfulfilled existence of a man rues over his/ her unwarranted and unexpected state of nature, which does not impart any degrees of freedom to it.
so things may change no answer end no answer I may choke no answer sink no answer sully the mud no more no answer the dark no answer trouble the peace no more no answer the silence no answer die no answer DIE screams I MAY DIE screams I SHALL DIE screams good
Though Beckett is often linked with modernism, for his literature is subjective and focuses upon the consciousness of individuality but we can’t deny the obvious elements of post-modernism in it, or we may say to be one of the precursors of post-modernism. Beckett bends the text to such an extent that it would be extremely difficult to call it a novel or play for matter, perhaps it represents something more concrete, something more omnipotent, something more universal, as we communicate or speak in our real life. And here as we mentioned at the beginning that critics often bother themselves with these petty dilemmas to classify or explain an author’s work however, the author is least bothered about it, but, because of our habitual fallacy, we ended up doing the same here, perhaps a ‘necessary evil.’
but that in reality we are one and all from the unthinkable first to the no less unthinkable last glued together in vast imbrication of flesh without breach or fissure
-Samuel Beckett
and the mud yes the dark yes the mud and the dark are true yes nothing to regret there no
Literature- What does it mean? What is its role in human life? How many forms could it have? What norms it to be adhered to? Does it really have any norms? Should it conform to any genre/s? What is a genre in the first place? And Who defines them? How to write it? And what is it in the first place? And what about words-how cruel they could be? Doesn’t it that words should have some mercy on characters? be Are they capable of portraying human life? Shouldn’t they give some space to the personas of a narrative? And Narrative- how it should be or more appropriate question is, could be? Is it necessary to have one at all? And author- who is god in the world of his/ her creation- what is his role? What does he want to convey? What is the point of his writing in the first place? Shouldn’t an author impart his/ her characters- features, strengths, mindedness, memories, at least something to do with? Should an author make his/ her characters, feeble, weak, amorphous, crippled- not only physically but emotionally too? Isn’t inhumane of an author to dispense such traits? Should or could an author be so potent to do whatever he/ she may please with his/ her literary progeny?
These are some of the questions that pop up out of nothingness and encompass your mind with an air of weirdness. Literature is often said to mirror our society as it is supposed to take a cue from humanity. However, it could be otherwise too, can’t society look upon the literature to evolve. If we observe the discussion closely, we may ascertain that both humanity and literature go hand-in-hand, in other words, both evolve simultaneously. We could find clues from the progress of art movements in our history, for how does it evolve from idealism, romanticism, realism, modernism, and then to post-modernism. Of course, these subjects interest the critics, since an author doesn’t give a damn about movements, genres, forms, etc; one just has to do one’s job- that is to write whatever way one may please to. Well, at least authors such Beckett have the might to do as they want, since they are the omnipotent beings of their oeuvre- wherein all rules, norms watch themselves to be annihilated into nothingness. But, could we endure such literature? Is that a way to write at all?
Authors like Beckett pamper their worlds with miseries, weakness, confusion, feebleness, angst, ironies, non-expressions, ruminations, and nothingness; but it is in a quite humane manner, for human life is full of these. One could actually feel the panting of one’s heart when reading the vibrating, pulsating, and trembling text. It reminds me of what George Orwell once advised about literature, that it should be simple and clear, accessible to all; but the motives of authors could be poles apart, for Beckett doesn’t write for everyone.
all I hear leave out more leave out all hear no more lie there in my arms the ancient without end me we're talking of me without end that buries all mankind to the last cunt they'd be good moments in the dark the mud hearing nothing saying nothing capable of nothing nothing
How It Is. Well, you may be left quivering with anxiety and frustration even after finishing the book, thinking about the questions- how it is, how was it, how it could be . It is an outrageous piece of literature that may look dense, demanding, exhausting, unreadable, and almost impenetrable at the outset, but as you spend time with it you start relishing it for it may not be a coherence of form but it is definitely a coherence of vision. Right from the word go, we are thrown into the familiar world of Samuel Beckett wherein the protagonist is as feeble and weak as it could be, he is being ripped off any sort of form, identity, comforts, consolations, even memories- neither of himself nor of anyone else; in other words, the protagonist has robbed off anything which defines our being, he is just an aimless, demented consciousness of someone or something, which is roaming around endlessly in this cruel world or the purgatory of Beckett. The non-being of Beckett tries with all his capabilities and faculties to break free from this hell but eventually to no effect, that’s how it is. But that is not what you read Beckett for, since that you know as you embark upon his literary horizon, you read it for the artistic pleasure it might yield, for the aesthetic beauty it might radiate.
It would be quite an understatement to say that the book is challenging, for that’s what exactly Beckett writes for, to push the literature to its most extreme limits so that it comes closer to resemble our life; his works invariably portrays the human existence, as no one else can do. The sentences (or should we say an assortment of words) are like pulsating ripples that keep dancing on the surface of your consciousness throughout the book and the interesting part is that these ripples may settle in whatever way they please, mostly unexpected and on each reading may provide different meaning altogether.
how it was my life we're talking of my life in the dark the mud with Pim part two leaving only part three and last that's where I have my life where I had it where I'll have it vast tracts of time part three and last in the dark the mud my life murmur it bits and scraps
Beckett’s world is bleak as it offers a tragicomic outlook on human existence and what better way to convey it than through the cyclic, confused, ironical, irrational text. The language used by the author is coarse, oblique, and aberrant, probably to portray the limitations of the narrator. The narrative of the book is inward, orbitual, chaotic, and self-referential, it is made up of false starts, self-corrections, interruptions, and repetitions; repetitions- as we see in the Molloy trilogy too- form an important element of the narrative- as we see in novels of Thomas Bernhard too, though here it is stylistically different. It reminds me of Maurice Blanchot too, for his works push the limits of literature to such extent; like Blanchot, Beckett raises the prospect that writing itself is an event and so is subject to indeterminacy.
there he is then at last that one of us there we are then at last who listens to himself and who when he lends his ear to our murmur does no more than lend it to a story of his own devising ill-inspired ill- told and so ancient so forgotten at each telling that ours may seem faithful that we murmur to the mud to him
Our narrator finds himself plunged into the mud of nothingness with only having a sack which helps him with habitual requirements or sometimes even that doesn’t happen so; however, the purpose of the mud is to keep a man going despite all. We are just given with a character alone embedded in constant darkness, what else is required and that’s all we have been provided, that is how it is. He remains stuck in the endless mud no matter how rigorously he endeavors, there seems to be no key to his conundrum as if he is thrown deep down into this existential limbo from which he cries his heart out or the voice itself to come out of this hell of nothingness.
hard to believe too yes that I have a voice yes in me yes when the panting stops yes not at other times no and that I murmur yes I yes in the mud yes for nothing yes I yes but it must be believed yes
He rambles and cribs half- baked meaningless thoughts, through interior monologue with his imaginary (or real) companion- Pim, who is just one of the many probable ones, one never comes to know- he is what Pim to him. It could be his inner voice or of someone else, we never come to know it, we could never know. The narrator has no past, present, or future, there is no trace of his being, neither could be; some may say that the literature here is extremely cruel as it just muscles down the narrator, doesn’t even allow him any sort of solace from this existential condemnation. He is unremittingly repeating himself, perhaps over years or millennials, there is no birth no end nihilo ex nihilo. However, it inevitably digresses me towards the idea of infiniteness and the recurring nature of the universe itself, for all voices may either represent all beings (non-beings) or one or different versions of oneself repeating itself infinitely through space and time.
so in me I quote on when the panting stops scraps of that ancient voice on itself its errors and exactitudes on us millions on us
Death is the most shimmering of those jewels which one may found in Beckett’s world, it is one of the constant themes of his works. However, probably here, it is either about tortuous worldly existence or some sort of existential limbo (perhaps in some afterlife) in which the unfulfilled existence of a man rues over his/ her unwarranted and unexpected state of nature, which does not impart any degrees of freedom to it.
so things may change no answer end no answer I may choke no answer sink no answer sully the mud no more no answer the dark no answer trouble the peace no more no answer the silence no answer die no answer DIE screams I MAY DIE screams I SHALL DIE screams good
Though Beckett is often linked with modernism, for his literature is subjective and focuses upon the consciousness of individuality but we can’t deny the obvious elements of post-modernism in it, or we may say to be one of the precursors of post-modernism. Beckett bends the text to such an extent that it would be extremely difficult to call it a novel or play for matter, perhaps it represents something more concrete, something more omnipotent, something more universal, as we communicate or speak in our real life. And here as we mentioned at the beginning that critics often bother themselves with these petty dilemmas to classify or explain an author’s work however, the author is least bothered about it, but, because of our habitual fallacy, we ended up doing the same here, perhaps a ‘necessary evil.’
but that in reality we are one and all from the unthinkable first to the no less unthinkable last glued together in vast imbrication of flesh without breach or fissure
April 20, 2023
The last stage of existence… The mental process is no longer the stream of consciousness… It’s rather a swamp of consciousness…
He is in total darkness… He is crawling through mud… His only possessions are a sack full of tins and a can opener…
He tries to think… He attempts to recall… His recollections of the past reality are blurry and vague…
How It Is can also be read as a pessimistic allegory of mankind… Mankind wallows in mud and darkness – in vices and ignorance – endeavouring to cognize surrounding reality… Then humankind makes up God – Pim is a metaphor of God so there are three parts: before God, with God, after God… Mankind tries to communicate with God, talk to him, make him respond but all in vain… Consequently it becomes clear that God was just an illusion… “never a gleam no never a soul no never a voice”… And man once again is on one’s own…
The age of senility brings along the twilight of reason.
my life last state last version ill-said ill-heard ill-recaptured ill-murmured in the mud brief movements of the lower face losses everywhere
He is in total darkness… He is crawling through mud… His only possessions are a sack full of tins and a can opener…
He tries to think… He attempts to recall… His recollections of the past reality are blurry and vague…
Pam Prim we made love every day then every third then the Saturday then just the odd time to get rid of it tried to revive it through the arse too late she fell from the window or jumped broken column
How It Is can also be read as a pessimistic allegory of mankind… Mankind wallows in mud and darkness – in vices and ignorance – endeavouring to cognize surrounding reality… Then humankind makes up God – Pim is a metaphor of God so there are three parts: before God, with God, after God… Mankind tries to communicate with God, talk to him, make him respond but all in vain… Consequently it becomes clear that God was just an illusion… “never a gleam no never a soul no never a voice”… And man once again is on one’s own…
the voice extorted a few words life because of cry that’s the proof good and deep no more is needed a little cry all is not dead one drinks one gives to drink goodbye
The age of senility brings along the twilight of reason.
April 25, 2023
3.5
other certainties the mud the dark I recapitulate the sack the tins the mud the dark the silence the solitude nothing else for the moment
The text is divided into 3 parts and has a poetic structure with no punctuation. A very difficult and headache-inducing text, indeed which studies human struggle and search for self.
suddenly afar the step the voice nothing then suddenly something something then suddenly nothing suddenly afar the silence
other certainties the mud the dark I recapitulate the sack the tins the mud the dark the silence the solitude nothing else for the moment
The text is divided into 3 parts and has a poetic structure with no punctuation. A very difficult and headache-inducing text, indeed which studies human struggle and search for self.
suddenly afar the step the voice nothing then suddenly something something then suddenly nothing suddenly afar the silence
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November 14, 2015
How it is. Dear God. How it will be. A few years ago I was outside, walking along, and a large black and white bird – of a type I had never seen before – fell out of a tree and onto the pavement. Straight down. No flutter of wings. No noise, except the dull thud of its body hitting the concrete. It was unhurt, however. I raised my eyebrows, and carried on walking. Coming towards me was a young woman with a pushchair. The pushchair was empty as the child was by her side. As they passed me they noticed the bird. Poor thing. I turned around. They had stopped, and, fearing for the bird’s safety, were trying to usher it off the pavement, and onto some grass. Arms outstretched. Both mother and child. Chik. Tsk. Here. No. There. Unfortunately, the bird did not understand. It ran away from the outstretched arms, the welcoming, protective embrace. And into the road. And under the wheels of a slow-moving car. Crunch. I’d never heard anything like it. Drawn out…Cruuuuuunnnnnch. How it is. How it will be. Dear God.
Whenever I think of this incident, which I do quite frequently, I’m always put in mind of Samuel Beckett. I imagine he would have got a kick out of it, what with the bird being essentially herded towards death. It’s funny. And sad too. Too sad. Towards the end of his career Beckett wrote a series of short, experimental prose pieces, all of which are about the absurdity of the human predicament. Life, old age, death. How it was. How it is. How it will be. All of them are funny. And sad too. Too sad. Of those novels I feel a strong affection for the beautiful Ill Seen Ill Said and Worstward Ho. But I’m not reviewing those. His trilogy – which includes Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable – is the most acclaimed, the most read, it seems. Which is perhaps a lie. For I have been given the impression that The Unnamable is endured more than read. I have, in fact, seen it called The Unreadable. As a joke. Being a contrary arse I’ve read the unreadable twice. It is my favourite of the trilogy.
How it is, which was published in English in 1964, is often regarded as a kind of companion piece to The Unnamable. Yet I would wager that this has more to do with difficulty than anything else, with how many people struggle to understand or complete both books. You can tell how baffling a book is when you can find nary a single in-depth review of it anywhere on the internet, and that is the case with How It Is. I searched for almost an hour last night and managed to turn up little of any note. Am I going to be the first to give this book a thorough going over? Well, I am not one to shy away from a challenge. I will go on. I must go on, and on, and on. So: on…The narrator is lying in the mud, murmuring to the mud: his life: before Pim, with Pim and after Pim. He appears to be almost completely physically incapacitated, being able to move only by crawling, by pulling himself along, in the mud. His possessions are a sack, a tin opener, and some tins of food. It is a typically bizarre Beckettian situation.
This mud-man scenario could be interpreted as a comment on the nature of human destiny, in that we, in a sense, crawled out of the primeval mud, and will one day return to it. Literally, for in death we eventually become of the earth, of the soil; we become, in the end, as formless as the mud itself. Furthermore, the struggle through the mud is, you might say, comparable to man’s struggle, i.e. that life involves dragging oneself through the dirt, looking for other people, finding them, losing them, eating, shitting, vomiting. How it is. How life is. And there is another kind of struggle, the struggle to give form, or meaning, to one’s existence, in among all that dirt, and the shitting and the vomiting. Who are you? What are you doing? What have you done? What will you do? Before. Now. After. An attempt to give structure to something – life – that is inherently without structure. We all do this. We divide our time on earth arbitrarily – days, weeks, months, years, hours, etc. – and we define our lives and ourselves by arbitrary events, like meeting Pim. There is certainly something in all this.
If one accepts any of what I have been discussing, the style – which I imagine plays a major part in frustrating readers – is appropriate. The novel is presented as a series of very short paragraphs. There is no capitalisation, and no punctuation. Therefore, the book could be said to crawl into being, rather than confidently announce itself. Or perhaps one might argue that it has no real beginning, creating the impression that the man has always been there, in the mud. And what is a beginning? It is an arbitrary moment; it is a product of our desire to impose structure, or form, and meaning upon things. Ah! Despite the man’s efforts, How it Is has no structure or form; it is plotless. Moreover, his thoughts are often [or almost entirely] incoherent, they are muddled, they too are formless, like the mud.
I’m not, of course, positioning myself as an authority on the novel, for there were certainly aspects of it that passed me by [not least Beckett’s own explanation, which makes precious little sense to me]; for example, I can’t satisfactorily explain, and feel no real desire to attempt to satisfactorily explain, what is going on with the man and the voice, i.e. what he means when he says ‘I say it as I hear it’ as though there is a kind of distance or disconnect between the two I’s, the mental and physical. Furthermore, this is the one Beckett novel that, as far as I can remember, includes so many references or allusions to religion, and I’m on shaky ground there too. But I’ll go on, I must go on, in any case.
[Virgil, Dante, and Belacqua]
I may be reaching somewhat but I can’t help but think the key to some of that is to be found in the sole reference to Belacqua. Beckett was, by all accounts, a big fan of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, a poem in three parts [three parts! Before Pim…etc]: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He was, moreover, especially interested in the [minor] character Belacqua, frequently featuring him in his work, including the More Pricks Less Kicks collection. Dante and Virgil come upon him in Purgatorio, sitting in a fetal position; he is said to be the epitome of indolence or laziness. While you wouldn’t call it indolence, the man in How It Is is not, as noted, the most active. There is that. But the real point of interest, for me, is in which volume this character appears.
Purgatory. The intermediate state, or place, between heaven and hell. Perhaps this is is where the mud man finds himself? Having said that, you could equally [or even more persuasively] make a case for him being in the Inferno, in a Dantesque circle of Hell, forced to live in mud as a punishment for past wrongs. Indeed, in the third circle of Hell [Canto IV], a slush falls from the sky and collects on the ground, creating a kind of muddy swamp, in which naked shades howl and roll around. What maybe gives this theory a little extra weight is that the man does speak [or murmur into the mud] about the possibility of going “up there,” a phrase that would suggest to most people [and Beckett must have been aware of this] Heaven. [In truth, I don’t believe any of this].
As I come to the end of this review I realise that I haven’t said anything about how much [or how little] I enjoyed the book. I don’t, I must confess, rate it as highly as, for example, the respected American author William Gass, who chose it as one of his 50 Literary Pillars. I could name at least five Beckett novels I prefer [although being the sixth best Beckett novel is not exactly shameful]. I did occasionally find it moving, and I would hold up the final two or three pages as being as exhilarating as anything I have read, but How It Is did not always hold my attention; there were, as with many genuinely experimental works, moments of tedium, when I was essentially coasting, which means that I was turning pages but not really taking anything in. And there were also times when I had to gee myself up, to pick up and plough on. But I think that was kind of the point, that the author wanted you to struggle, as his mud man struggles.
Whenever I think of this incident, which I do quite frequently, I’m always put in mind of Samuel Beckett. I imagine he would have got a kick out of it, what with the bird being essentially herded towards death. It’s funny. And sad too. Too sad. Towards the end of his career Beckett wrote a series of short, experimental prose pieces, all of which are about the absurdity of the human predicament. Life, old age, death. How it was. How it is. How it will be. All of them are funny. And sad too. Too sad. Of those novels I feel a strong affection for the beautiful Ill Seen Ill Said and Worstward Ho. But I’m not reviewing those. His trilogy – which includes Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable – is the most acclaimed, the most read, it seems. Which is perhaps a lie. For I have been given the impression that The Unnamable is endured more than read. I have, in fact, seen it called The Unreadable. As a joke. Being a contrary arse I’ve read the unreadable twice. It is my favourite of the trilogy.
How it is, which was published in English in 1964, is often regarded as a kind of companion piece to The Unnamable. Yet I would wager that this has more to do with difficulty than anything else, with how many people struggle to understand or complete both books. You can tell how baffling a book is when you can find nary a single in-depth review of it anywhere on the internet, and that is the case with How It Is. I searched for almost an hour last night and managed to turn up little of any note. Am I going to be the first to give this book a thorough going over? Well, I am not one to shy away from a challenge. I will go on. I must go on, and on, and on. So: on…The narrator is lying in the mud, murmuring to the mud: his life: before Pim, with Pim and after Pim. He appears to be almost completely physically incapacitated, being able to move only by crawling, by pulling himself along, in the mud. His possessions are a sack, a tin opener, and some tins of food. It is a typically bizarre Beckettian situation.
“find someone at last someone find you at last live together glued together love each other a little without being loved be loved a little without loving answer that leave it vague leave it dark”
This mud-man scenario could be interpreted as a comment on the nature of human destiny, in that we, in a sense, crawled out of the primeval mud, and will one day return to it. Literally, for in death we eventually become of the earth, of the soil; we become, in the end, as formless as the mud itself. Furthermore, the struggle through the mud is, you might say, comparable to man’s struggle, i.e. that life involves dragging oneself through the dirt, looking for other people, finding them, losing them, eating, shitting, vomiting. How it is. How life is. And there is another kind of struggle, the struggle to give form, or meaning, to one’s existence, in among all that dirt, and the shitting and the vomiting. Who are you? What are you doing? What have you done? What will you do? Before. Now. After. An attempt to give structure to something – life – that is inherently without structure. We all do this. We divide our time on earth arbitrarily – days, weeks, months, years, hours, etc. – and we define our lives and ourselves by arbitrary events, like meeting Pim. There is certainly something in all this.
If one accepts any of what I have been discussing, the style – which I imagine plays a major part in frustrating readers – is appropriate. The novel is presented as a series of very short paragraphs. There is no capitalisation, and no punctuation. Therefore, the book could be said to crawl into being, rather than confidently announce itself. Or perhaps one might argue that it has no real beginning, creating the impression that the man has always been there, in the mud. And what is a beginning? It is an arbitrary moment; it is a product of our desire to impose structure, or form, and meaning upon things. Ah! Despite the man’s efforts, How it Is has no structure or form; it is plotless. Moreover, his thoughts are often [or almost entirely] incoherent, they are muddled, they too are formless, like the mud.
I’m not, of course, positioning myself as an authority on the novel, for there were certainly aspects of it that passed me by [not least Beckett’s own explanation, which makes precious little sense to me]; for example, I can’t satisfactorily explain, and feel no real desire to attempt to satisfactorily explain, what is going on with the man and the voice, i.e. what he means when he says ‘I say it as I hear it’ as though there is a kind of distance or disconnect between the two I’s, the mental and physical. Furthermore, this is the one Beckett novel that, as far as I can remember, includes so many references or allusions to religion, and I’m on shaky ground there too. But I’ll go on, I must go on, in any case.
[Virgil, Dante, and Belacqua]
I may be reaching somewhat but I can’t help but think the key to some of that is to be found in the sole reference to Belacqua. Beckett was, by all accounts, a big fan of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, a poem in three parts [three parts! Before Pim…etc]: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He was, moreover, especially interested in the [minor] character Belacqua, frequently featuring him in his work, including the More Pricks Less Kicks collection. Dante and Virgil come upon him in Purgatorio, sitting in a fetal position; he is said to be the epitome of indolence or laziness. While you wouldn’t call it indolence, the man in How It Is is not, as noted, the most active. There is that. But the real point of interest, for me, is in which volume this character appears.
Purgatory. The intermediate state, or place, between heaven and hell. Perhaps this is is where the mud man finds himself? Having said that, you could equally [or even more persuasively] make a case for him being in the Inferno, in a Dantesque circle of Hell, forced to live in mud as a punishment for past wrongs. Indeed, in the third circle of Hell [Canto IV], a slush falls from the sky and collects on the ground, creating a kind of muddy swamp, in which naked shades howl and roll around. What maybe gives this theory a little extra weight is that the man does speak [or murmur into the mud] about the possibility of going “up there,” a phrase that would suggest to most people [and Beckett must have been aware of this] Heaven. [In truth, I don’t believe any of this].
As I come to the end of this review I realise that I haven’t said anything about how much [or how little] I enjoyed the book. I don’t, I must confess, rate it as highly as, for example, the respected American author William Gass, who chose it as one of his 50 Literary Pillars. I could name at least five Beckett novels I prefer [although being the sixth best Beckett novel is not exactly shameful]. I did occasionally find it moving, and I would hold up the final two or three pages as being as exhilarating as anything I have read, but How It Is did not always hold my attention; there were, as with many genuinely experimental works, moments of tedium, when I was essentially coasting, which means that I was turning pages but not really taking anything in. And there were also times when I had to gee myself up, to pick up and plough on. But I think that was kind of the point, that the author wanted you to struggle, as his mud man struggles.
January 8, 2018
Based on all the 5 ⭐️ reviews I’m going to say this is a case of its me not you but I really did not enjoy this one.
March 3, 2020
Coming out of Goethe into prime mindfuck (however superficially) Sam is glorious. Beckett teaches you how to read anew. Of course Goethe's Faust is beyond reproach, but reads like what it very much is: a perfect libretto. Beckett is a sort of precursor to Plus or Out (though I do not know when/if I'll be back in Ron's waters—not soon) in that the necessary exactness required to appreciate means that you cannot come at it with your own preconceptions. (Markson, naturally, being the summa; the one writer who has any legitimacy to the claim of advancing the work, in my opinion. Beckett's work, that is; not all of Fiction.)
If one reads this just bambambam, it will mean next to nothing; it'll run the risk of seeming like postmodern rubbish. Have you ever played the solitary game of punctuating Beckett in your head? It's fun. It goes something like this (a simple example):
“I know not what insect wound round its treasure I come back with empty hands to me to my place what to begin with ask myself that last a moment with that”
—Beckett
(which, punctuated, could possibly be:)
“I know not what insect wound ‘round its treasure. I come back with empty hands; to me, to my place. ‘What to begin with?’ I ask myself that, last a moment with that.”
—Beckett punctuated by me
(To go for a longer, more complex passage:)
“what can one say to oneself possibly say at such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace so much the better so much the worse that style only not so cold cheers alas that style only not so warm joy and sorrow those two their sum divided by two and luke like in outer hell
—Beckett
(which, punctuated, could possibly be:)
“What can one say to oneself? Possibly say 'at such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace; so much the better, so much the worse.' That style, only not so cold. Cheer. Alas—that style, only not so warm. Joy and sorrow; those two, their sum divided by two, and luke...like in outer hell.”
—Beckett punctuated EX I
(OR........why not this:)
“What can one say to oneself? Possibly say, 'At such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace, so much the better so much the worse? That style—only not so cold! Cheers! Alas, that style—only not so warm! Joy and sorrow, those two, their sum divided by two, and luke: Like in outer hell!”
—Beckett punctuated EX II
Which is the right one, which the wrong? Both and neither. That's the beauty of this game: Beckett requires you to meet him somewhere approaching equality, and, in doing so, that you bring some of your own kindling to the communal fire.
But I do offer this: That the way it is printed—in situ—renders it into its own libretto, only one without dictates. To attempt an explanation: If you sit and listen to a bird singing out of sight, it can just sound like nattering, even annoying, melismatic, reality-show scale-abusing histrionics. All trills and swoops with no seeming point. But, and I'm sure you've noticed, certain patterns will reveal themselves if you listen closely: micro-melodies, twelve-tone in their Schoenberg-ian democracy ("a method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another"), that seem to pop up without meter at first, and then, given a bit of time, are revealed to be birdsong that simply doesn't constrain itself to what human convention has ascribed as meter'd or rhythmical logic. In that arithmetic, time would somehow equal beauty. I do not believe that mathematic.
Regardless, here's the takeaway: Samuel Beckett is obviously a bird now living on a telephone pole above my backyard.
If one reads this just bambambam, it will mean next to nothing; it'll run the risk of seeming like postmodern rubbish. Have you ever played the solitary game of punctuating Beckett in your head? It's fun. It goes something like this (a simple example):
“I know not what insect wound round its treasure I come back with empty hands to me to my place what to begin with ask myself that last a moment with that”
—Beckett
(which, punctuated, could possibly be:)
“I know not what insect wound ‘round its treasure. I come back with empty hands; to me, to my place. ‘What to begin with?’ I ask myself that, last a moment with that.”
—Beckett punctuated by me
(To go for a longer, more complex passage:)
“what can one say to oneself possibly say at such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace so much the better so much the worse that style only not so cold cheers alas that style only not so warm joy and sorrow those two their sum divided by two and luke like in outer hell
—Beckett
(which, punctuated, could possibly be:)
“What can one say to oneself? Possibly say 'at such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace; so much the better, so much the worse.' That style, only not so cold. Cheer. Alas—that style, only not so warm. Joy and sorrow; those two, their sum divided by two, and luke...like in outer hell.”
—Beckett punctuated EX I
(OR........why not this:)
“What can one say to oneself? Possibly say, 'At such a time a little pearl of forlorn solace, so much the better so much the worse? That style—only not so cold! Cheers! Alas, that style—only not so warm! Joy and sorrow, those two, their sum divided by two, and luke: Like in outer hell!”
—Beckett punctuated EX II
Which is the right one, which the wrong? Both and neither. That's the beauty of this game: Beckett requires you to meet him somewhere approaching equality, and, in doing so, that you bring some of your own kindling to the communal fire.
But I do offer this: That the way it is printed—in situ—renders it into its own libretto, only one without dictates. To attempt an explanation: If you sit and listen to a bird singing out of sight, it can just sound like nattering, even annoying, melismatic, reality-show scale-abusing histrionics. All trills and swoops with no seeming point. But, and I'm sure you've noticed, certain patterns will reveal themselves if you listen closely: micro-melodies, twelve-tone in their Schoenberg-ian democracy ("a method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another"), that seem to pop up without meter at first, and then, given a bit of time, are revealed to be birdsong that simply doesn't constrain itself to what human convention has ascribed as meter'd or rhythmical logic. In that arithmetic, time would somehow equal beauty. I do not believe that mathematic.
Regardless, here's the takeaway: Samuel Beckett is obviously a bird now living on a telephone pole above my backyard.
April 27, 2014
The 7th Beckett novel that I've read and similar to his The Unnamable (3 stars), this has no plot and told in first-person narrative. Unlike that novel though, this has a structure: divided into three parts that feels like past, present and future. It's just that the setting is all in mud or murky place where the narrator suffers like in the cell of Malone in Malone Dies (5 stars). The narration has no punctuations and it somehow signifies to me the continuity of the suffering like it does not need to have a period and it is free-flowing and unstoppable.
Having no plot, this is hard to me to review. I do not even know what's the meaning of "Pim." If it is a person that the narrator meets in Part I and loses in Part II and then in Part III there is no mention of him and the mud but the mood of the narration is still sad, bleak and lonely. My take it is that this can be similar to life. Part I is when we were single and our life has no clear directions as we just party every night then we meet our spouses. Part II is when we try to have our marriage work and it is not easy since life is not easy anyway. Part III is when we are already old and have lost our spouses and we are dying so we are excited to reunite with our spouse its just that we are lonely to leave our children, other relatives and friends.
But I am just guessing. Beckett here, like in his almost all of his novels, tells his story in a poetry-like way. You have to interpret his phrases to get whatever he wants to convey. The good thing is that his lyrical prose in engaging witty form is something to behold. You trying reading this short (compared to Murphy or Watt) novel and you will appreciate how beautiful this work is.
Beckett is just uncomparable. One of his kind.
Having no plot, this is hard to me to review. I do not even know what's the meaning of "Pim." If it is a person that the narrator meets in Part I and loses in Part II and then in Part III there is no mention of him and the mud but the mood of the narration is still sad, bleak and lonely. My take it is that this can be similar to life. Part I is when we were single and our life has no clear directions as we just party every night then we meet our spouses. Part II is when we try to have our marriage work and it is not easy since life is not easy anyway. Part III is when we are already old and have lost our spouses and we are dying so we are excited to reunite with our spouse its just that we are lonely to leave our children, other relatives and friends.
But I am just guessing. Beckett here, like in his almost all of his novels, tells his story in a poetry-like way. You have to interpret his phrases to get whatever he wants to convey. The good thing is that his lyrical prose in engaging witty form is something to behold. You trying reading this short (compared to Murphy or Watt) novel and you will appreciate how beautiful this work is.
Beckett is just uncomparable. One of his kind.
December 17, 2017
Delirmek gibi bir deneyim oldu bu kitap benim için.
Ha it ha çek on kelime on beş kelime ha it ha çek ileri geri okumak bakmak boşluğa ha it ha çek soruları cevapla yeni sorular sor ha it ha çek tekrar tekrar tekrar oku aynı cümleyi hangi cümleyi burada cümle falan yok burada dedim cümle falan yok
Ha it ha çek on kelime on beş kelime ha it ha çek ileri geri okumak bakmak boşluğa ha it ha çek soruları cevapla yeni sorular sor ha it ha çek tekrar tekrar tekrar oku aynı cümleyi hangi cümleyi burada cümle falan yok burada dedim cümle falan yok
October 25, 2017
The 'degree zero' of literature: narrative turned inward, generative and cyclical. Wherein character is dissolved into flux and drama is nothing more than its own begetting, the "slow translation from west to east", the double movement of self-extinguishment and self-resuscitation. How it has been, how it always will be, how it is.
March 27, 2017
Novels narrated by various tersely named men (real or imagined) crawling through the mud (of their memories [and literal mud (perhaps)]) tend to lapse into screaming cliché. This is one of the better efforts.
Read
August 26, 2022This is included in my video on Beckett's life and work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teB1U...
August 7, 2018
One of my favorite books ever. It's a poetic, punctuation-free, bleak and humorous three-part piece about one's past, present, and future selves. There's no story per se; it's more like an existential essay. I sped through the book nine years ago, but this past week I read most of it aloud, measuring phrases and writing in the margins. There are dead ends, revelations, repetitions, and lucent calculations, all in the name of storytelling about being. Beckett composed it in French in 1961 and translated it into English in 1964; I imagine the masterful rhythm is similar in both languages. I'm happy to have found, purchased, and marked up a first edition Grove Press paperback copy, which I'll return to whenever I need to refresh the panting present. The lone quote below says how it is.
* * * * *
before I had mine that vast pit and when I had it at last that vast stretch how it would be then when I had mine at last and when I had it no more mine no more how it would be then
* * * * *
before I had mine that vast pit and when I had it at last that vast stretch how it would be then when I had mine at last and when I had it no more mine no more how it would be then
December 31, 2022
For some reason, this has been on my Want to Read shelf for some time. It was short and some consider it a classic. There are mentions of mud, tins, sacks, Pim, Pam and Bom. With occasional vulgarity and told in 3 parts, I wondered is this story about the end of life, remembering an acquaintance, or living through war? Here is another reader's take on this story and Beckett as an author.
January 16, 2018
Well, now I just don't know what to think. Let's see, Beckett was a fan of James Joyce. I'm guessing he wrote this in admiration of Joyce's skill. Perhaps this book isn't the best for starting with Beckett's work. Perhaps Joyce is just in a league of his own, causing folks to emulate his style in a myriad of ways. Maybe I should read more of Beckett and come back to this? Maybe a library copy isn't the best way to read this? Maybe it should be a slow read?
My 1st impression was it had a rhythm that I enjoyed. The paragraphs had a natural silence between them. I thought it was reincarnation. Then I chased Llamas. The rope around our narrator's neck and the sack made me think of the birthing experience. But what's the tin? There's no tin with reincarnation. Pim? Bom? Confusion sets in and reincarnation is out the metaphorical window. So why can't I stop thinking about this book?
For now, I'll go with a neutral 3 stars 'cause I just don't know what to think!
My 1st impression was it had a rhythm that I enjoyed. The paragraphs had a natural silence between them. I thought it was reincarnation. Then I chased Llamas. The rope around our narrator's neck and the sack made me think of the birthing experience. But what's the tin? There's no tin with reincarnation. Pim? Bom? Confusion sets in and reincarnation is out the metaphorical window. So why can't I stop thinking about this book?
For now, I'll go with a neutral 3 stars 'cause I just don't know what to think!
September 4, 2010
Would you like to destroy your mind? Y/N
Y
OK, read this book in one sitting.
Y
OK, read this book in one sitting.
August 7, 2022
I’m sorry everyone. I’ve tried for 2 1/2 days/nights. I think if I were reading this with a couple of others and we could discuss what we see, feel, taste then I may have been able to get through this. I just cannot alone. I’m not that well versed in philosophy. I’m too irrational and self possessed. I also think out of the trapezoid (I almost typed the trazodone like I’m at work. Good lord now even shapes I’ve now renamed. GET OUT OF MY HEAD YA DAMN HELL ON EARTH) that last statement goes toward both this book and my place of employees half the week.
Read
March 30, 2016The Grove centenary edition classifies it as a novel. Not sure I'd agree, although it does sort of have a plot - something about vaguely humanoid figures raping and killing each other in the mud before, during, and after the age of Pim. Science fiction? Opera? I think it could go well with illustrations by Francis Bacon.
A kind of coda to the trilogy, how it is picks up where the Unnamable left off. But then the Unnamable ends in a very strange and desperate place, how could anyone possibly go further than that? Well, for starters, one could omit punctuation. Beckett was always looking to undermine his own strengths, and so perhaps it's fitting he would follow up one of the most virtuoso comma performances in all literature by completely dropping the mark.
A good part of the tension and suspense of the trilogy comes from Beckett pushing against the traditional form of the novel. With how it is that's not even an issue. The boundary between literature and the other arts ceases to be meaningful. I for one infinitely prefer the trilogy, but then my taste is probably old-fashioned and conventional. Beckett's later vanguard texts do have their defenders. No less an authority than the estimable William Gass is on record calling how it is his favorite work by Beckett.
A kind of coda to the trilogy, how it is picks up where the Unnamable left off. But then the Unnamable ends in a very strange and desperate place, how could anyone possibly go further than that? Well, for starters, one could omit punctuation. Beckett was always looking to undermine his own strengths, and so perhaps it's fitting he would follow up one of the most virtuoso comma performances in all literature by completely dropping the mark.
A good part of the tension and suspense of the trilogy comes from Beckett pushing against the traditional form of the novel. With how it is that's not even an issue. The boundary between literature and the other arts ceases to be meaningful. I for one infinitely prefer the trilogy, but then my taste is probably old-fashioned and conventional. Beckett's later vanguard texts do have their defenders. No less an authority than the estimable William Gass is on record calling how it is his favorite work by Beckett.
November 14, 2021
Een paar weken geleden las ik het geweldige maar ook behoorlijk hermetische "How it is" , mijn derde Beckett in korte tijd. Ongeveer tegelijkertijd las ik "Samuel Beckett's How it is. Philosophy in Translation" van Anthony Cordingley: een hypergeleerd en ultra- erudiet boek waarin allerlei voor mij volkomen verborgen filosofische toespelingen werden geduid in Becketts weerbarstige boek. Ik vond Becketts boek en Cordingley's reactie daarop heel fascinerend, alleen kon ik de inspiratie niet vinden om er een stukkie over te schrijven. En ik hoefde dat van mijzelf ook niet: ik vond het juist wel prima om het raadsel nu eens onaangeraakt te laten rusten. Maar om de een of andere reden voel ik nu, een paar weken later, alsnog de aandrang om er over te schrijven, terwijl het boek niet meer vers in mijn geheugen zit. Dus volgt hier alsnog een stukkie, maar geen recensie: hoogstens een signalement, een impressie achteraf.
In "Duitse brief uit 1937" (opgenomen in "Disjecta") schreef Beckett: "En steeds meer komt mijn taal me voor als een sluier die verscheurd moet worden om de daarachter liggende dingen (of het daarachter liggende niets) te bereiken.". Taal geeft de dingen hun herkenbare vorm en inhoud, maar Beckett wil de talige conventies verscheuren om een glimp op te vangen van de vormeloosheid - het niets, het andere, het onkenbare, het ongrijpbare - die vooraf gaat aan die talige vorm. Precies dat doet hij ook in "Nohow On" en "Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable": de twee prachtige Beckett- boeken die ik kort voor "How it is" nog las en bejubelde. Maar "How it is" verscheurt de taal nog radicaler. Reeds de oorspronkelijke Franse titel, "Comment c'est", is een woordspeling: letterlijk betekent hij "Hoe het is", maar de titel klinkt als "commencer", dus als "beginnen". Alsof "Hoe het is" en "Beginnen" samenvallen. Alsof je nooit weet "hoe het is" omdat je altijd bezig bent met "beginnen". Terwijl "beginnen" bij Beckett ook nog inhoudt: niet weten hoe je moet beginnen, falen, opnieuw beginnen, weer falen.
Maar dat is allemaal nog peanuts vergeleken met hoe het boek begint en verder gaat. Het begint als volgt: "how it was I quote before Pim with Pim after Pim how it is three parts I say it as I hear it". daarna een stuk wit, en dan "voice once without quaqua on all sides then in me when the panting stops telling me again finish telling me invocation". Woordgroepen zonder leestekens, en zonder hoofdletters, die gescheiden zijn door stukken wit die soms echt een kloof markeren tussen die woordgroepen. En binnen die woordgroepen raak je soms helemaal de draad kwijt omdat de leestekens en verbindingen ontbreken. Verscheurde taal is dit, taal op de rand van de vormeloosheid, taal die door zijn vormeloosheid tast naar de vormeloosheid, dus naar een glimp van de wereld die nog geen zinvolle vorm heeft gekregen in onze taal. Wat nog versterkt wordt door het "I say it as I hear it" in de eerste woordgroep: alsof de uiterst rudimentaire vorm die de spreker aan de wereld geeft exact NU ontstaat, dus precies op het moment dat hij die woorden hoort EN zegt. En alsof zijn eigen woorden niet zijn eigen woorden zijn (vandaar ook "I quote"), maar woorden van anderen. De talige conventies die al bestonden voordat hij bestond. Maar dan hakkelend, verscheurd, zonder de transparante betekenis die de woorden normaal gesproken' hebben.
En zo kreupelt "How it is" verder, met steeds nieuwe hakkelende woordgroepen zonder hoofdletters of leestekens. Waarin het leven van de verteller even rudimentair en tot niets gereduceerd is als de taal .Zo zegt hij: "my life last version ill-said ill- heard ill- recaptured ill- murmured in the mud brief movements of the lower face losses everywhere". In gebroken taal wordt dus gezegd dat alles slecht gehoord (gezegd, "recaptured") wordt. En dat alles wat gezegd wordt alleen een beweging is van "the lower face", en dus nauwelijks zinvol. Maar ook nog dat dit alles geschiedt in de modder, dus in ongevormde materie: de materie die nog geen zinvolle, gearticuleerde en herkenbare vorm geregen heeft, die nog niet is bezield door De Schepper. En ook het innerlijke leven is niks dan verbrokkeld beeld te midden van die modder: "that's all it wasn't a dream I didn't dream that nor a memory I haven't been given memories this time it was an image the kind I see sometimes see in the mud sometimes saw". Geen droom. Geen herinnering. Alleen beelden die soms even opborrelen in de ongevormde modder. En die modder doet ook nog eens denken aan stront, bijvoorbeeld door de term "quaqua" (klinkt als "caca", kak) in de openingswoorden, en door het gehakkelde vermoeden van de verteller dat we allemaal via een strontgat ter wereld komen en tot stront zullen vergaan.
Maar hoe zit het verhaal in elkaar? Verscheurd, uiteraard, en ongevormd. "How it is" bestaat uit drie delen: voor Pim, tijdens Pim en na Pim (zo werd in de geciteerde eerste hakkelende woorden al gezegd). En tja, mooier kan ik het niet maken: Pim en Bom (zo schijnt de verteller te heten) kruipen door de modder die als een soort tweede huid dient, met een zak die voor Bom eveneens een tweede huid is, met daarin blikjes etenswaren en een blikopener. Met die blikopener kan de geslachtsdaad worden weergegeven of uitgevoerd, en bovendien wordt die blikopener door Bom gebruikt als martelwerktuig. En Bom communiceert met Pim via dat martelwerktuig. Misschien uit woede, omdat hij zoekt naar het licht maar ondergedompeld blijft in de van elke licht en rede verstoken modder. Misschien uit onvermogen. Maar misschien juist om geen enkele herkenbare reden, want welke herkenbare reden zou een zo tot nul gereduceerd personage kunnen hebben?
Een bizar verhaal dus, over tot bijna nul gereduceerde personages, in bijna tot nul gereduceerde taal. Een verhaal wellicht over de totale naaktheid van het zijn, de naaktheid die overblijft als je van het bestaan alle franje en alle conventie afpelt. En, als ik het eerder aangehaalde boek van Cordingley mag geloven, een verhaal waarin diverse filosofen en literatoren worden geparodieerd. Bijvoorbeeld omdat opstijgen naar het Hogere Licht van de Rede en de Geest gesmoord wordt in gehakkel en gemodder. Bijvoorbeeld omdat de verteller op bizarre wijze goochelt met getallen en getallenleer, en daarbij veel grondbeginselen van de hogere wiskunde of de formele logica totaal belachelijk maakt. Wat nog eens pijnlijk onderstreept hoezeer zijn wereld van orde en logica is beroofd. Maar ook omdat dit verhaal alle menselijkheid zodanig uitkleedt dat het de totale pervertering is van de "Bildungsroman". En bovendien omdat het geploeter in de modder de grotesk- karikaturale uitvergroting is van de gruwelijkheden uit Dantes Inferno. En van de "Divina Commedia" als geheel, want Becketts universum is goddelozer dan goddeloos. In Dantes - ook doorBeckett bewonderde- meesterwerk zoek de verteller een gids, die hem begeleidt naar het hogere. In "How it is" echter snakt ook Bom naar zo'n gidsende metgezel, maar die blijft vormloos voor hem en zelf ontstijgt hij niet aan de modder. Want Pim is geen gids, maar alleen een andere vage gestalte in de troebele oermaterie, en hij blijft dus net als Bom zelf gewoon steken in de stront.
Kortom, ik was weer flabbergasted, zoals altijd als ik Beckett lees. En ik was sprakeloos, dus ook daarom schreef ik niet meteen een stukje over dit boek. Maar misschien was juist door die sprakeloosheid de nawerking van dit boek langer en intenser. Ik raak die beelden maar niet kwijt van dat geploeter in de modder. Ik raak ook die sfeer maar niet kwijt van die hakkelende woordgroepen zonder leestekens. Ik raak kortom dat gevoel maar niet kwijt dat ik heel even een blik heb kunnen werpen op het totaal tot niets gereduceerde bestaan. En daarmee ook op mijn eigen bestaan, want misschien is ook mijn alledaagse vredige rust niks dan franje, en misschien ben ook ik in wezen niks meer dan een modderkruiper. Wat een compromisloze schrijver, die Beckett. En wat een gigant. Maar vanaf nu las ik even een Beckett- pauze in, want die alles verscheurende taal van hem is fenomenaal, maar ook wel erg enerverend....
In "Duitse brief uit 1937" (opgenomen in "Disjecta") schreef Beckett: "En steeds meer komt mijn taal me voor als een sluier die verscheurd moet worden om de daarachter liggende dingen (of het daarachter liggende niets) te bereiken.". Taal geeft de dingen hun herkenbare vorm en inhoud, maar Beckett wil de talige conventies verscheuren om een glimp op te vangen van de vormeloosheid - het niets, het andere, het onkenbare, het ongrijpbare - die vooraf gaat aan die talige vorm. Precies dat doet hij ook in "Nohow On" en "Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable": de twee prachtige Beckett- boeken die ik kort voor "How it is" nog las en bejubelde. Maar "How it is" verscheurt de taal nog radicaler. Reeds de oorspronkelijke Franse titel, "Comment c'est", is een woordspeling: letterlijk betekent hij "Hoe het is", maar de titel klinkt als "commencer", dus als "beginnen". Alsof "Hoe het is" en "Beginnen" samenvallen. Alsof je nooit weet "hoe het is" omdat je altijd bezig bent met "beginnen". Terwijl "beginnen" bij Beckett ook nog inhoudt: niet weten hoe je moet beginnen, falen, opnieuw beginnen, weer falen.
Maar dat is allemaal nog peanuts vergeleken met hoe het boek begint en verder gaat. Het begint als volgt: "how it was I quote before Pim with Pim after Pim how it is three parts I say it as I hear it". daarna een stuk wit, en dan "voice once without quaqua on all sides then in me when the panting stops telling me again finish telling me invocation". Woordgroepen zonder leestekens, en zonder hoofdletters, die gescheiden zijn door stukken wit die soms echt een kloof markeren tussen die woordgroepen. En binnen die woordgroepen raak je soms helemaal de draad kwijt omdat de leestekens en verbindingen ontbreken. Verscheurde taal is dit, taal op de rand van de vormeloosheid, taal die door zijn vormeloosheid tast naar de vormeloosheid, dus naar een glimp van de wereld die nog geen zinvolle vorm heeft gekregen in onze taal. Wat nog versterkt wordt door het "I say it as I hear it" in de eerste woordgroep: alsof de uiterst rudimentaire vorm die de spreker aan de wereld geeft exact NU ontstaat, dus precies op het moment dat hij die woorden hoort EN zegt. En alsof zijn eigen woorden niet zijn eigen woorden zijn (vandaar ook "I quote"), maar woorden van anderen. De talige conventies die al bestonden voordat hij bestond. Maar dan hakkelend, verscheurd, zonder de transparante betekenis die de woorden normaal gesproken' hebben.
En zo kreupelt "How it is" verder, met steeds nieuwe hakkelende woordgroepen zonder hoofdletters of leestekens. Waarin het leven van de verteller even rudimentair en tot niets gereduceerd is als de taal .Zo zegt hij: "my life last version ill-said ill- heard ill- recaptured ill- murmured in the mud brief movements of the lower face losses everywhere". In gebroken taal wordt dus gezegd dat alles slecht gehoord (gezegd, "recaptured") wordt. En dat alles wat gezegd wordt alleen een beweging is van "the lower face", en dus nauwelijks zinvol. Maar ook nog dat dit alles geschiedt in de modder, dus in ongevormde materie: de materie die nog geen zinvolle, gearticuleerde en herkenbare vorm geregen heeft, die nog niet is bezield door De Schepper. En ook het innerlijke leven is niks dan verbrokkeld beeld te midden van die modder: "that's all it wasn't a dream I didn't dream that nor a memory I haven't been given memories this time it was an image the kind I see sometimes see in the mud sometimes saw". Geen droom. Geen herinnering. Alleen beelden die soms even opborrelen in de ongevormde modder. En die modder doet ook nog eens denken aan stront, bijvoorbeeld door de term "quaqua" (klinkt als "caca", kak) in de openingswoorden, en door het gehakkelde vermoeden van de verteller dat we allemaal via een strontgat ter wereld komen en tot stront zullen vergaan.
Maar hoe zit het verhaal in elkaar? Verscheurd, uiteraard, en ongevormd. "How it is" bestaat uit drie delen: voor Pim, tijdens Pim en na Pim (zo werd in de geciteerde eerste hakkelende woorden al gezegd). En tja, mooier kan ik het niet maken: Pim en Bom (zo schijnt de verteller te heten) kruipen door de modder die als een soort tweede huid dient, met een zak die voor Bom eveneens een tweede huid is, met daarin blikjes etenswaren en een blikopener. Met die blikopener kan de geslachtsdaad worden weergegeven of uitgevoerd, en bovendien wordt die blikopener door Bom gebruikt als martelwerktuig. En Bom communiceert met Pim via dat martelwerktuig. Misschien uit woede, omdat hij zoekt naar het licht maar ondergedompeld blijft in de van elke licht en rede verstoken modder. Misschien uit onvermogen. Maar misschien juist om geen enkele herkenbare reden, want welke herkenbare reden zou een zo tot nul gereduceerd personage kunnen hebben?
Een bizar verhaal dus, over tot bijna nul gereduceerde personages, in bijna tot nul gereduceerde taal. Een verhaal wellicht over de totale naaktheid van het zijn, de naaktheid die overblijft als je van het bestaan alle franje en alle conventie afpelt. En, als ik het eerder aangehaalde boek van Cordingley mag geloven, een verhaal waarin diverse filosofen en literatoren worden geparodieerd. Bijvoorbeeld omdat opstijgen naar het Hogere Licht van de Rede en de Geest gesmoord wordt in gehakkel en gemodder. Bijvoorbeeld omdat de verteller op bizarre wijze goochelt met getallen en getallenleer, en daarbij veel grondbeginselen van de hogere wiskunde of de formele logica totaal belachelijk maakt. Wat nog eens pijnlijk onderstreept hoezeer zijn wereld van orde en logica is beroofd. Maar ook omdat dit verhaal alle menselijkheid zodanig uitkleedt dat het de totale pervertering is van de "Bildungsroman". En bovendien omdat het geploeter in de modder de grotesk- karikaturale uitvergroting is van de gruwelijkheden uit Dantes Inferno. En van de "Divina Commedia" als geheel, want Becketts universum is goddelozer dan goddeloos. In Dantes - ook doorBeckett bewonderde- meesterwerk zoek de verteller een gids, die hem begeleidt naar het hogere. In "How it is" echter snakt ook Bom naar zo'n gidsende metgezel, maar die blijft vormloos voor hem en zelf ontstijgt hij niet aan de modder. Want Pim is geen gids, maar alleen een andere vage gestalte in de troebele oermaterie, en hij blijft dus net als Bom zelf gewoon steken in de stront.
Kortom, ik was weer flabbergasted, zoals altijd als ik Beckett lees. En ik was sprakeloos, dus ook daarom schreef ik niet meteen een stukje over dit boek. Maar misschien was juist door die sprakeloosheid de nawerking van dit boek langer en intenser. Ik raak die beelden maar niet kwijt van dat geploeter in de modder. Ik raak ook die sfeer maar niet kwijt van die hakkelende woordgroepen zonder leestekens. Ik raak kortom dat gevoel maar niet kwijt dat ik heel even een blik heb kunnen werpen op het totaal tot niets gereduceerde bestaan. En daarmee ook op mijn eigen bestaan, want misschien is ook mijn alledaagse vredige rust niks dan franje, en misschien ben ook ik in wezen niks meer dan een modderkruiper. Wat een compromisloze schrijver, die Beckett. En wat een gigant. Maar vanaf nu las ik even een Beckett- pauze in, want die alles verscheurende taal van hem is fenomenaal, maar ook wel erg enerverend....
February 1, 2016
This work is amazing. Beckett's best, I would say. It most clearly expresses what his mature works were always seeking to evoke.
Like all difficult works, this text seems to be very commonly misunderstood. I believe that everyone should experience this work for themselves, and think through it for themselves, but I append a few remarks to clear up what I view to be some misunderstandings. All of these things can be gleaned from the text itself, from the voice that speaks it. One must seek to read carefully, to hear as it is said, as it is heard.
The text does not tell of a past, present, and future. Before Pim, with Pim, after Pim; all are being told of. In a sense it could be said to be past, past, and passing. But the voice tells us that what came before did not come before; it never was. All that is is what is currently being said or heard or read. All that is is the voice, the words, telling.
The characters are all a fiction. Pim, Bom, Bem; all are the same, in a sense, yet none of them really are. There is neither four nor a million. All of it is a lie, or a fiction, if you prefer. All there is is the voice, telling of a life. It is the voice that is heard when the panting stops, for it tells the life and makes the life happen. This voice is the anonymous voice of narration, narrating. It is nothing but a telling.
The writer who hears the voice and writes it so it can tell itself again, make its journey ever again, left to right across the page, is spoken of directly on page 105.
Enough, perhaps. For now.
With How It Is, Beckett works to achieve a similar end as that worked out through the trilogy, especially The Unnamable. He says the same, differently, repeating difference through another telling that tells of the narrative voice telling itself once again, as it must.
Like all difficult works, this text seems to be very commonly misunderstood. I believe that everyone should experience this work for themselves, and think through it for themselves, but I append a few remarks to clear up what I view to be some misunderstandings. All of these things can be gleaned from the text itself, from the voice that speaks it. One must seek to read carefully, to hear as it is said, as it is heard.
The text does not tell of a past, present, and future. Before Pim, with Pim, after Pim; all are being told of. In a sense it could be said to be past, past, and passing. But the voice tells us that what came before did not come before; it never was. All that is is what is currently being said or heard or read. All that is is the voice, the words, telling.
The characters are all a fiction. Pim, Bom, Bem; all are the same, in a sense, yet none of them really are. There is neither four nor a million. All of it is a lie, or a fiction, if you prefer. All there is is the voice, telling of a life. It is the voice that is heard when the panting stops, for it tells the life and makes the life happen. This voice is the anonymous voice of narration, narrating. It is nothing but a telling.
The writer who hears the voice and writes it so it can tell itself again, make its journey ever again, left to right across the page, is spoken of directly on page 105.
Enough, perhaps. For now.
With How It Is, Beckett works to achieve a similar end as that worked out through the trilogy, especially The Unnamable. He says the same, differently, repeating difference through another telling that tells of the narrative voice telling itself once again, as it must.
November 22, 2016
Its good to know I'm not the only one who finds the idea of eating food out of cans weird.
June 8, 2017
Beckett is misunderstood. His books are not vague existentialist glosses on the immutable human condition. They are journeys. HOW IT IS might be the greatest novel I have ever read. I say this because the tears sprang out uncontrollably on the third-to-last page. I am thirty-eight years old and no book has had this effect on me in at least fifteen years. HOW IT IS is the story of a psychoanalysis. It is the story of a man discovering that he has a voice. It is a metaphorical account of Beckett's escape from schizophrenia. In Part One the voice is confused and confusing because the narrator is maximally dissociated. Through persistence and permutation the voice that speaks to him (this is not clear yet) forces the situation to change in an example of Hegelian self-determination. Pim emeges in Part Two as a necessary response to the breakdown of Part One's autistic solution. On to Part Two. By torturing Pim, the narrator learns what a voice is. He has never heard one before and does not possess one of his own. Part Two ends when the narrator and Pim switch places. Now he is the one being tortured by Bom. The book is organized like a mathematical proof. The narrator is attempting every solution, in series, in an attempt to discover what a voice is, where it is located, to whom it belongs. The voice moves around: outside him, inside Pim but caused by him, inside him but caused by Bom. Once he realizes that Bem and Bom are the same, his reasoning takes off. We see, in real time, the miracle of intelligence and psychic integration. Part Three is exhilarating as the narrator no longer crawls but begins to think. His reasoning accelerates as he comes closer to the truth. He picks up and abandons a series of partial solutions, each more comprehensive than the last. Finally, at the very end, he realizes the truth. The voice is his. It has always been his. He is dying. I still get goosebumps when I think of the cascade of YESES and screams that accompany the narrator's final accession to the truth. No other book I know (except maybe one of Beckett's other books) renders so movingly the will and desire to live than HOW IT IS.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2017
A novel absolutely like no other--and I imagine a lot of readers breathing a sigh of relief over this fact. Still, the incantatory swatches of prose are musically mesmerizing. Sure, even I--who love such things--found my attention wandering here and there, as it will when listening to such music, but the clarity of this single voice creating, brick by brick, swatch by swatch of unpunctuated words, the repetative life of an odd tribe of men, an infinitely repeated hive-mind it seems, endlessly moving between domination and victimization in a kind of human logarithm without either a feasible beginning or ending.
More than anything I found this particular novel to be rather Dantesque. In the first section there were several characters and scenes from the Inferno alluded to, and the concept of justice introduced in part three to describe the endless back and forth of the characters tormenting and being tormented had a distinctly Infernal ring to it. Beckett's hell, however, always feels--and this novel is not, in that, new ground for the author--more like life in stasis that the dead souls in stasis of Dante's medieval Christian epic. Still, I think the nod to the Florentine is all too obvious here--the only real justice is that tormentors also get tormented and vice-versa. What a beautiful world one imagines. That's just the way it is.
It occurred to me that the system of men prone in the mud described here interactions (tormenting the figure ahead of them in the series and then falling back to be tormented by the body preceding them in the series) was perhaps a nod to the verse structure of Dante's Commedia. In Dante's tercets the middle rhyme-sound of a tercet become the key rhyme of the next tercet. As in Beckett's system, there's an intimation of an infinity that can never be completed as one must begin and end somewhere always leaving off a key rhyme at the end and a middle rhyme at the beginning of each new section or a tormentor and a victim at either end of his phalanx of mud wallowers.
More than anything I found this particular novel to be rather Dantesque. In the first section there were several characters and scenes from the Inferno alluded to, and the concept of justice introduced in part three to describe the endless back and forth of the characters tormenting and being tormented had a distinctly Infernal ring to it. Beckett's hell, however, always feels--and this novel is not, in that, new ground for the author--more like life in stasis that the dead souls in stasis of Dante's medieval Christian epic. Still, I think the nod to the Florentine is all too obvious here--the only real justice is that tormentors also get tormented and vice-versa. What a beautiful world one imagines. That's just the way it is.
It occurred to me that the system of men prone in the mud described here interactions (tormenting the figure ahead of them in the series and then falling back to be tormented by the body preceding them in the series) was perhaps a nod to the verse structure of Dante's Commedia. In Dante's tercets the middle rhyme-sound of a tercet become the key rhyme of the next tercet. As in Beckett's system, there's an intimation of an infinity that can never be completed as one must begin and end somewhere always leaving off a key rhyme at the end and a middle rhyme at the beginning of each new section or a tormentor and a victim at either end of his phalanx of mud wallowers.
January 21, 2016
How It Is 2 stars for the effort to write a book that makes no sense, has no punctuation and getting people to pay for it.
Well, what can I say? This is a work of Samuel Beckett and I believe his last work before he started writing plays. I can see the results of Waiting for Godet. It is more a work of poetry, not hte rhyming kind but words, phrases, numbers all with out any punctuation. I am not sure I even saw the one apostrophe. Must have fallen asleep in the mud. There is structure; part one "before Pim", part two "with Pim" and part three, without Pim. You do try to make sense of the work, Does the mud stand for life? As with all Beckett's work, this explores the isolation of man. Man starts out alone, may find someone but that union might be best described as sadistic with nails in armpits and various things in the arse and thumps on the head. And there are quaqua all the way, before with and after. A quaqua according to wikipedia is a stem succulent. What I don't get is all the ravings on how wonderful this is when I looked it up on Goodreads. I just am not a lover of all thing Beckett and I think it is perfectly okay to die before you read this.
Well, what can I say? This is a work of Samuel Beckett and I believe his last work before he started writing plays. I can see the results of Waiting for Godet. It is more a work of poetry, not hte rhyming kind but words, phrases, numbers all with out any punctuation. I am not sure I even saw the one apostrophe. Must have fallen asleep in the mud. There is structure; part one "before Pim", part two "with Pim" and part three, without Pim. You do try to make sense of the work, Does the mud stand for life? As with all Beckett's work, this explores the isolation of man. Man starts out alone, may find someone but that union might be best described as sadistic with nails in armpits and various things in the arse and thumps on the head. And there are quaqua all the way, before with and after. A quaqua according to wikipedia is a stem succulent. What I don't get is all the ravings on how wonderful this is when I looked it up on Goodreads. I just am not a lover of all thing Beckett and I think it is perfectly okay to die before you read this.
January 5, 2017
Beckett is so tapped in and so alien at the same time that I'm starting to be convinced that he's the result of some pure spirit or form of literature injecting itself into a human husk. And seeing as he developed under late era Joyce there's probably an ounce of truth in that.
January 22, 2016
One of the better mud-based narratives to come out of 20th century irish culture
May 17, 2022
the thing about beckett that’s so wonderful to me is that he always really playfully and humorously ironizes his own spartan bleakness but this ironizing itself makes everything feel a little bit more intense regardless. though i guess that’s why he’s referred to as “tragicomic.” just figured that one out fully. i hope you guys all enjoy reading these little reviews i write
Read
January 12, 2023(Part of my current project of reading everything Beckett published in precise chronological order.)
Beckett's novel echoes Dante's fifth circle of hell, in which the wrathful wrestle in the mud. A lone figure lies in mud and darkness, his words dictated by a voice that tells him his life, so that virtually the entire novel, we are told, is a kind of quotation.
The life of the narrator, as dictated by this voice, is structured in terms of his encounter with another figure in the mud, Pim. Accordingly, we're told over and over again that the narrative will have three parts - part one (before Pim), part two (with Pim), and part three (after Pim). However, each of these parts spills into the other, and the constant repetition of this structural conceit gives the impression that, as with the narrator of Beckett's earlier novel The Unnamable, the narrator of How It Is is desperate to have done with speaking.
Very little is determinate or stable in the narrator's tripartite account of his life. Contradictions and ambiguities abound, not the least because the entire novel is one long run-on sentence in which anacolutha, on-the-go revisions, and incompletions abound. The text itself is divided into paragraph-like 'versets', but the spaces here only indicate places where the narrator's voice lapses as he is overcome by panting there in his hellish abode. Occasionally, various concrete details emerge - the narrator's young love with a girl, with whom we walks along with her dog; the suicide of his wife Pam Prim; his encounters with other figures who may or may not also be in the mud (Bom, Krim, Kram). However, by the end the narrator is told by the voice he hears - ambiguously outside and within him - that all of it has been an illusion, and that all there is and all there ever has been for him is the mud, the darkness, and his own panting and murmuring.
One of my main takeaways, upon finishing this novel, was that it gave me further reason to think that my understanding of Beckett will definitely be deepened by reading the text he himself obsessed over the most: Dante's Divine Comedy, of which I've only read excerpts, mostly back in high school...
Beckett's novel echoes Dante's fifth circle of hell, in which the wrathful wrestle in the mud. A lone figure lies in mud and darkness, his words dictated by a voice that tells him his life, so that virtually the entire novel, we are told, is a kind of quotation.
The life of the narrator, as dictated by this voice, is structured in terms of his encounter with another figure in the mud, Pim. Accordingly, we're told over and over again that the narrative will have three parts - part one (before Pim), part two (with Pim), and part three (after Pim). However, each of these parts spills into the other, and the constant repetition of this structural conceit gives the impression that, as with the narrator of Beckett's earlier novel The Unnamable, the narrator of How It Is is desperate to have done with speaking.
Very little is determinate or stable in the narrator's tripartite account of his life. Contradictions and ambiguities abound, not the least because the entire novel is one long run-on sentence in which anacolutha, on-the-go revisions, and incompletions abound. The text itself is divided into paragraph-like 'versets', but the spaces here only indicate places where the narrator's voice lapses as he is overcome by panting there in his hellish abode. Occasionally, various concrete details emerge - the narrator's young love with a girl, with whom we walks along with her dog; the suicide of his wife Pam Prim; his encounters with other figures who may or may not also be in the mud (Bom, Krim, Kram). However, by the end the narrator is told by the voice he hears - ambiguously outside and within him - that all of it has been an illusion, and that all there is and all there ever has been for him is the mud, the darkness, and his own panting and murmuring.
One of my main takeaways, upon finishing this novel, was that it gave me further reason to think that my understanding of Beckett will definitely be deepened by reading the text he himself obsessed over the most: Dante's Divine Comedy, of which I've only read excerpts, mostly back in high school...
September 21, 2012
If you know Beckett then you know the "oh, no" feeling of his uncompromising marriage of the bleak with the sarcastic; shoulders sink with the "here we go again". But then after all the grinding has begun sixteen pages in you get a phrase like "we are on a veranda smothered in verbena the scented sun dapples the red tiles yes I assure you" and you hold your breath.
I found myself - not reading it aloud so much, as being compelled by that voice to get it out of my throat: each time I read "murmur" I spewed each syllable from one side of the mouth, the other half pursed: I was a Beckett character and after the book was finished I felt exhausted for days. The Leibniz parody of the monads (still, after all those years!) (number 814345 etc) is philosophically kinky and along with his "opener", devastating.
But, well, if Gertrude Stein composes coherence, as the Stein scholar Ulla Dydo says, then Beckett in a way composes generosity as he goes on from shock to shock and the occasional lyrical chunk.
I found myself - not reading it aloud so much, as being compelled by that voice to get it out of my throat: each time I read "murmur" I spewed each syllable from one side of the mouth, the other half pursed: I was a Beckett character and after the book was finished I felt exhausted for days. The Leibniz parody of the monads (still, after all those years!) (number 814345 etc) is philosophically kinky and along with his "opener", devastating.
But, well, if Gertrude Stein composes coherence, as the Stein scholar Ulla Dydo says, then Beckett in a way composes generosity as he goes on from shock to shock and the occasional lyrical chunk.
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January 28, 2022An unnamed narrator crawls through a (seemingly post-apocalyptic?) world of endless mud (and probably also human feces) with nothing to feed himself but a sack full of cans of food. Eventually, he comes across another man named Pim, who sings to him when the narrator savagely claws him under the armpit. The narrator torments Pim for a time and then Pim moves on and the narrator is left lying still, waiting--or so the narrator tells us--for someone to crawl along and torment him in turn. After that--again, so the narrator tells us (tells himself?)--he will start crawling again and find Pim once more in an endless cycle. Why is the world covered in mud? Why are these people engaging in this strange ritual? Where do all these sacks of food come from (God)? Is there a point to this endless endeavor? Can it be figured out mathematically, or does it just have to be accepted as the way things are? This is one of the strangest novels ever written, but I think it says something profound about the meaning of existence.
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