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Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
The trilogy of novels by Samuel Beckett is his best known work outside the theatre, dating from the same period as Waiting for Godot, and as such is central to the main body of his work. This new edition has been corrected from the errors that appeared in some previous editions. Many people believe it to be the most important volume of prose in the English language after Joyce’s Ulysses, although written originally in French, a language that the author adopted to escape from the richness of Irish speech rhythms.
Most critics today consider the trilogy to be Beckett’s major achievement, more controlled than the brilliant early work, more easily readable than the complex How It Is and the later plays and texts. Malloy has two parts, the parallel narratives of the old Molloy, passing time by telling himself stories and remembering his past journeys, and of the waspish Moran, a private detective sent to find him, whose deterioration during his quest bears a strange similarity to Molloy’s. Malone Dies appears to be a continuation of Molloy’s narrative, only this time the speaker knows that the end is almost at hand. The additional poignancy of the stories he tells himself is largely related to the sense of time running our, and the prose seems heightened from the earlier book. In the third novel The Unnamable, the narrator, again under a different name or names, is aware of the approaching silence and tries to keep it at bay with thoughts, reveries, stories and inventions. The prose undergoes a complete change as we find ourselves listening to the sounds of panic, written in a punctuation of the human breath that the narrator has ever greater difficulty in drawing into his lungs, while the mind races giddily ever faster. The end is terrifying, bu t finishes, strangely, on a note of hope. Molloy has been translated by Patrick Bowles in collaboration with the author, the rest of the trilogy by Mr Beckett himself.
My Little Enlightenment Plays
The reinforcements mounted by our profane masters have transformed the theatre into a boulevard or, closer to home, into a good-old thoroughfare. In other words, the theatre is a space that hasn’t changed at all. We have to reinforce its mountainous profanities yet again, a little less old-fashioned perhaps, but similarly escorted by those necessary moralists-in-mind and a concomitant mania for marvels. So, here we are.
My dramas- in which I seem to lean on the ludicrous which must be kept so, in order to be accountable, the inspiration of such a work being precisely its utter and insulting reality-must not be born of ‘today’ but of the spells and numerologies of the old masters, the drowsy and doddery in their chic flannel slippers and their well-practised blandishment.
The Island Nation
Based on real events, The Island Nation is a visceral, revelatory new play by Christine Bacon, artistic director of the pioneering human rights theatre company ice&fire.
Critical Theory and Performance
Presents a broad range of critical and theoretical methods, and applies them to contemporary and historical performance genres. Revised and Enlarged Edition
Acts of Passion: Sexuality, Gender, and Performance
Draws on the experiences and expertise of a wide range of lesbian practitioners and theorists to explore the impact and influences of sexuality and gender on performance.
Part of Library of Performing Rights (P3041).
Whale Nation
Celebrates whales in verse and photographs, and in an anthology of prose writings from the worlds of science and literature.
A Manifesto for a New Walking Culture: ‘dealing with the city’
A manifesto for the active and creative pedestrian – envisioning a walking that is neither a functional necessity (to shops, to work) nor a passive appreciation of (or complaint about) the urban environment.
The Stage Lives of Animals
Examines what it might mean to make theatre beyond the human.
Supercommunity: Diabolical Togetherness Beyond Contemporary Art
Invited to exhibit at the 56th Venice Biennale, e-flux journal produced a single issue over a four-month span, publishing an article a day both online and on site from Venice.
The Day of the Duck
Explores Englishness, pseudo public space and what it is to be considered an unwelcome migratory visitor in contemporary Britain through the eyes of a particularly pesky Muscovy duck.
Part of the Library of Performing Rights (P3041).
