Beautifully written, thoughtful reconstruction of the seismic experiences that shaped Nobel-prize winning playwright Samuel Beckett and some of his most iconic works.
I can't really comment on whether this novel will work for you, if you don't know and love Samuel Beckett and his work. I do -- and so, for me it was an (almost) unalloyed treat: a well-written and (I think) well-researched glimpse into Beckett's experiences in Occupied France during WWII, and as a member of the French Resistance, and a plausible suggestion of how his plays might have emerged, blinking in the sunlight, from those experiences.
So I honestly don't know -- what will you think if you neither know nor care that the never-named protagonist is SAMUEL BECKETT? Will it seem worth the effort, will it say something "transferrable" to you, about life, and love and creativity, about the sacrifices that people make when they love each other, about living ethically in impossible times, with unimaginable (or all-too easily imagined ...) dangers? Can you read it as "just" a love story, or a story of survival during war-time?
I'd like to think so, because the parts about The Protagonist's experiences in occupied Paris are, I think, just great, by any standard: how he drifts into Resistance work, because his friends are doing it, and it's the right thing to do, and then comes up short against the possible consequences of Resistance work, and desperately goes on the run, only to discover that Safety is a quaint construct from a different, gentler time. How his relationship with his beautiful French lover is affected by all this -- how they are both pushed unnaturally closer together, and almost torn apart by what they experience.
So yes, I like to think that's there is something here for anyone who is not potty about Samuel Beckett. But if you are ...
I can't really comment on whether this novel will work for you, if you don't know and love Samuel Beckett and his work. I do -- and so, for me it was an (almost) unalloyed treat: a well-written and (I think) well-researched glimpse into Beckett's experiences in Occupied France during WWII, and as a member of the French Resistance, and a plausible suggestion of how his plays might have emerged, blinking in the sunlight, from those experiences.
So I honestly don't know -- what will you think if you neither know nor care that the never-named protagonist is SAMUEL BECKETT? Will it seem worth the effort, will it say something "transferrable" to you, about life, and love and creativity, about the sacrifices that people make when they love each other, about living ethically in impossible times, with unimaginable (or all-too easily imagined ...) dangers? Can you read it as "just" a love story, or a story of survival during war-time?
I'd like to think so, because the parts about The Protagonist's experiences in occupied Paris are, I think, just great, by any standard: how he drifts into Resistance work, because his friends are doing it, and it's the right thing to do, and then comes up short against the possible consequences of Resistance work, and desperately goes on the run, only to discover that Safety is a quaint construct from a different, gentler time. How his relationship with his beautiful French lover is affected by all this -- how they are both pushed unnaturally closer together, and almost torn apart by what they experience.
So yes, I like to think that's there is something here for anyone who is not potty about Samuel Beckett. But if you are ...
