The Unnamable

The Unnamable
Samuel Beckett
ISBN: 0-8021-5091-8
Publisher: Grove Press

OVERVIEW: This is the third and final part of the trilogy that had as its first two parts "Malloy" (review) and "Malone Dies" (review). In this final installment, there is no plot - no story that's obvious. We are taken on a journey of thoughts, ideas and feelings (many quite disjointed) that are, ostebsibly, how a mind might react if suddenly disembodied; without any sense perception or reliable memories intact, yet with the ability - the need - to 'speak' to itself. Fragments of the last few hours of life left are disturbing and are left unexplained. Yes, it sounds a bit terrifying; and it is. This is a difficult read and could rightly be taken in a number of allegorical fashions. For 114 pages we're taken through his blackness, unable to understand, grasp or reason. Under this lies a rattling sense of sanity being lost. The philosophical implications of any number of passages are vast and, despite its difficulty, make it a worthwhile read. I'll leave these to you to discover on your own

PRO'S:

• A work of genius in capturing a mood without us knowing that's precisely taken place
  
• Very realistic in how I might imagine my abruptly-disconnected consciousness continuing without the host-body
  
• Crafty insinuations towards characters created and stories told that pique the user to think about the other two novels in this set
  
• As with the other parts, he pulls no punches; yes, they cussed quite well in 1951
  
• Creative and insightfulness folded into the form of how a desparate mind thinks
  

CONS:

• Painful to read; as a non-traditional 'work' (can't be called a story), it will not follow our rules of form
  
• Painful to read; if I, for eternity, could do nothing other than ramble in desperation, might you want to hear it?
  
• The reader yearns for something detailed; something concrete to be described - yet none can be. Although this is purposefully not done (I'm guessing), even so - throw us a bone!
  

HIGHLIGHTS:
Very difficult to try and pick these out - given its nature. I'll here give you an excerpt which is typical of how this novel plays out..
[INDENT] "...I have passed by here, this has passsed by here, thousands of times, its turn has come again, it will pass on and something else will be there, another instant of my old instant, there it is, the old meaning that I'll give myself, that I won't be able to give myself, there's a god for the damned, as on the first day, today is the first day, it begins, I know it well, I'll remember it as I go along, all adown it I'll be born and born, births for nothing, and come to night without having been. Look at this Tunis pink, it's dawn. If I could only shut myself up, quick, I'll shut myself up, it won't be I, quick, I'll make a place, it won't be mine, it doesn't matter, I don't feel any place for me, perhaps that will come, I'll make it mine, I'll put myself in it, I'll put someone in it, I'll find someone in it, I'll put myself in him..."
[/INDENT]NOTABLE QUOTES:

pp306 - Along the line of 'lessons'[INDENT]"...Under the skies, on the roads, in the towns, in the woods, in the hills, in the plains, by the shores, on the seas, behind my mannikins, I was not always sad, I wasted my time, abjured my rights, suffered for nothing, forgot my lesson. Then a little hell after my own heart, not too cruel, with a few nice damned to foist my groans on, something sighing off and on and the distant gleams of bity's fires biding their hour to promote us to ashes..."
[/INDENT]pp386 - Anger, lonliness? I'm not quite sure[INDENT]"... I'm mute, what do they want, what have I done to them, what have I dont to God, what have they done to God, what has God done to us, nothing, and we've done nothing to him, you can't do anything to him, he can't do anything to us, we're innocent, he's innocent, it's nobody's fault, what's nobody's fault, this state of affairs, what state of affairs, so it is, so be it, don't fret, so it will be, how so, rattling on, dying of thirst, seeking determindedly, what do they want, they want me to be, this, that, to howl, stir, crawl out of here... I'm something quite different, a quite different thing, a wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and that I seek...."

[/INDENT]MY RATING: 7.8