Miller Late Modernism

7/30/2019 Miller Late Modernism

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Late Modernism

Pc, Fcn, an h Bn h W Wa

Tyrus Miller

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London


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168 READING LATE MODERNISM

interpretation: "Reach not beyond the image (3); "Bargain not inunknown gures (4).Yet of course she writes for none other than modernst readers, for men and women constitutionally incapable of takingthis advice. Before turning to the unhappy, laughable story of Ry der,she thus turns to her all-too-Ryderesque readers, and to herself perhaps, and pronounces "These things are as the back of thy head to thee.Thou hast not seen them ).

HAPE 5

Improved Out ofAll KowledgeSmul Bck

n chapter 3, suggested how the case of WyndhamLewis necessitates that we reconsider such inherited ideas of modernst

literary history as "the men of914. A large part of Lewis's career, andthe overwhelming majoriy of his published work, represented an ongoing attempt to show why that extraordinary convergence of innovativewriting could only be an ephemeral effort, and why the desire tomythologize that moment, as has indeed been done since then, waswrong-headed Focusing his critical energies both on broad socialpolitical developments such as the postwar youth cult and on new technologies of representation, Lewis came to two conclusions about highmodernist writing that its emphasis on form and syle was implicitlypolitical in nature and that its aesthetic way of viewing and practicingpolitics had become increasingly unviable A my readings seek to show,

Duna Barnes's work, too, should give pause befor the eorts of critics to subsume her into a historical picture of a vital, expatriate modernism, even if in her case most accounts have specied this modernismas feminist or "sapphic in its concerns A have demonstrated, Barnessaw the rise of all-women afliative communities and the breakup of traditional genealogical or domestic novel form as part and parcel of thesame broad modernist tendencies Barnes's wrtng emerges out of a situation in which this modernization of sexualiy could be assumed to bealready complete and irreversibleat least for American and Britishartsts living in Paris in the interwar years Yet while Barnes was in noway nostalgic for th liative bonds of family and patriarchal authoriy


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READING ATE MODERNISM

from which she had personally suffered much-she, like Lewis,remained skeptical about the strong positive claims made for modernism as a wayof living and of making art.Both writers, I have argued,evolved particua late modernist approaches to ction to express thsskeptcism; both explored the ambiguities and ambivalences of theirposition as "modernists who no longer found the redemptive pre-tenses of modernist art credible

Samuel Beckett's work has suered om similar misunderstandingsas that of these elder peers, especially given the impressive length of hisartistc career and his evolving but consistent corpus that spans omimitative pastiches of late Joyce to uncompromising postmodern minmalism.Although I must focus my discussion only on Becketts prewa,English-language writngs, I wi venture the claim that the concept oflate modernism helps us to situate and understnd the majorty ofBecketts works, both ction and drama, from More Pricks Than Kicksthrough the postwar French trlogy and early plays up to his return toprose witing i Ho t . Ths chapter represents a knd of genealogical account which, in demonstratng how Beckett came to call high

modernist poetcs i question and to evolve a late modernist approachto ction writing, takes a st step toward eshing out that claim andmaking it a citically usel propositon A more comprehensive development of this idea, however, wl have to await rther discussion of

Becketts whole body of witng, a task beynd the limited scope of thschapter.

I

Prior to his rst maor work as a writer of cton, the young Samuel

Beckett made his mak as a crtc and advocate of modernist witng In929 at age tw ty-three, he was among the handpicked contributorsto a volume of encomium and explicaton of James Joyces magnumopus in progress, eventualy to become Finnegans WakeBecketts essayfor the volume, "Dante ...Bruno .Vico ..Joyce, exhibits the youngTinity graduates formidable learning and analytic sklls, ong with hisunsteady tone, which from page to page careens from pedantry tosnling polemic, between scornl detachment and the enthusiasm ofa true believer in Joyces "revolution of the word. In 930 aer anexchange year in Pais as a lecturer at the cole Normle Suprieure, hewas commissioned to write a monograph on the writings of Marcel

IMPROVED OUT OF A KNOWEDGE

Proust (published 93) And throughout the mid tirtes, he continued his crtcal work by reviewing contemporay Iish and European literature for newspapers and literay peiodicals

These crtca essays provide a crucial point of reference in tracing theformaton of Samuel Beckett as a writer shaped by both the speciclyIrish cultura context and continental modernist literary trends Recentcritics such as ichard Keaney, J C C Mays, and John P Haringtonhave agued that these ealy critical texts reveal the previously underestmated extent of Becketts cognizance of and involvement in Iish cultural debates. In his essays and reviews, they suggest, Beckett workedout an atstic and culturalpolitcal stance against the backdrop of analmost absurdy restrctve censorship law and a ising tde of anticosmopolitan Catholic nativism.1 Yet while such contextual readings of thsealy work l an important gap in the Beckett cticism, more relevantfor my puose is Becketts ely encounter with modernist tendenciesranging om the cosmopolitanism of English-speaking expatriates inFrance to the cultural differences of French, German, Itaian, and Spanish modernist witers.

Both the Joyce and the Proust essays revea their author as a committed modernist initiate In the Joyce essay, Beckett provokes hisreader with a sneering swipe at the habit of "rapid skmming andabsoton of the scant cream of sense, a k nd of reading that might beappropriate to the mawkish reaism of the Victorian novel and its contemporary heirs but not to Work in Progress pages and pages of"directexpression."2 Similaly, Beckett notes with approva Prousts disdain fordescriptve literature, "for the realists and naturaists worshipping theoal of expeience, prostrate before the epidermis and the sw epilepsy,and content to transcribe the surface, the cade, behind whch the Ideais prisoner"3 He argues that in contrast to naturaistc description,"the

Proustian procedure is that of Apollo aying Marsyas and capturingwithout sentiment the essence, the Phrygian waters (Prost, 9).Overall, Beckett stresses the modernists attempt, through formal

innovaton and involuton, to tap into te source and essence of literature.Language, form, and content constitute a unity that supersedesany"parta l system of values The artst must concentrate mly on theworld to be disclosed wthin the work of art, not on some part of theworld he might reect, in a conventionalized mimesis, by means of it:

"For Proust the quity of language is more important than ny systemof etics or aesthetics Indeed he makes no attempt to dissociate formom content.The one is a concreton of the other, the revelaton of a


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RAING A MORNIM

word Prust 6 ) . orreativey eckett chapions works i n whichthe text's eaning devoves on the ateria and fora properties of itsartistic angage proecting a new for of hierogyphic iediacy awriing free of the odes and conventions governing ordinary signication yet arked by the deepest rigor of cra eckett cas his conication"direct expression in the Joyce essayDsjecta 26 ) and"atosybois in Prust ( o ) y attending to the intrinsic qaities ofiteratreabove a to iteratre's existence in and as angageheipies the writer risks the freedo of experience otside the stabeenta ora and ingistic fraes that render everyday ife inteigibe Experience beyond these iits is cose kin to adness both bcaseninteigibiity appears ad to those content to stay within the coonpace and becase the ine between radica art and insanity is a tooeasiy crossed Yet wiingness to ser for athentic experience is in thecritica view of the yong eck ett the test of the odern artist's integrity

eckett deineates here a rationae for odernist iteratre siiar tothat ater articated by Mche Focat in Les mts et les chses (TheOrder of Things In its eorts to ncover the essence and sorce of

angage Focat arges ode iteratre cononts those strctresthat constitte the iits of"the worda word ediated by the gridsand codes of inteigibiity by the architectre of proositions rendering the nknown knowabe Literatre becoes a "conterdiscorseto the discorses of the natra and han sciences a coocation ofdarknesses in the idst of their iinating sentences a is andadness at the heart of reasonabe speech Literatre Focat writes"encoses itsef wihin a radica intransitivity and becoes erey aanifestation of a angage which has no other aw than that of afring its own precipitos existence "4 In Focats view this intransitive angage eerges ost ceary in reation to rea adnessfor

exape that of the writers ayond Rosse and Antonin Atadbecase the experience of iits that iteratre represents points to anipossibe nbearabe insane exerience of spaces and intensities otside these iits 5 In his earier stdyMadness and Cvlzatn Foat arges that adness is the oent of trth of the work of odern art and at the sae tie its aboition Mode art and adness areibricated in a paradoxica diaectic

here is no adess exce as he a istant o he work of arhe workendessy dves adness to its iit; where there s a wrk fart there s nmadne; and yet adess is coneorary wh he work o art sine i

IMPROV OU OF A KNOWG 173iaugurates he me oits ruh. The moment when, together, the work ofart and madness are bo and lled is the beginning ofthe tme when teword ds iel arraigned by hat work of art and responsible before it orwhat it is 6

Taken to its ace odernist art reaies the "absence of the workthe adness that was a aong the trth of the odernist artwork yet

nreaiabe as (hat) work oth adness and its anifestation in theodernist artwork contest the "reasonabe word of knowedge aborand rationaied breacratic power

Anaogosy eckett appeas to a hoistic enta experience as essenia to art an experience abe to incde not st the rationay or traditionay sanctioned bt aso the radicay new o r"other In a defense ofthe poet Denis Devin in a 193 review he ths asserts the coprehensive sope of artistic consciosness against restricve deands for "carity "The ie is perhaps not atogether too green for the vie sggestion hat art has nothing to do with carity does not dabbe in the cearand does not ake cear any ore than the ight of day (or night)akes the sbsoar nar and stear excreent Art is the sn oonand stars of the ind the whoe ind Dsjecta 94). The "whoeind eckett ipies incdes not st the raiona portions bt thosethat are irrationa sient or ad as we Devin's creativity he concdes aows "a ini of rationa interference; his "is a indaware of its inaries Dsjecta 94). In a diaoge between eacqaand "the Mandarin in Dream fFar t Mddlng Wmen the abandoned precrsor of Mre Prcks an Kcks eacqa oers a reatedview of eethoven and Ribad "I was speaking of the incoherentcontin as expressed by say ibad and eethoven Theters of whose stateents serve erey to deiit the reaity of theinsane areas of sience whose adibiities are no ore than nctation

in a stateent of siences How do they get fro poin to point The"stateents of odern art retrn to he sorce of sic or iteratrereveaing in their singar concentration on sond or angage an aterity inherent to the edi the sience and insignicance fro whichsic and angage eerge They set gre and grond in pay exposing he iits of hany prodced signicance by aking sensibe asa kind of di hao arond the work the adness and contingency keptat bay by he artists iposition of aestheic necessity

These agents of eckett and Focat ntended to defend andegitiate odernist writing aso reect genera assptions and


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7 RADN LA MODRNSM

concens of modenism. Although eculialy inected, thei concenwith a sef-eective, self-efeential, essentializing actice of intansitive witing can e seen as aticiating in high modenism's foegounding of pismlgical olems in thei elation to witing.8Modenst liteatue stages a cisis in the linkage etween the mind andeality, etween suect and oect "the utue, as Beckett ut it inhis 1934 eview of "Recent Iish Poety, "of the lines of communication Disjcta 70) Fo Beckett the cucia oint aout this eistemological "eakdown is not any one aticula esonse of the witethee ae seveal he entetains as valid

he att wh i awae o ths [ute] may state the sace that ntevenesetween hm an the wo ect he may ste t as nman'sandHeesnt vaum accng as he haens to e eeng esent nostac meey deessed.... he may ceeate the c mots aecetn. He may even ecod hi ings, i he i a man geat esna ouage. (Disjcta 7

Rathe than this o that esonse none of which may on gounds of

cntnt e favoed, the degee ofawarnssemodied in the wok is theultimate standad of value.This consciousness is, aove all, cultivated inand communicated though the intnsic natue of witing.

In its essentials, Beckett's osition is not unlike the classic modenistosition aticulated moe than thee decades ealie y Joseh Conadin the eface to Nr fth Narcius. Conad's atist, confontedy the "enigmatical sectacle of the wold, "descends within himself,and in that lonely egion of stess and stife . .. ds the tems of hisaea he is aandoned to "the stammeings of his conscience and tothe outsoken consciousness of the diculties of his wok."9 Beckett,in tun, as late as 1934, eafms the heoic ethos of high modeism,

in which the atist, tough enough to elinquish his illusions, may isksanity and social aoval fo lucid awaeness of his situation. Pat ofBeckett's "untimey commitment in his ctcal wok to a high modenist stance may follow fom the aaent ackwadness of the Iishcontet that he addessed in his ealy witings.A John aington utsit with undestated iony, "common thought in Ieland o out of Ieland would question whethe Dulin in the 1930s was an induitalyeesentative eamle of a moden society' In answeing withegad to his own case, Beckett might have quoted his own "Dante andthe ste, fom the quickly censoed Mr Pricks an Kic "It isnot. Beckett had to tavel to ndon to e sychoanalyzed, fo in the

MPROD OU O ALL KNOWLD 7 5

Ireland of the time Dr.Freud's talking cure was proscribed as a temp-tation to atheism andsexual license. Ifin France and Britain claims formodernism's oppositional character were already subject to doubt, theFree State surely would have seemed to Beckett stll in need of somemodernistic kickingagainst the pricks.

In a 193 eview ulished in transitin Beckett agued that theoective situation itself dictated a modenist esonse om the witeThe socia situationthe modenist cisis of oth suect and oectthe olitical contet of scism and communismequied at to etunto its essence as question, as what Foucault calls "countediscouse"At has always een thisue inteogation, hetoical question lessthe hetoicwhateve else it may have een oliged y the social eality' to aea ut neve moe eely so than now, when social ealitypac e-comade Radek) has seveed the conneion Disjcta 91).The atist's challenge to the status quo, whethe that of Ieland o ofEuoe, of liteay hait o of eessive olitical egimes, lies in hisconsciousness of at's social seaation. e must vigilantly occuy theautonomous sace of liteatue and maintain his awaeness against any

illusions of econciliation.

II

Fr sinc whn wr Wat's cncrns with what things wrin rali?

Samuel Beckett, Wa

o fa the ictue I have given of Beckett is that of a young citic committed to the defense and legitimation of high modenist witing in the

tadition of Conad, Joyce, Poust, Eliot, and othes. Yet this imageefes imaily to his citicism, which is also to say, to his ole as aeviewe and commentato within the Irish iteay contet. Recentinvestigations of oth gene and nationaity, howeve, should alet u s toossile dieences etween and within genes of cultual oduction,esecially as these geneic distinctions intesect with national ones the"Fench novel, the "English novel, etc) To take a simle eamle,thus, "modenism may look quite diffeent in a aticula san ofyeas deending on whethe one is eamining the English, the Russian,the Geman, o the Agentine contet.imilaly, within the limited contet of "Anglo-Ameican wtes in Pais in the 1920s, thee may e


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x8o EADG AE ODES

linguistc choices, as they composed works of ction outside of tradional odels of plot and character.The degree of awareness the wrterexhibited in handling these problems served as the utmate standard forthe integrity and value of the work, whle the literary qualites of thework were, reevely, taken as evidence of ths awareness. Beckett takesa step outside of the specular closure this value system presumes, anautonomy of both author and work om extra-artistc determination,

to ca in question the whole centerng of literary value in consciousnessand to unleash the idiocy" of language freed om the burden of intention and truth. Put otherwise, and taking more dis tance from modernism's aesthetic ideology: Beckett breaks the modernist juncturebeween textual gures of subjectivity (whether tropes or largerscaleforms) and knowledge, the presupposition that aesthetic value andtruh converge in such gures and hat he auhor's task is to seek indefatigably to uncover them om their hiding places (suppressed traditons, mthic archetypes, the unconscious, the etymological depths oflanguage) and renew them for the present (Make It New"). He amsinstead to desublimate, wholesale, such gures of consciousness strain

ing aer the eeting beauty of anguished truth.In his early ction, from Mre Prcks an Kcks to Watt Beckettdesublimates consciousness not just through wicked parody of theseedy intellectual or artsttype characters in his works, in the aws andfoibles of his comic semblables but also in making his own act of writing ridiculous, his risible handlng of literary enunciation and narration.If the character Murphy, for example, in keeping wth Henr Bergson'sdenition of the comic, exhibits a mechanical inelasticity, an inability toadjust to he modern, bureaucratccommercial London hat lies outside his mind, that maladjustment is equally a feature of Beckett's compositon ofMurphy. His ostentatiously clumsy handling of chronology;

his prosaic crossreferencing from secton to section, typical of academicand techncal discourse but not literary narrative; the battery of clichs,asides, arcanities, and malapropismsall these exhibit at the level ofnarratvit he same loss of conrol in he face of social raonalzatonhat makes Murphy a comic gure n he text The specular closure ofauthor and language is broken by a third factor, a force irrupting fromwithout a technologicalsocial force, which leaves its trace in theautomatsms, the creaking syntactical rat traps, he mechanical inelasticit" of those very images of voice, body, and affectivity that should,yet cannot, converge into mimetcally plausible characters" Instead ofprojectng meanings for a ture hermeneutc reading, a labor of ds

POVED OU O A KOWEDGE 8

closing truths blocked and mocked in advance by deliberate erasuresand deadend allusions, Beckett's late modernist works assiduously cancel meanings, suspend interpretations, i n defensive laughter. To themodernist investment of form with a pregnancy of meaning, Beckettcounterposes the (in, de) forming prnciple of riant spaciousness"

Beckett's compositional risktakng extends into his relation withcultural traditon For modernist writers saw consciousness not simply

as an index of culural crisis but also as an agency for the redempton ofhe past, especially as embodied in texts In his provocative essayAgainst U," Leo Bersan draws out the way in which Joyce's modernism envisages literature, pulverzed and reconstuted whin Uas the salvaton of culture as such

inulges massively in quotaon ...bt quoting in oyce is theopposite of seleaceent t is an act o appropriaton, whch can be peoe wihout oyce's voice ever being hea . oyce iaclously econciles uncopromising imesis wih a solipsisc sucue Westen cultue is save, inee goe, hrogh iteay metempsychosis it des inhe oycean paoy and pasiche, bt, once eoved o histoical ime,

it is esecte as a ieless esign. a o contesing he auhot oclture, reinvents o relation to Weste clte in tems o eegetical evoion, hat is, as he eegesis o iel 24

In contrast, Beckett presents the cultural allusion as inconsequental, atbest an effect of language's incessant dalogue (Hearng nothng I amnone the less a prey to communications"), at worst an automatsm, aknd of reex acton or mental dribbling (Anyhing rather than thesecollege quips")25 A Bersani notes

eckett's ahentic avantgadis consists in a break not only wih them ostee by cltural discose but, oe adically, wih culual iscorse ielhe mystery o his work is how it is not ony sustane but evenbegun, o intetealt in Beckett .. is not a pnciple o cltural coninuit .. but he occasion or a kin o psychoic aving Culal emories eist in he ins o Beckett's chaactes like ossils belonging to anoher age26

I might quibble with Bersani's use of the term avantgardism," whichrases more quesons han it resolves; but seen in light of what I take tobe his intent, to illustrate Beckett's break from he modernist use ofallusion, the point is well taen27

The strans in Beckett's relations wth oyce, boh literary and personal, can already be seen in he unpublished Dream fFar t Mddlng


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8 READNG AE MODERNSMWmennd its successor, Mre Prcks an Kcks.8 Athe linguistic tex

tures of Dreamrevel, Beckett tred out the Fnnans Wakestyle. The excerpted cpter entitled Sedendo et Quiesciendo,"published in theMrch transtnnd obviously linked to the stories collected inMre Prcks an Kcks (it concerns Belcqu's trip to Germny to visit

the Smerldin "),rings like n excised section of Wrk n Prgress:

n epignn exiled drem- Dtes scemng in the plnetrees nd feezing the sn with pecock fethes nd t lst t lest dmenty lck swn wh he loodek nd ! fo he ldderek of e little tln postmn Oh who cn hold re in hs hnd y inkng on the fosy css ee oh hee oh t tho ple wh weness hope yes e connentl thid-clss insomni mong the relctntly militry philologists sleep nd med s to nsls nd dentls ghte DMW 6429

By the end of the rst prgrph, Beckett hs run through mny of Fnnans Wakesignture mnnerisms: references to sleep ( dre

ntes," werinss," insomni," sleep "),the coupling of myth ndpopulr song ( Prometheus: h who cn hold re in his hnd by

thinking on the frosty ucsus "), comiclly recontextulized literry tgs ( rt thou ple with weriness "),sonic declintions of words (hero:ere oh here oh "), nd punning references to lnguge nd inter pre

ttion (rmed to the teeth militry philologists," rmed s to nsls nd dentls "). The problem with ll this is, of course, tht technicllysklll nd ironiclly self-wre s it might be,it is ded end if one's nme is not mes oyce ut Smuel Beckett. It my e rgued, of course,tht Beckett is consciously prodyig oyce here,d certinlyBeckett is wre tht he is not offering his reder the pges nd pges "

of direct expressio "tht he climed for his elder's Wrk n Prgressinnte . Bruno Vico . . oyce" At the sme time, however,it is

esy to detect the lck of determinte nd independent voice in DreamfFar t Mddlng Wmens whole,nd Beckett ws not wrong when

he remrked of Sedendo et Quiesciendo " tht it stnks of oyce in spite of most ernest endevours to endow it with my own odours. "30

n his Dream fFar t Mddlng Wmenwhich never cme togetherinto publishble work, Beckett ironiclly expressed doubts bot hisbility to mster his complex mteril nd give it unied form. nepssge,for exmple,involves Belcqu's vision of book Ifever dodrop book, which God forbid,trde being wht it is,it will be rmshckle,tumledown, one-shker, held together with bits of twine,nd t the sme time s innocent of the slightest velleity of coming

MPROVED OU O A KNOWEDGE

unstuck as Mr Wright's origialying-machinethatcould everbeper

suadedto leave the ground.' Butthere he was probablywrong " (Dis-

jecta, so; DFM I39 !40). Beck ett latercanialized therejected

manuscript of Dreamforhis sho rt story collection More Pricks Than

Kicks. The decl ining course of this work,froma Finnegans Wake-like

novel to a Dubliners-like short story collection,would seem to indicate

that Beckett's s wervefrom the Jo ycean model was in the rst instance

impelledby his inability to handlethe complicatedmode of writing thatJoyce hadevolved over yearsof dedcated literary work. Yetas Harrng

ton argues, Beckettwasnomore ableto developa positive revisionary

relationshiptoDublinersthhe was ableto beat Joyce athisown (lan

guage)game inthe modeof the Wake. For unlike Joyce, Beckett w as

unableto faci litate an ydialogue e tweenhis rep resentations o frish

cultural paralysis and the possibilitiesof renewal impliedin the sophisti

cated narratveconsciousnessarranging the stories.Infact,for Bec kett,

Dublinerswone morepart of theproblem,onemore cultural encrus

tation amongothers. In More Pricks Tan Kicks,"Harringtonwrites,

the e xampleofDublinersappearsunsalvagealyrigid Beckett's

use ofDubliners,updating without positiverevision,couldnotbe assimilated yaliteraryculturecommittedtosomesocialsalvation"31

Where Beckett mde n dvnce in Mre Prcks Than Kcksws,insted, i his relton to his wnerlier text, relton tht he wouldlter generlize to intertextulity s such. A clue to the nture of this reltion cn be found in the lst story, rf f," which recounts the events following the deth of the book's ntihero Belcqu due to n ccident during routne surgery. Beckett writes of Belcqu's frend ndsuccessor in the ffecti ons of the redoubtble Smerldin, pp er iry " Quin:

Belcqu ded nd ured, y seemed to hve tken on new lese of

life. ehps he exlnton of is ws ht whle Belcq ws live ry cold not e himself,or, if yo pefe,cold e nohing else ee

s now he denct,sch of hs pts t lest s might e mde to t,colde pessed into sevice, incorpoted i e dly ellipses of ppe ui whot his hvng to ce he isk of expose. Aledy Belcqu ws not wholly ded,ut meely mutlted.32

Within this pssge is subtle nod to the intertextul logic of MrePrcks Than Kcks, its mutiltion nd prtil incorportion of the

filed Dream fFar t Mddlng Wmenwhich lso hd Belcqu's life s its centrl thred. In turn, mutilted incorportion " will become


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READNG LAE MDERNSM

Market and te Pentonvile prison, reses to participate Muphy isforced by circumstances and the blandishments of his prostitute-companion Cea to seek work. Although he avoids it assiduously, workeventually nds him in the form of a plea by the Dublin pot-poetAustin Ticklepenny, who accosts Murphy in the British Museum, toserve a s a replacement for hm as an attendant at the Magdalen MentalMercyseat sanatorium Murphy's nal transplantation,into a tiny garret

in the MMM ., eventuallyleads to his accidentaldeath, aer agas heating contrapton rigged up by Ticklepenny goes w rong. Murphy's nar-rative course is not simply a comicdistortion of a quite ordinary urbanexperience, frequent changes of rented residences; it is expliciy thecontingencies of urbanspeculation and development, the quid pro quoof city life, that is the "prime mover of Murphy's story To put itbluntly, urban capitalism, an not the epistemological dilemmas ofmind and body, is the motivating force behind Murphy's perilouscourse o m West Brompton to Islington to te suburbanmental institution where he eetshs death Murphy's mnd/body drama, so heaviy the focus of critics, is at best a defensive protest against the contin

gent socal forces that constany undermine his illusory autonomy.Beckett underscores tis tension between Muphy's striving for pureconsciousness and the ratonalizing dynamics of urban "progress intwo other scenes, aming hs fatel encounter with Ticklepenny Notwishing to lose Celia who goads hm to seek work Murphy applies fora "sart boy positon at a chandlery in Gray's InnRoad H e is not justturned down; he is brutalized with insultand scorn:

"E an' sar, sad the candler, "no by a long cor e an."Nr e an' a boy, said te chandler's seiprvae convenence, "no

o y ind e an'"E don' loo ghy huan o e, said the chandler's eldes wase

produc, "no rgy (Mu 77)

Worn down by his trbulations, Murphy looks for a place to sit down:

Tere was nowere. Tere ad once been a sall publc garden sou ofthe Royal Free Hospal, bu now par of i lay bued under one of tosealignan proliferatons of urban tssue now as servce as and the reswas reserved for the bacera. (Mu 77)

Service ats are something ke protocondominums, in which services,especially domestic are paid for in te price of the rent. (Clearly suchupscae housing is out of the reach of the seedy boheman Murphy, theemigre prostitute Celia, and their ilk) Speculative development, in

MPRVED U F ALL KNWLEDGE

league with te institutiona iron cage of market hospita asylum, andprison, is closing in on Murphy's mental rege His regressive fantasyexpliciy unfolds as a protest against social rationalization:

He leaned weaky agains e lngs of te Royal Free Hospial, ulplying hs vows o erase this vsion of Zion's antpodes for ever fro hs reperory if only he were iedaely waed o his rocngchair and allowed oroc for ve nues o s down was no longer enough, he u insist now

on lyng down. ny old clod of the well-nown English urf would do, onwhch he igh lie down, cease o ake notce and ener the landscapeswhere there were no chandlers and no exclusive residental cancers, bu onlyself iproved ou of all nowledge ( Mu 79 )

Nevertheless, Murphy is foiled in this desire by his own weariness andthe lack of public space in the city. Having nowhere to ie down, he hasno choice but to have tea an hour before he was due t salivate (Mu79 ) and go to the British Museum to contemplate the aniquities Aerhis encounter at the museum wth Ticklepenny, who convinces Murphyto take over hs post at the menta nstitution, and rther adventureswth Miss Rosie Dew, whose dog eats te cookes Murphy has lad out

on the grass, Murphy nally gets his longneeded chance to regress.er some vain attep to think through his situation, he lets go

He . . . dsconneced hs ind o te gross poruntes of sensatonand reecton and coposed hself on the hollow of hs back for the orpor e ad been cravng o ener for he pas ve hours. . . Nothing cansop e now, was s las though before he lapsed ino conscousness, andnothing wll sop e. In effec, noting dd tu up o sop h and heslipped away, o the pensus and prizes, fro elia, chandlers, publicighways, ec, o ela, buses, publc gardens, ec, o were tere wereno pensus and no przes, bu only Murphy hself, iproved ou of allnowledge. (Mu )

This time, Beckett's repetition ofte clich "improved out ofall knowledge and his punning suggestion of the phrase "( col)lapsed into(un)consciousness underscore that Murphys mental autonomy isreally a lapse m consciousness, a jesoning of knowledge so as todeny the alterity of a social world that may cause suffering. Yet suby,Beckett also suggests the fragile and illusory nature of Murphy'sdefense. hen e wtes that "n effect, nothing did tu up to stophim, he implies that Murphy's success was a contingent one Something could have just as easily happened along to disturb him: like thepoliceman that keeps Murphys precursor Belacqua moving along in thestory "A Wet Nigt, for instance40


14/24

READG LAE MODERSM

For a short while Murphy will consider the mental asylum where heworks as a r ege om the outer world of ser vice ats cops and the quid pro quo Per aps here in the solipsistic enclosure of madnesshecan achieve his long-sought mental autonomy from the contingenciesof everyday life. Yet Beckett subtly exposes the shadow of a het eronomous social power darkening even the arcadian glades of the Magdalen Mental Mercysea t on the one handin the economic privi

lege of the patients which allows them to live in a private relatively benign institution ;on the otherthrough the bullying head nurses om Bim " and im Bo " Clinch hese latter gures are highly signi

cant because through a largely occulted allusion Beckett mocks not just the comic face of social domination but also is own quixotic searchfor a mode ist utopia in the Joycean revolution of the word"

he names Bim "and Bo " allude to a pai r of clowns rst playedin 8 by Ivan Radunskii and Felix ortezi While Bim remained the exclusive property of Raduns ii for the more than half century that B im- Bo was active Kortezi's Bo was replaced by four different part

ners up through 46. Radunskii and his partners were formerly

jesters in the circuses of czarist Petersburg and Moscow latterly made to perform in public spectacles in the Soviet Union. hroughout their careerthey combined satire and publicistic commentary with song andacrobatic clowningusing broomssawsfrying pansvisiting cardsandreading stands as improbable musical instruments hey toured in ParisBudapest Berlin Prague and other European capitals and were e

quently recor ded on gramophone and m. er the r evolution their act spawned numerous imitators whose names reproduced their model's original phonemic stammer in countless new guises:in-onBib- Bob Fis-is Viis- Vais and m- Rom2

Bim and Bo werein e ctthe fools of despotic power hey wereknown for their absurdist antihumor their banal non-sequiturs concealing a sly social satire. In lexander Sera movich's novel of the Rus sian Revolution a gramophone recording of Bim- Bom's play TheLaughgrips the advancing Red rmy troops in a paralyzing spasm of

laughter nearly bringing the revolution to a halt It is only w hen a grimly determined Bolshevik smashes the reactionary gramophone that the day is saved 3 Yet despite Bim- Bom s counterrevolutionary activities " (at least in literature ) during the civil war and their topical satire of Bolshevik foibles,they ourished even during the dark years of Stalinis t terror Raduns ii died at the age of eighty -two in

Figure 10 Te Russian cowns Bi and Bo in 1906.

Figure 1 1 . Te Russian cowns Bi and Bo in 1 926


15/24


16/24

9 RADNG LA ODRNS

nsetting resonance. First it sharpens and politicizes Becketts antitopia debnking of Mrphy's failed solidarity with the inhabitants ofthe asylm In the context of the midthrtes it allegorically depicts theoen grotesqe tility and self-delsion of many artsts' attemp toembrace commnism Beckett satirically exposes the regime of dominaton behind the rhymed depersonalized self of madness (Mrphy'stopia and the sperpersonal self(the commnist topia of the mili

tant intellectalSecond it hmorosly seconds Lewis's contention that the mod

ernist revoltion of the word sbty conforms to the social order it professes to transcend. For oddly enogh thogh apparently opposed tothe vlgar managerial mentality of his clownish bosses Mrphy doestheir work far more ecienty than a more conventonal warder: Hissccess with the patients was little short of scandalos . . . [T]hepatients shold have identied Mrphy with Bo & Co . . . . The greatmajority failed to do so . . hatever they were in the habit of doingfor Bo & Co they dd more readily for Mrphy And in certain matters where Bo & Co. were obliged to coerce them or restrain them

they wold sffer Mrphy to persade them Mu 2) If the mental asylm is in fact a microcosmic society then Beckett depicts hereone of the crxes of modern politcs: the relation between force andconsent in the governng of society Like the radical artst whose oppositonal gestres are exhibited as evidence of the state's tolerance Mrphy represents for the asylm a margin of dssidence recperated by thesystem ofpower fostering consent rather than provoking repression.48The oppositional intellectal represented by Mrphy becomes thenwitting tool of the art of being rled To pt it somewhat differenty: if the mental patents rep resent a general withdrawal from the di scorse and activity of normal life t hey s ffer Mrphy to persadethem to bring them back into the discrsive fold where power may bemore sbtly effectated on bodies Mrphy in his aesthetic longing fora transgration of everyday experience becomes the happy colonizerof social heterogeneity. Where before existed only the crde sbdialoge of rejecton and answering violence Mrphy establishes a consensal discorse ths converting brte power to perloctionaryspeech.

Finally the specter of repressive tolerance conjred by the Sovietclowns Bim and Bo hants Beckett's own literary project as he himself was painlly aware Late modernist ction recognizes its own fatalcomplicity with the fallen world it explores; it offers not a topian exit

PROVD OU OF ALL KNOWLDG 9

bt a riant expression of impasse Laghter Beckett sggests occpiesthe thin edge between sbversion and recperation between the eedom to dissent and the imperfect srveillance that anticipates and preempts that freedom There is he sggests in Murphy, no longer anyclearly dened inside or otside of social power and hence no lastingasylm from it in art madness Prostian remembrance or any othermodernist locs of transcendence No clear-ct opposition of society

and its carceral instittions and hence no topian exteriors. Only resistances and wtl1drawas stations in the relay between forest and hospital beachhead and holding cell: netral pointsthe crossroads thewaitng room the dtch the bedwhere a stffening brst of laghtermight sond for a moment to lend relie49

v

Beckett replaces selfreexive consciosness as a literary organizingprinciple wth means that emphasize social and semantc contingency

and an irredcible alterity at the hert of the word (inclding theword I His choice of tites for example offers an index of this shi.In an essay on the langage of modernist cton David Lodge sggestively observes the difference between the titles of earlier realistnovels and those of modernist ction: The Edwardian realists likethe Victorians before them tended to se the names of places or persons for titles Kipps, New Grub Street, Anna othe Five Towns, TheForsyte Saga) while the moderns tended to favor metaphorical orqasi-metaphorical tites Heart oDarkness e Wings othe Dove, APassage to India e Rainbow, Parades End To e Lhthouse, UlyssesFinnegans Wake)."5 Beckett's rst work More Pricks Than Kickswold appear to t in with the modernist metaphorical titlesalthogh his pnning conjnction of the Bible with the pricks ofDblin bohema aready dspels mch ofthe ara of prondity that srronds his predecessors' resonant ttles His next ve novels howeverbreak with this pattern: Murphy, Watt, Molloy, Malone Dies, and eUnnameable.5 Yet while these titles are drily nevocative they nevertheless hardly represent a retrn to the reaistic metonymic ttles ofthe Victorian and Edwardian novels. Instead Beckett's titles are prposely empty signs: abstractions common names or even pns thatredoble te contingency of the reference of an ndistingished namelke Watt (what? or Mrphy to a partclar character2


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READNG ATE MDERNSM

eckett als emplys such cntingent evices as the pun r paricallusin in the guratin f his characters In a jke that cul refer asmuch t the cmic artist-creatr as t its stensile ivine target, thenarratr muses in urphy: "What ut an imperfect sense f humurcul have mae such a mess f chas In the eginning was the punAn s n ( ). Punning is implcate in the genesis f a character lkeMurphy, with his rcking chair cmplement In her excellent sy f

eckett's cmc evces Ruy Chn ntes the "k-lng mprtance f the "cmine misplace literalism an pun ff hisrcker. 53 This gure she ntes itself ttters eween literal an gural senses the plarties f which are antithetica "In the wrls eyesMurphy is ff his rcker when he is rcking lisslly an nakely.ut fr Murphy that is the est way f retiring int his micrcsm. Itis in the macrcsm literally ff his rcker that he feels guratively ffit ( ) .54

Chns insightl analysis cul e extene Just as Murphys inversin f values sets the lteral an gural imensins i n mutaly ppseplay the real inversin f the rcker in chapter sets in mtin anther

scillatin playe ut ver the curse f the narrative: eween Murphys suspensin f ily life in his rcking-inuce trances an thepunctuatin f rea ily eath. At the en f chapter Murphy isrckig, an the narratr tells us "Sn his y wul e quiet, snhe wul e ee u ) Lming eath in the frm f a heart palpitatin interrupts Murphys rcking an he vertrns the chair. Celians him in chapter in a iscmte state:

Muphy was as ast hear of, with his iffeece hwee, that the rcgchr was nw n tp hus inerte his y ect cntact wih he was hat mae y face whch was gun agst it His atte ghly speking was that f a vey inexperience ier at t ente the water

excep tha rms were nt extee t ek the ccssin ut stene ehi him Mu 2)

eckett perfrms this cmic vilence nt just against Murphy ut alsagainst the natral spatiality f his gure f the rcking chair In ings he las rther puns nt an areay teetering cnstructin Murphy ke the ieaist Hegel in the view f Marx stans the rea wrln its hea while "grun can either e tken t mean a "funatin (an ths might e taken as a phlsphical an architecural r ananatmical reference) r the past participle f "t grin (a mechanicalactin akin t that f the rcker) Nt nly then, es eckett play

MRVED UT F A KNWEDGE I9eween the cnntatins f"ff an "n his rcker he als plays nthe iealist an asely materal senses f "staning n nes hea an"inversin ( later evelpe in its sexua sense in the persn f pt-petAustin Ticklepeny)

This gural cluster generate ut fpuns an wrplay in trn isperses int narrative nctins key plt nuclei in fact Rear-up an facewn Murphy greets Celia, wh signicantly ntices fr the rst time

Murphys huge rthmark n his rght uttck. Mre than w hunre pages later ths scene recurs in altere frm. At the en f chapter Murphy ges up t his mew an rcks fr the last time The nratr again tells us "Sn his y was quiet ( u 2) an weshrtly learn that Murphy has nce again een interrupte y eath,this time entivey in the frm f an accient with the gas ne. Murphys charre crpse in nee f ienticatin must nce again etrne ver in an irnic repetitin f the previus "upening Celiahaving nce y accient seen Murphys irthmark is nw ale t ienti him y its remnants. In the nal en Murphys whle system f values is verturne: neither his name nr his mn is any prf f ien

tity ut ny ths scarlet maculatin f his asest part.The cmic gural an narrative nctins f the rcking chair

nt hwever exhaust the effectiveness f ths image in urphy. ralng with its asic cmic tenr it carries isquieting resnances. Iwul suggest that these vertnes cme m ecketts evcatin fan unsatising irritating even saistic sexual apparatusas if in thetexts imaginary the un nake Murphy lankly staring ut int thesemiark f the rm were the uncanny ule f a man trtre (rurne as nee the case s t eath Here the cmparsn t cntempraneus sculptral wrk f Alert Giacmetti (with whm y eckett ha frme a lasting frienship)55 is striking.56 Gia

cmettis wrk f the 0s inuence y his cntact with the surrealists an with the circle arun Gerges atailles Documents, tk thesurrealist interest in the peticay resnant ject nt a previusyunexplre area: perverse an saistic erticism gure in Giacmettswrk y ustrating gamelike assemlages An example with clse imagistic analgies t Murphy's rcker is the wrk Suspended Ba. Itcnsists f an upturne crescentlike wege ver which a all is suspene y a wire The all rests n the weges sharp cncave ege anis grooved along the axis where it makes contact. Its simple, machine-

like elements are amiguusly ce masculine/feminine mile/static animate/ea ertic/celate.


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READNG LAE MODERNSM

r 12 ro Gco uee B 19301931 sr 61 X 36 X 33 5 ss Rs Soc S Yo / DG s Rpoc prsso o Gico oo Kss

Zc

oslind russ hs suggsd h icom mploys chniqussimilr o Mrcl uchmps in his Le Gl (which I discussd inconuncion wih Brns in chpr 4 ) , whil scling uchmpsurbn coldnss ino mor violn sdism. upended Bll sh wris

is li uchps e l n pprus for h disconncion of hsxs h nonlln of dsir B uene B is o xpliciysdisic hn e Bre tre Bre or h sliding cion h visibly

IMROVED OU OF ALL KNOWLEDGE

rs h sculprs grovd sphr o is wdgshpd prnr suggssno y h c of crssing b h of cuing rcpiing for xpl h sunnng gsr fro h opnng of hen du s rzorslics hrough n opnd y

Bcs chir migh lso b ccurly chrcrizd in is mdiionbwn Murphy nd li s n pprus for h disconncon ofh sxs" I drws Murphy clos o h pr of himslf h h lovs

(h mind) nd wy from h pr of himslf h h hs which inurn drws him o li nd h uphmisiclly dsignd music" hms wih hr li icoms sculpur i is hund by sxulizd violnc qui diffrn from h unforun coupls vrblcung of h rips" ou of on nohr whn hy r oghr

My comprison of Murphys rocr o icomis upended Bllis inndd o shd ligh on pculir drisiv logic of disgurion oruomuilion in hs wors. Immnn o hir cnrl imgs is ninsbiliy n xposur of h bsrcd humn gur o dfcing violnc coming from byond is limis. This violnc is no so much gurdh is succsslly rprsnd by n innionl conscious

nsss drmtzed in h shring of h gurs ingriy n indxof h minds filur o conin xrior violnc by rprsning i.Thcorporl gur coninully dformd by h vry oscillions of ismchnism bcoms no mor hn h ngncy of coninully shiingrys of inrprions simulnously drmind nd discrdid by cslss mobiliy As russ wris (gin rfrring o icomis upended Bll) In is connul movmn is consn lron hisply of mning is hus h ncmn in h symbolic rlm of h lirl moon of h wors pndulr cion"5 8 h ply" russdscribs migh us s wll b clld h inrdicion of ply no morply sinc i ncs in h symbolic rlm h rlms coningncy s

whol is vulnrbiliy o n our violnc in which mning unrvlsnd dissips.Murphys ls roc in fc is dspr mp o dfnd himslf

gins h disguring violnc Ar his chss gm nd his disillusioning rcognion h h prfc wihdrwl chivd by h schizo phrnic Mr Endon is closd o him Murphy bndons his rounds ndgos ousid ino h nigh ir. H srps off his clohs nd lis downin h grss H ris o imgin wihou succss h fcs of li hismohr his fhr. His mnl imgs bcom mor nd mor frg mnry unl scrps of bdis of lndscps hnds ys lins ndcolours vong nohing ros nd climbd ou of sigh bfor him s


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200 REAING LAE MOERNISM

though reeled upward off a spool level with his throat. It was his expe

ience that this should be stopped, whenever possible, before the deep er

coils were reached" (Mu 252) Murphy is in danger-the anatomicaprecision of a spool level with his throat" should ot be missedof

osing his head" He hastens to his garret to rock his mind into peace,

but meets a painl, disguing death instead

This fate is not only a ludicrous lllment of the threat Murphy

sought to evade It is a so an elaborate redoubling of the sexuasadisticvisual pun already implicit in Muphy's chair The agent of Murphy's

death is the makeshi heating system igged up by the homosexua ex

poet Ticklepenny Having found a gas line in the WC below Murphy'sgarret and a small radiator, Tickepenny uses an assortment of odd partsto make the connections:

he extremes havng ths been estabished, nothng remained bt to makethem meet hs was a duty whose fascinatons were faia to hom the days when as a pot poet he had abored so ong and so lovngyto jon the ends of hs pentameters He soved it in ess than two hors bymeans of a series of dscarded feed tbes eked ot wth caesurae of gas,

thanks to which gas was now beng pored into the radator (Mu 17

Murphy comicaly, wbe done in by the fault construction o f a badpoet But the whole scene that Beckett establishes by means of thisappaatus stages Muphy's death as a grotesque mechanica simulacrum

of intercourse and orgasm The naked Murphy, bound to his chair,

rocking back and forth, eyes open, in the dark; the tight, womblike

space of the garret ling up with the moisture of Murphys breath and

the acrid scent of gas; Ticklepenny's phallic contraption worming in

om below Murphy's rockng faster and faster-the sudden explosion

Seen as an elaborate visual pun, the scene of Murphys literal disgura

tion and defacement (his only remaining feature being his posteriorbirthmark) contains an underlying sadistc phantasm Murphy tied up

and sodomized by a dysnctiona machine

The debasing character of Beckett's punning, both verbal and imag

istic, can be claied by comparison to that of his predecessor (and hero

of the surrealist and exsurrealist French writers with whom Beckett had

contact), aymond Roussel59 Rousse used techniques like taking two

homonymic sentences (more easily found in French than Engish) as the

beginning and end of a story, and witing a narrative to provide a moti

vated relation between their accidentally contiguous statements In his

posthumously published testament, Hw I Wrte Certain fMyBks

IMPROVE OU OF ALL KNOWLEGE 201

( 19 3 5 ), Roussel unveils the even more recondite set of techniques by

which he created his fantastic novels, Lcus S/us and Impressins fAica These books were systematic concatenations of images generated out of puns Thus, to take just one example, he would take an ordi

nary expression of two parts joined by a preposition- (apel) mauerite (daisy, oen worn in a buttonhole)-and substitute for theconstitutive terms secondary meanings revers (militay defeat Mar

guerite (woman's name) The rst, generative seed would never appearin the text, but rather the narrative unfolding of the second, improba

ble image hence the battle of Tez lost by Yaour dressed as Faust's

Marguerite60 Roussel's stories oat eerily above everyday speech,pointng to the blank spaces in it while concealing the secret aments

that tether his literary wonderland to the bana cosmos of clichs Fou

cault sees Roussel's technique as a kind of animation and personication

of the structura features ofanguage itself It's as if the form imposed

on the text by the rules of the game took on its own being in the world

acted out and imitated on stage; as if the structure imposed by language

became the spontaneous life of people and things 61 Yet this anima

tion" is bound in a disquieting way to death and repettion It is a wayof mortiing language through its infection with chance (the pun)

while opening out the alreadysaid onto a fantastic vista beyond life and

death (the fantastic image that unfolds narratively) A Foucault writes,Roussel's writing does not attempt creation, but by going beyond

destruction, it seeks the same language it has just massacred, ding it

again identical and whole" ( 45 )

Beckett's use of the pun and related techniques is neither as exten

sive nor as systematic as Roussel's Its nction is more localized,

focused destructively on the conventional structures he employs con

currently By opening up a vid fmtivatin (the linguistic and phan

tasmatic substructure of Murphy's chair) at the center of motivatingstructures like intrigue (Who will d Murphy rst?) and point of view

(the omniscient narrator), Beckett dramatizes the corrosion of novelis

tc conventons by a contingency and violence traversing language, soci

ety, and perhaps even being as such

Roussel's Africa and even more clearly his Lcus S/us representa kind of last solace of artistic autonomy the transguration of the

commonplace into a linguistic utopia, the clich into the unheardof,

and the linguistc rule into a magical machne In contrast Beckett's

word and imageplay tends to what we might call automimetism,"

manifest in Beckett's signature use of echoing repetitions and seemingly


20/24

READNG ATE MODERNM

unmotivated associations through similarity. In Beckett's cton, thelanguage begins to resemble, intransitvey, without a precisely situatablemodel This contagious resemblance weakens the impression of thework's autonomy: something not precisely determinable seems to alictthe text, causing a blurrng of distinct structures and a leakage of gresinto their context (including the linguistic environment).62 ather thanopen up a literary free space beyond repetiton and death, Beckett's pun

is entropic or even volent, mutilating the literary gure and drainingthe lfe from it

This automimetism affects the image of characters throughout Beckett's work Common to all of his central characters is their surrender toan intransitive and o en-repetitive movement, Molloy's circling, Watt'sspavined gait, Murhy's rocking, or Belacquas gress:

Not the east charm ofthis pure blank movement, ths gress or gression,was its aptness to receive, wth or without the approval of the subject, in altheir integrity the nt inscriptions of the outer word. Exempt from destnaton, it had not to shun the unforeseen nor r aside om the agreeabeodds and ends of vaudevle that are liable to crop up Ths sensitveness was

not the least charm of ths roaming that began by being bank, not the leastcharm of ths pure act the aacrty with whch it wecomed deeme nt. 6

What appears here under the uise ofBelacqua's grotesque aestheticismwill, wth only slight modulaton, become the more regressive motilitiesof Murhy, Watt, and Molloy

Aother index of ths mimetism is Beckett's use ofpseudocouples,whose names imply that their only difference is a minimal phonemicone and hence that their existence is logical rather than substantialMurpy male nurses Tom Bim and Tim Bo Clnch, 's punningly hypothetical Art and Con Lynch, Gdt' Did and Gogo, Happy

Days'Winnie and Willie, or

Hw It Is'exquisitely mimimalized Pim

and Bo, along with Be, ram and rim Here character hasregressed back into the schemata oflanguage from whch the history ofliterature liberated itthe precise opposite of Roussel's animating transcendence of linguistic rules and conventional expressions

Beckett's most consummate images of automimetic regression, however, involve the unmediated sion of body and language, as if consciousness and meaning had volatilzed, leaving langage's material hullconoined to the spiritless automatsm of the body This elision of onsciousness is poignantly illustrated in Watt's relexive disturbances inmotility and sy ntax "A Watt walked, so now he talked back to ont

MPROVED OUT OF A NOWEDGE

Yet, as presented in the novel, Watt's systematic breakdown of spatialand linguistic orientaton forms a kind of uncanny double of the linguistic experiments of the modernist poet (Likewise, the arratorSam, with his desperate attempt to master discursively the maderrancy of Watt, and wth his comica l delrum of chronoogy and pointof view, parodic ally represents the modernist ctio n writer.) At rst,Watt's permutations amount to a lyricizing of his speech

ay of most, night of part, Knott wth now Now t up, ittle seen oh, little heard so oh Night ti morning om eard ths, saw ths then whatThng quiet, dm. Ea, eyes, failng now also ush in, mst in, moved so a 6)

Beckett underscores this quality by having Watt's interlocutor Samgive a rhetorical analysis, itself not unpoetic in its anaphora, of Watt'sdscourse

From ths it wi perhaps be suspectedthat the invrsion aected, not the order of thesentences, but that of words oy;

that the version was imperfect;that elipse was equent;that euphony was a preoccupaton;that spontaneity was perhaps not absent;that there was perhaps mre than a reversa ofdscourse;that the thought was perhaps inverted. ( a, 6)

Yet Watt's increasingly extreme revolution of the word has litte to dowth artistic intentionality or self-conscious purication of the languageof the trbe nstead, it testies to Watt's loss of autonomy, his increasing subecton to an impersonal languagemachinebe it true that at

rst the inversion was imperfect, that for some time still, spontaneity was perhaps not absent from Watt's deranged kennings


21/24

OTS TO PAGS 2

recent restored edion A connecng anecdote was cut, wic exacerbates tegap beween Felix's queston and O'Connor's answer. However, e dfferencebeween te editions is a matter of degree, not of essence. Sortly aer te"orse tat knew too muc anecdote, Banes erself underscores te mono-logic nature of O'Connor's response, indicaing tat se intended is answersto seem inappropriate and incongruous: "Te doctor, as e grew older, inansweing a quesion seemed, as old peopl do, to be speaking more and moreto imself ( o).

55 In tis respect, O'Connor's fallible mysicism could be seen to cast itssadow over te spiitual interpretation urged on Barnes by er iend EmilyColeman Coleman felt tat Nhood, despite its evident genius failed to real-ze e ragc potena n te ove of Robn and Nora Dr O'Connor's story-telling and omilizing distacted, Coleman tougt, om tis "central tragicnode Coleman even went so far as to edit out some of O'Connor's more rib-ald stories before submitting te manuscript to Eliot (putatively anticipaing isresponse) and to oer Eliot er own views about wic passages migt be cut.Coleman, owever, believed tat Barnes was capable of acieving a genuinelyreligious patos. Tus, in a letter of August 1935, Coleman told Barnes"Poery canges life for me: it is moral. I can never be quite te same aer read-ing your capter on Nigt, and wat you say in your book about evil Inanoer letter of 27 August 19 3 5 Coleman tells Barnes explicitly "Your wit-

ing is original mystic poetic wriing Barnes was considerably irritated overwat se perceived as Coleman's meddling ( despite Coleman's eroic efforts toget Nhtwood publised) I believe s iritaion came not ust om Barnes'slegenday testiness and suspicion but also om Coleman's insistent falure tograsp te book's overall satiric design. (Te correspondence wt Coleman is inSeies I, Box 3; Coleman's essay, in Series I, Box 4, Duna Barnes Collection,Universiy of Mayland, College Pak)

56. Maurice Blancot, "Literature and te Rigt to Deat, in e Gaze ofOrpheu, rans Lydia Davis (Barryown, N.Y: Station Hill, 1981) 39

57 Wit is macinic assemblages te Swiss artist Jean Tinguely exploreda terrain analogous to Ducamp's In mockery of claims made by modernistcritics tat abstract expressionist paintings gave access to te subconsciousaceypal deps ofte painter's mind Tinguely assembled a painting macine

to produce uge numbers of tecnically perfect abstract paintings, eac as"new as te lst. His ramsackle musical macines, in contast, parodied mod-ernist seial music in i ts appeal to a rational, maemaical ideality In bo cases,owever, Tinguely's mecanical supplanting of e creative arist satirizes mod-ernism's appeals to a ranscendent source of meaning for e arwork, wereverat source migt be siuated

58 . De Certeau, "Te Ats of Dying, 6 For an insigtl discussion ofan autor less equivocally committed to tis mode an Barnes, see Micel Fou-cault Death and the byrinth e World ofRaymond Rouel, trans CarlesRuas (Gaden Ciy, NY Doubleday 1986).

59 JeanFranois Lyotard, Duchamp ' TN/former, trans an McLeod(Venice, Cif.: Lapis Press, 199 0, 65 , continued on 68

6o . Lyotard denes a s imple macine a s a device o f to or more parts tat

OTS TO PAGS 77 9

produce effects dsjunctvey dstrbuted tat is, ts parts move in opposeddirections. Hence te most rudimentary possibility for making a macine is toerect a transparent partition, wic bot oins and disoins te o alves.Duchamp TRAN/former, 4147.

6 Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit race e connecion beeen violenceand representaion in Bersani and Dutoit, e Form of Violence Narrative inArian Art and Modern Culre (New York: Scocken Books, 1 98 5 ). Bersanidevelops tis perspective rter in is provocative study, e Culture of

Redemption.

Chapter 5

Ricard earney, "Beckett: Te Demytologizing Intellect, in Therih Mind ploring ntellectual Tradition, ed. card earney (Dublin:Wolound Press, 1 98 5) , 26729 3 J C. C. Mays, "Mytologized PresencesMurphy in Its Time, in Myth and Rea li in rih Literare, ed Josep Rons-ley (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfid Laurier Universiy Press, 1977), 198218; Jon P.Harington, e rih Beckett (Syracuse: Syracuse Universiy Press, 1991) Seealso David Lloyd, "Writing in e Sit: Beckett, Naionalism, and te ColonialSubect, in Ano malou tate rih Writing and the Pot-Co lonial Momen t

(Duram Duke Universiy Press 199 3 ), 4 158 Mary Junker Beckett e rihDimenion (Dublin: Wolound Press 1995) Jon Fletcer "Modernism andSamuel Beckett, in Facet ofEuropean Modernim (Norwic: Universiy of EastAnglia Press, 1 98 5) , 1 9921 7 and Lois Gordon, e World ofamuel Beckett, (New Haven Yale Universiy Press, 199 6), 73 1.

2. Samuel Beckett, "Dante . . Bruno . Vico Joyce, in Dijecta Micellaneou Writing and a Dramatic Fragment, ed Ruby Con (New York: GrovePress, 19 84), 26

3 Samuel Beckett Prout (New York: Grove Press 1957), 59 Hereaercited in text as Prout

4 Micel Foucault e Order ofing An Archeology ofthe Huma n cience (New York: Vintage Books 1970), 300

5. Foucault, e Order ofing 3 846. Micel Foucault, Madne and Civilization A Hitory ofnani in the

e of Reaon, trans card Howard (New Yok: Vintage Books, 1965 ),288289

7 Samuel Beckett, Dream ofFair to Middling Women, ed. Eoin O'Brienand Edi Fournier (New York: Acade Publising, 1 99 2, 102 (cited in text asDFM; Dijecta, .

8 For an insigtl discussion of Foucault's relaion to te culural proectof modernism, see Jon Racman, "Foucault, or te Ends of Modernism,October 24 19 83 ): 376 2; for te conception of an intransitive writing, seeRoland Bartes, "To Write An Inransitive Verb? in e tructuralit Conovery e Language of Criticim and the cience ofMan (Baltimore: JonsHopkns University Press, 1 972 , 13 415 6. Notably, Bartes takes "e case ofe Proustian narator s "exemplary : "e exists only in witing (1 43 )


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250 NOES O PAES 174-178 Joseph Conrad e Ner ofthe Narciu (London: Penguin Books

) xlvii .10 . Harrington, Te Irish Becket, 48. John Fletcher writes of postindepen-

dence Dublin, "the city stood, in inteational terms, a bit higher than Mon-rovia, not so high as Copenhagen, and at about the same level as Bogot"("Modernism and Samuel Becke ) .

. Such differences are however hitorical, no saic imeless essences.They are pernen only as he shiing arculaons of a hierarchical srucure

of relaions wihin which individual elemens ake on heir meanings. AsLouis Alhusser suggess of such differenial srucures: "The presen of onelevel is . he absence of anoher and his coexisence of a presence' andabsences is simply he effec of he srucure of he whole in is arculaeddecenrici. Wha is hus grasped as absences in a localized presence is preciselyhe nonlocalizaion of he srucure of he whole. Louis Alhusser and i-enne Balibar Reading Capital, rans. Ben Brewser (New York: PanheonBooks 7 ) 4. Ye Alhusser's accoun also implies ha he very differ-ences ha serve o localize lierary arifacs in naional and generic radionsassigning hem places in he hisorical narraive dedcaed o hese consrucsmay also render hem vulnerable o failure subversion and hisorcal change.In heir resless mobili heir consisen recombinaion and reconguraionsuch dfferences rale he frames by which in radional hisoricis wriing

heir geographical and exual mobili would be slowed and conrolled hemeahsorcal borderlines of genre and naon . On h is laer poin see HomiK Bhabha "DissemiNaion: Time Narraive and he Margins of he ModernNaion in Naon and Narration, ed Homi K Bhabha (London Rouledge) 222.

2. On his poin see H. Porer Abbo "Lae Modernism: Samuel Beckeand he Ar of he Oeuvre in Around the Aburd say on Modern and Potmodern Drama, ed Enoch Braer and Ruby Cohn (Ann Arbor Universi ofMichigan Press ) 76. Abbo noes he peculiar rhyhm of "reurnha subsiss beween Becke's prose and his dramaic works "I was no nos-algia ha animaed Becke when a he momen he appeared o have abol-ished characer om his prose cion he reinsaed i so brillianly on he sage.I has frequenly been noed ha when Becke moves o a new genre ormedum he appears o rever o an earlier sage of hsorical developmen omha o which he had brough he genre or medum in which he had been pre-viously working ( 5 ).

. Parcia Waugh Metaction e eory and Practice ofeConciouFicon (London Mehuen 4) 1.

4 . Jacqueline Hoefer " Wat, reprned in amuel Becket A Colecon ofCrical say, ed. Marin Esslin (Englewood Clif NJ. : PreniceHall 65)6276.

5. Hugh enner amuel Becket A Critical tudy ( Berkeley Universi ofCalifornia Press 6) 2.

6. Eric P Levy Beck et and the Voice ofpecie A tudy ofthe Proe Fiction(Toowa N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books ) 2.

7. Gerald L. Bruns "Sevens wihou Episemology in Walce teven

NOES O PAES 178-x x

e Poetic ofModernim, ed. Alber Gelpi ( Cambridge Cambridge UnversiPress 5) 244.

. Becke quoed by Linda BenZvi "Friz Mauhner for CompanyJoual ofBecket tudie (4) 66.

. Becke o MacGreevy July quoed in James Knowlson Damnedto Fame e L ofamuel Becket( York Simon & Schuser 6) 22.

2. Becke o MacGreevy Sepember 7 quoed in Knowlson Damnedto Fame 24. See also Beckes scrip for Film which oers a paricularly

explici insance of his hollow use of philosophy: "Ee et percipi. All exra-neous percepion suppressed animal human dvine selfpercepion mainainsin being Search of nonbeing in gh om exraneous percepion breakingdown in inescapabili of selfpercepion No ruh value aaches t aboveregarded as merely srucural and dramaic convenience. Samuel Becke Film(New York Grove Press 6) 1.

2 . Alhough his concerns are somewha dieren om mine I nd supporfor my "aniepisemological reading of Becke in M. eih Booker's chaperson Wat and e Lot One in Literature and Dominaon ex, Knowdge, andPower in Modern Literature (Gainesville: Universi of Florida Press )24 426.

22. Charles R Lyons "Becke Shakespeare and he Making ofTheoryin Braer and Cohn Around the Aburd, 7.

2 For example one plausible way o inerpre Waitingfor Go dot migh beo consder wheher "wang i s no a valid form of solidariy a way of beingogeher no worse and perhaps beer han many ohers. Wolfgang Iser hasnoed ha Becke's designed foiling of he audience's desire o knowwhoGodo is wheher he will comeevenually produces a kind ofeedom or "lev-i in he acions and speech ofhe characers "A he meaning projecons ofhe specaor are incapable of removing he indeerminacy of he siuaions sohe wo main characers seem more and more ee and unconcerned. They seemo be quie indieen o he earnesness assumed by he specaor. Iser"When Is he End No he End? The Idea of Ficion in Becke in On Becket: ay and Criticim, ed S. E. Gonarski (New York: Grove Press 6)6 . We migh pu hs oherwise by saying ha if Becke's wring sill has an"inransiive quali o i i is no longer because i refers back o he auonomy

of a hinking consciousness as did modernis wriing bu raher o he auon-omy of ocial forms and pracices ungroundable by reliable knowledge: narra-ing waiing searching playing.

24. Leo Bersani "Agains Ulye, in e Culture ofRedemption (Cam-bridge Mass Harvard Universi Press ) 7

2 5. Boh quoes are om Becke e Unnameable, in ree Nove Moly,Malone Die, e Unnamea ble (New York Grove Press 55 56 5) 6 4.

26 . Bersani "Agains Ulye 6 .27. This migh seem a paradoxical saemen given ha I will explicae in

deail Becke's allusion o "he Salinis comedans Bim and Bo. This allu-sion however illusraes quie aply how in his work a idbi of culural arcanamay degenerae ino a mere agmen of language a kind of idio's babble of


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25 NOES O PAGES 37

exression of methysicl longing Beckett's works re lmost rody of theserch for methysicl exerience undertken y Crne, J ols, nd mny of theother tranition writers ( 52 . "Almost, I elieve, is too wek Beckett exlic-itly rodies this serch, stirizing ove ll the tranition ehee nd siringmodernst Smuel Beckett nd discovering himself in selfreexive lughter.

47 FlMiller, quoted y Lewis, "Plefce, e Enemy 2 (Setemer927: 068.

48 . Pul Mnn hs rgued tht this dilecticl recuertion of mrnl dis

sent is essentil to the history nd socil nctioning of the vntgrde. Hewrites: " In lte citlism the mrn is not ostrcized it is discursively engged.he ftlity of recuertion roceeds not from ny lws of nture ut fromdilecticl enggement, the (never ltogether conscious commitment y nyrtist or movement to discursive exchnge. he discourse of the vntgrdeinterests us not ecuse it is n oortunity to romote or discredit nother rev-olutionry romnce ut ecuse it is the most lly rticulted discourse of thetechnology of recuertion. Mnn, eory-Death of the Ava nt-Garde(Bloomington: Indin Unversity Press, 99, 5. In my view, Mnn's theo-reticlly rticulte rgument is lredy imlicit in the lte modernist works ofLewis nd Beckett.

49 It is notle tht Beckett's one enduring oliticl enggement wswith the French Resistnce. He ws decorted er the wr for his wrtime

ctivity nd until his deth gve signcnt sums of money to nd for Resis-tnce veterns.5. Dvid Lodge, "he Lnguge of Modernist Fiction: Methor nd

Metonymy, in Modernim: A Guide to European Literature, I 890 I93 0, ed.Mlcolm Brdury nd Jmes McFrlne (London: Penguin Books, 9 76 , 48 4.

5 . In the lter ction (erhs even with e Unnameable, if tken out ofhe nme sequence Beckett recurs to the methoricl mode of titling: Howt , e Lot One, Imntion Ded Imgine, Company, Wortward Ho, llSeen ll Said, nd so on. his my reect Beckett's tendency towrd rose thtuses "oetic mens: the incresing dominnce, in Jkoson's terms, of"rdigmtic devices like clusters of imgery nd sound structure, while the "syntgmtic dimension of the text, its nrrtionl nd other extensionl structure,is rogressively reduced.

52 . Aer Murhy's deth, t the inquest, the county coroner cheekily sks ofCeli: "And this young ldy . . . who knew him in such detil, such oortunedeti l. . . . Did Miss elly murmur Murhy . . . or Mr. Murhy (Mu 268.

53 Ruy Cohn, Samuel Beckett: e Comic Gamut (New Brunswick, N.J. :Rutgers University Press, 962, 53

54 Beckett gives nother fint echo of this un in his ortryl of Nery,driven to distrction y Miss Counihn's reuff of his ttentions. Rescued yhis former student Wylie t the Dulin Post Oce, Nery is descried s hv-ing "rocked lisslly on the right rm of his rescuer (Mu 43 .

55 Bi Samuel Beckett 3 3 Bi ies lette o Geoge Revey of 6 Setemer 9 39 s evidence.

56 . Discussing the BeckettGicometti rllel (ut oflimited criticl vluere Mtti Megged, "Beckett nd Gicometti, Partian Review 49, no. 3

NOES O PAGES 20 25 5

(982: 40406, nd Megged, Dialogue in the Void: Beckett and Giacometti(New York: Lumen Books, 98 5 .

57 . Roslind Kruss, "No More Ply, in e Orinali ofthe Avant-Gardeand Other Modernit Myth (Cmridge, Mss.: MI Press, 985, 5758.

58. Kruss, No More Ply, 62.59 During the twenties nd erly thirties, Roussel ws the suject of rticles

y Philie Souult, Roger Vitrc, Slvdor Dli, Andr Breton, nd MichelLeiris for English trnsltions of ll ut Leiris's rticles (included is nother

rticle y Leiris om 9 54, ut not two others om 9 35 nd 9 36 , see Raymond Roel: L, Death and Work (Atls Anthology, no. 4 (London: AtlsPress, 98 7. rnsltions om Roussel lso ered in tranition. It would esurrising, then, if Beckett, ctively reding nd trnslting the French lterryvntgrde, were not wre of Roussel's work.

6o. ymond Roussel, How Wrote Certai n of My Book, trns. revorWinkeld (New York: Sun, 97 5 , 5

6 . Michel Foucult, Death and the Larinth: e World ofRaymond Rouel, trns. Chrles Rus (Grden City, N.Y.: Douledy, 98 6 , 26 .

62. See, for exmle, how the hositl in Murphy, the Mgdlen MentlMercyset, ecomes ssocited with Celi's mercyset, Murhy's sexulrelief, through linguistic ssocition. hus, Celi the rostitute is reclled y(Mry Mgdlen rthermore, Murhy's (or the nrrtor's euhemism for

sexul intercourse, "music, is conjured u y the intils M.M.M. , lke monof stisfction (mmm . . . , nd in turn selfconsciously referred to the to-grhicl conventions of the rinted ook (note, too, the intentionlly fultygrmmr of the sentence, eliding its ctul suject, Murhy: Lte tht er-noon, er mny uitless hours in the chir, it would e just out the timeCeli ws telling her story, M.M.M. stood suddenly for music, MUSIC,MUSIC, in rillint, revier nd cnon, or some such togrhicl screm, ifthe gentle comositor would e so iendly (Mu 236 .

63. Beckett, More Prick an Kick, 38 .64. Beckett, Watt, 64.

Chaper 6

. Min Loy, ne, ed. Elizeth Arnold (Snt Ros: Blck Srrow Press,99, 3.

2. For the iogrhicl ckground to Loy's comosition of ne, see Cr-olyn Burke, Becoming Modern: e L ofMina Loy (Berkeley: University ofCliforni Press, 9 96 , 3 5938 4.

3 Mina Loy, Te Last Lunar Baedeker, ed. Roger Conover (Highlands,

N.C.: Jrgon, 982 , 3 11 .4 Willim Crlos Willims, e Autobiography of William Carlo Wiliam

(New Yok New Dietions 948 949 95 395 Beckett to McGreevy, 2 Decemer 9 , quoted in Jmes nowlson,

Damn ed to Fame: e Le of Samuel Beckett (New York: Simon & Schuster,996, 42.

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