Customer Reviews

Beckett: Waiting for Godot (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Beckett's Waiting for Godot is on of the most intense existential works since existentailism was founded. The characters may be "stagnant and colorless" (See previous review)- but this is all on purpose - Beckett is showing us how stagnant and colorless our lives are as we wait in our tiny universes for a God to come along and tell us what to believe in. Beckett challenges us to look around, take control of our lives and quit waiting around everyday for something that will never come - no matter how hard you want to believe.

I just received this book and haven't read it yet. It looks quite good.

HOWEVER! because I read the description too quickly, and because I was misled by the other reader reviews, I thought that the actual text of the play was here, in both languages, in addition to a critical apparatus. Not so!

All of the other reader reviews are about Beckett's play itself, which is not part of this book!

I love live theater, reading plays, watching video of plays.
In all sincerity, this play is the worst play ever by the worst playwright ever.

The core idea of the play is that life is meaningless, something you "get" 5 minutes into it.
But the playwright makes us experience that life is meaningless, in slow-motion.

I would rather experience open heart surgery without anesthetics than to ever endure this play again. It's that bad. No, it's worse.

This play raises questions about the purpose of human existence and totally defies any previous concepts of style--it is abstract and yet quantifies a feeling of meaningful emptiness--or tired meaningfulness. I highly recommend this play to anyone who is interested in Symbolism or the existentialist movement in literature and stage. If you liked No Exit by Sartre, you'll love this.

Amazingly written with humor and pain. The characters were too stagnant and they lacked color.

Because you wait and wait, and then three don't turn up at once.

This meaningless piece of writing shows confusion of living and despair of life. Beckett reveals society situation after the Second World War, which received much reaction from the outside. Nothing to be done becomes the first aim of living.