Customer Reviews

I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader

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This is a very wise introduction to Samuel Beckett's work. If you haven't discovered one of the most profound voices of the 20th century, then this book is the way to do it. By far his most accessible work is the short play Krapp's Last Tape and it is in this volume complete. Waiting for Godot is also here as well as excerpts from Beckett's prose and some of his later plays like Not I. This book belongs on your shelf.

If you've never heard of Beckett, this is the first thing you should check out. Richard Seaver's introduction is an added bonus, which helps us understand Beckett even more. All in all, a fabulous book.

This book is a must have for any fan of great theater, intelligent novels, deep poetry, critical essays, or moving short stories: because it has all of them by the master of all of these genres.

From famous works such as, "Waiting for Godot," and "Krapp's Last Tape" (plays), that force a reader to rethink their world, to classic short stories, such as, "Dante and the Lobster," that is a dive into a surreal world: this book has everything.

1,000 words is not nearly enough to get into this book at any real depth, or to even give it a proper over view. This book covers the entire spectrum of one of Ireland's greatest writers.

Creater of the theater of the absurd, world renouned playwright, and man who single handedly made a place for the "shorter play," in a world that had come to expect a minimum of two acts, for a peice of drama to be considered serious.

This book contains novels, novel excerpts and short stories, all of which, redefined the genres that they belonged to. Prolific, constantly changing, and reaching new hights, Beckett redefined every genre that he wrote in, and set new levels of perfection for the rest of us to reach for.

One can not say enough things about this true literary genius. The best advice that I can give you is, buy this book, read it, and give yourself the perfect oppertunity to become aquainted with Beckett. This book gives a wondeful over view of each of Beckett's writing stages and the evolution of his work.

This book is entirely useless to anyone who wants more than a cursory look at SOME of Beckett's work. Many of the works included are incomplete. I paid about 20 dollars to read half-novels? Seriously? I don't know who put this book together, or who they thought would be reading it, but it's inadequate for any purpose I can think of. If you're the kind of person who picks up a book, reads half of it, then forgets about it, then by all means buy this. It's perfect for you. If you want to read the included works in their entirety, buy something else. How can ANYBODY reach anything close to a meaningful conclusion about the author or significance of his work when they're looking at snippets? I'm in college. I need to read the WHOLE BOOK if I want to be informed for class. I would hope that even casual readers would have enough respect for Samuel Beckett to read his work from beginning to end. Even if you don't want to read the whole thing, then don't waste your money on this, just read some quotes online for free. In conclusion, this book is a complete waste of time/money/intellect.

I'm afraid my review won't do Beckett justice. So I'll simply say I was very fortunate to have a college professor years ago who asked us to read a few of these stories. Very rarely will you find a story (or group of stories) that makes you think about the world in an entirely new way. I knock the dust off this book about once a year to remind myself what a good writer Beckett was.

The book is outstanding and a great introduction to Beckett's life and work. It arrived promptly and in excellent condition.