First Love and Other Shorts (Beckett, Samuel) [Paperback]

Samuel Beckett (Author)

Book Description

Series: Beckett, Samuel | Publication Date: January 21, 1994

'First Love', a man's musings about his youth occasioned by his visit to his father's grave, was first written by Samuel Beckett in French in 1945, but it wasn't until 1973 that he completed this the English translation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 21, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802151310
• ISBN-13: 978-0802151315
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with Whoroscope and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays, Waiting for Godot, in 1949 but it wasn't published in English until 1954. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wunnerful, April 22, 1998

By 

"ilduce3" - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Love and Other Shorts (Beckett, Samuel) (Paperback)

There are few short stories that leave one feeling satisfied. Fortunately, this is not one of them.

It has been ages since I read it, but I cannot help but recall the feeling it evoked.

All in all, love fails us. All in all, we fail to tell well of the process by which it fails us. Beckett fails better than us all. God bless you, Sam, for always pointing us toward the unutterable. The other stories I do not remember. But "First Love" alone is worth all these fellows ask of you.

5.0 out of 5 stars There is nothing short about Beckett's shorts, July 31, 2009

By 

Exordia N. (Iowa City, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Love and Other Shorts (Beckett, Samuel) (Paperback)

In this collection: his shorts: First Love, From an Abandoned Work, Enough, Imagination Dead Imagine, Ping, Not I, Breath.

First Love and Ping are authoritative and powerful. Beckett's humor can toss the livers of the readers down the dune. Let's sample this passage taken from p. 33 of First Love:

"One day she had the impudence to announce she was with child, and four or five months gone into the bargain, by me of all people! She offered me a side view of her belly. She even undressed, no doubt to prove she wasn't hiding a cushion under her skirt, and then of course for the pure pleasure of undressing. Perhaps it's mere wind, I said, by the way of consolation."

The scenes of parsnips, his moving in, the bench, and priapic disturbance are riveting, impure, and just wicked. Beckett has such a command of language. The reader can also perceive this command in his experimental/musical linguistic cleavage in Ping. Ping takes language on a level beyond abstraction. Language that makes sense, that shares its foundation with clarity. The sole work of sound and music!

Others have found Beckett absurd, obtuse, difficult, obscure, but I find his work so powerful, so focus, so clear, so precise. It makes me wonder where readers go especially when I think they simply got lost in the ravine of Beckett's clarity.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The rhythm and silenced passion of his writing is amazing., April 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: First Love and Other Shorts (Beckett, Samuel) (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book so much that I am currently writing a paper on it. I'm exploring some Beckett's amazing treatment of the conciousness and the movement that is inherent in each of the pieces. I'm also touching on the pieces as they relate to phenomenology and the study of experience expressed in conciousness. Unfortunantly, I need to know how this collection was compiled, when, and under whose authorization. This is very important to my thesis. If any one knows where I could find that information I would appreciate a response.