Footfalls (Faber paperbacks) [Paperback]

Samuel Beckett (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 13 pages
• Publisher: Faber; First Edition edition (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571110401
• ISBN-13: 978-0571110407
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,508,329 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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A treadmill to nothingness? Haunting Beckett ghost story, February 2, 2001

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Footfalls (Faber paperbacks) (Paperback)

Despite its mathematically precise stage directions (there's even a diagram), pinning down the dramatic events, 'Footfalls' is ultimately as elusive as its heroine, pacing endlessly up and down a strip of light, tending to her sick mother. The pacing is interrupted by two monologues which may, or may not, tell the story of May's life - it is typical in a play with a literally self-effacing heroine that her story should haunt others' stories, that others should speak for her, that the imagery should be ghost-like, inchoate, tantalising; one voice doubled, splintered. Her mother is a mere voice; by the end of the play, May is on her way - is this the natural fate of women for Beckett?

It goes without saying that such a visually precise play doesn't read very well, although there is an accumulation of words and feelings that is tremendously powerful.