The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett [Paperback]

John Calder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003 | ISBN-10: 0714542830 | ISBN-13: 978-0714542836

Increasingly Samuel Beckett is seen as the culmination of the great literature of the twentieth century - the successor to Proust, Joyce and Kafka, and a writer whose relevance to his time and use of poetic imagery can be compared to Shakespeare's in the late Renaissance. But John Calder has examined the work of Beckett principally for what it has to say about our time in terms of philosophy, theology and ethics, and he points to aspects of his subject's thinking that others have ignored or preferred not to see.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author was for many years Samuel Beckett's publisher and friend. He shares his subject's view of the world and human destiny, which has helped him to follow through and trace the sources behind Beckett's early thinking, out of which he created a radical new literature.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Riverrun Pr (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714542830
• ISBN-13: 978-0714542836
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,541,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beckett's publisher's humanist thought, December 24, 2004

By 

John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett (Paperback)

John Calder, British publisher of Beckett, is ideally placed to provide his own determinedly secular reading of SB. I have my arguments about some of his stubborn persistence in removing God from Beckett to leave that Sartrian "god-shaped hole," but after all, Beckett is notoriously and delightfully difficult to pin down and resists easy categorisation about the presence or absence of the deity in his fictions and dramas and other unclassifiable prose. Calder's exegesis gains added conviction from the closeness between author and publisher for so long.

Calder raises an intriguing point: Joyce and Kafka were one-trick, if very talented, ponies next to the variety of genres assayed by SB. Calder delves into what J & K lacked (in his opinion) next to their modernist (and post-modernist, given his lifespan and continuing productions) successor: in Beckett, in his life as in his literature, we find a stoic, compassionate, and above all forgiving mentor. Like sincere religious gurus in the past, his message conveys a detachment from greed, solipsism, fanaticism in the pursuit of a cause or a creed, and care for creatures and the defenseless among us. Remember his early story, with Dante's lobster? Personally, I'd reinforce SB's own charity and thoughtfulness, expressed often without fanfare, and how he humbly practiced what he printed. Calder was moved by the author's morality, too, and he writes this study to promote an understanding of SB less for the literati than for the thinkers, and doers, who need guidance in a world in which faith cannot be thrown away to abstractions rather than channeled into action, responses to assuage real human agony now.

Calder explores philosophical, ethical, and religious sources for Beckett's early writings, and compares his own musings to those of Beckett on these matters. The resulting conversation of sorts between SB and Calder invites us to consider our own responses to human suffering, as limned in Beckett's creations and as influencing Calder himself as he became friends with SB.

While I disagree with some of Calder's readings, I fully support his aims, and stress that this is an excellent study that deserves an audience and incites a reader to return to Beckett for direction as well as out into the world to act as SB would. If this sounds like Calder makes SB a guru, so be it. For many otherwise in danger of meeting the tautological fate of many of SB's tormented characters, we can learn to read Beckett as a direction out of our own self-imprisonent towards selflessness.

I've read a shelf-load of Beckettiana, and I admit that this book, overlooked and not easily found, remains among the two or three to turn to after or during encounters with the primary texts. Not recommended as an introduction or primer (if you're starting from scratch, try Hugh Kenner's Student's Guide to SB); you must get your own bearings and learn to respond on your own terms to SB first. But, for a boost and a reminder of the challenges within--and I might add against reductive--existentialism, Calder gives us a heartfelt, eloquent, and accessible study of a man he knew well and, like many of us, loved for his inspiring humanism.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing situation, January 24, 2012

By 

John Gueriguian "Philalethes" (Rockville, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett (Paperback)

I'm told that Mr. John Calder is Mr. Samuel Beckett's publisher. And Mr. John L. Murphy greatly admires Mr. Beckett and agrees with what Mr. Calder says about Mr. Beckett and his philosophical inclinations. All this is circular but perfectly anodyne and understandable. What I don't don't comprehend is the price tag of the book. Why is it so high? No matter, I am giving five star to the book because, like a nouveau riche, I believe it must be very good to be so expensive.