Watt [Paperback]

Samuel Beckett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 2009

Written in Roussillon during World War Two, while Samuel Beckett was hiding from the Gestapo, "Watt" was first published in 1953. Beckett acknowledged that this comic novel unlike any other 'has its place in the series' - those masterpieces running from "Murphy" to the Trilogy, "Waiting for Godot" and beyond. It shares their sense of a world in crisis, their profound awareness of the paradoxes of being, and their distrust of the rational universe. "Watt" tells the tale of Mr Knott's servant and his attempts to get to know his master. Watt's mistake is to derive the essence of his master from the accidentals of his being, and his painstakingly logical attempts to 'know' ultimately consign him to the asylum. Itself a critique of error, Watt has previously appeared in editions that are littered with mistakes, both major and minor. The new Faber edition offers for the first time a corrected text based on a scholarly appraisal of the manuscripts and textual history.

Editorial Reviews

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 1961. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (May 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571244742
• ISBN-13: 978-0571244744
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,903,165 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

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Roller-coaster existentialism, and fun, too!, December 17, 2002

By 

Hovig J. Heghinian (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Watt (Paperback)

"Watt" is the hilarious story of an itinerant character who walks one day from a train station, like a homing pigeon, straight to the home of a man whom he will serve. He enters the kitchen to take his spot, whereupon the present kitchen worker issues a rambling monologue of stunning length and baffling content, then leaves the household for Watt to stay behind. In the first few pages, we are already asking: Why did Watt just show up? Whose house is this? Who is this man in the kitchen already? Why is he delivering this major dissertation? What does it all mean?

The rest of the book concerns Watt's service to the master of the house, some of it conventionally narrated, much of it digressive and odd. To explain this book, however, is to sound ridiculous. A certain number of things happen to Watt, he takes a certain number of actions, he engages in a certain number of conversations, and he ends the story in the book in a certain meaningful fashion. The entire story is told in Beckett's trademark effusive style, a rollicking, bizzare, but highly entertaining profusion.

The meaning of the book is also classic Beckett: Don't wait for Higher Meaning, because there is none. All his books portray absurd characters doing absurd things, waiting for life to reveal itself, but ultimately realizing that life reveals itself through the living. To answer the questions posed above, the book is compsed like a circle, just like life. At the same time, it's also completely meaningless, just like life. We go to some place, we stand in some position, we engage with some people, we commit some acts, we turn and commit other acts, and we engage with some other people. Somehow, among all this ballet, the world still turns, and we still live upon it. For all their foolish sounding, Beckett's books do indeed have a meaning, that life is just the living of it.

Beckett is a psychological master. His prose style will never be repeated. I'd call him the Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan of literature, a crude analogy, for which we should apologize, but it is one that we hope reflects the major impact of his work on the art, and his primacy among its literary practitioners.

Beckett's work is random by no means. It is carefully crafted, and has an internal rhythm all its own. If a reader is willing to take off their shoes and run through the squishy mud of Beckett's life-swamp, so to speak, it is a joy to read and great fun to reflect upon. "Watt" is a good example of his work, relatively short, and relatively simple, but still likely to provoke great consternation among any who are not used to Beckett's gushing and admirable style, but great enjoyment among those who take it on its own life-affirming terms.

Beckett is a great writer for those readers who seek a literary puzzle, a semantic challenge, and a story with a surreal whiff, which tells us how wonderful it is just to be alive, enjoying our time on earth. "Watt" is one of Beckett's more accessible and fun works.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I dunno about the guy below me., September 9, 2001

By 

"renton_bagges" (Planet Yeah!) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Watt (Paperback)

I can't go along with this being one Beckett's more difficult novels, or for completists only, and not just because it's my personal all-time fave rave. From a biographical point of view, Watt marks the point where Beckett pretty much threw off the influence of Joyce, but before he self-consciously turned himself into the anti-Joyce. This brief state of affairs resulted in a fantastic, hilarious book that has everything - semi-vigorous ambulating, crack-up dialogue and rock-throwing action! This is Beckett's funniest work, and also contains some of his best discriptions and most memorable speeches (particularly Arsene's monologue), and is one of the easiest to read (allowing that Dream/More Pricks and Murphy are a tad insufferable, and thus a bit of a slog).

The impression that Wattis difficult may stem from the idea that there is some enlightenment within the text that the hapless reader is obliged to decode, deconstruct or otherwise deduce, but the book is more likely a dramatization, and an inflicting, of confusion. If this is found acceptable, the book is an intense pleasure to read and just maybe exceeds the Three Novels in this aspect.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After a lifetime of reading, one of my five favorites, September 30, 2003

By 

Warren P. Reier "Programmer extraordinaire" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Watt (Paperback)

This book is a joy! Beckett's wonderful English prose, his humanity and sense of humor, shine forth on every page. After forty years and many rereadings, it has only grown on me--the jokes still amuse, the writing is still glorious, the message still enigmatic and profound. This is one of those seminal books that sustain and hearten you, that reawaken your love for suffering humanity. There's no one like Beckett, and nothing (except the trilogy) like "Watt". Buy it. Verbum sat.