Samuel Beckett and Futility

[SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe]

Coming soon here: A balancing word on Samuel Beckett's pessimism. (Is to "go on" truly some kind of hope, or more of the very futility we are born into?)

[ventriloquist]

If we're born into a futile situation, then any kind of hope must be pretty silly. I don't think life is futile, although it probably is futile to search for a meaning to it all beyond what we can bring to the proceedings ourselves.

I think life is purposeless, but full of meaning, if that makes sense. Meaning is somewhat arbitrary and it's everywhere you look. Purpose, on the other hand, is absent from the grand scheme of things, in the sense of there being a design for a specific end. I find this lack of purpose (which some would surely debate) to be liberating much of the time, and when I find it to be depressing, it's usually because I'm not trying hard enough to create my own meaning(s.) Life prefers to be met halfway, I guess.

In my personal experience with pessimism/depression, I find these moods and thought patterns to be self-reinforcing to the extreme. Sadness and bitterness often become their own comforts, especially since it is relatively easy to intellectualize and rationalize a morbid world view.

Just some mind spewage... not sure how to tie this into Beckett...!

[flechtwerk]

A first thought:

I always sensed a very positive undercurrent in Beckett's work.... One of my favourite works by him is Molloy, and despite all its apparent horrors it seems light, and funny. When the decaying Molloy is crawling through the woods he seems to be content with what he has, with what he does, with his absurd mission. It wouldn't occur to him to cry out in despair. Never would he stammer the terrible words of Conrad's Kurtz: the horror, the horror....
So I understand what Ligotti says about Beckett's positive attitude of "going on"..... You wouldn't file Molloy under Horror, different from Ligotti's prime example, Topor's The Tenant.

[Spotbowserfido2]

Where's that damned Godot already? It's his turn to bring Milk-Bones and beer...

[SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe]

At the end of each act of that play, Vladimir and Estragon say to each other, as they sit,

"Well? Shall we go?"

"Yes, let's go."

They do not move. End of play.

To stay or to go on is part of the futile. Molloy has humor because it is so bleak and because Beckett is expert at drawing out the absurdities that naturally make us smile or even laugh. You also smile at the wordplay... When I read the Three Novels I was struck with how he'd put his finger on the exact predicament, page after page. All the tricks of the mind. I think humor just gets into some authors' style, it's not that they intend it or are coming from anything like a positive place in their life. Beckett's life was very painful and distraught. During wartime, too, being that close to it as he was, perhaps we too would allow some element of the funny to show in our artworks. I think everyone should read The Unnamable.

But I don't think anyone laughs at Endgame.

I'm glad you understood the reference to TL's preface to the Topor book (and much of it is reprinted in TCATHR).

	TCATHR The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

[SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe]

I came upon this thread after years, and the last post seems more like an advertiser, or whatever you call it in webese. Pasting something in from a previous poster? Tsk, tsk...

One of Beckett's famous quotes is, "There is nothing funnier than unhappiness." I don't know the context, and I've never resonated with that one, aside from understanding that some people find slapstick funny, which I don't particularly. Nevertheless, when I read Molloy, etc., there was no need for anyone to cry "the horror, the horror" (and I forget, maybe Molloy did). No, I think that, having intuited the condition of futility/meaninglessness since age 8, my overwhelming feeling was "SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!" Yes, as a boy I understood it, but of course I went out and played with my water-rocket anyway that sunny day, as I recall. One goes on, as we're all in fact doing at this moment. Maybe I didn't yet care about meaning. But I did become the anxious, serious child, and sought it out later. Thought I found it, was wrong, etc.

Ah, here it is:
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. (sounds like one of his characters somewhere). But this author, Beckett's, voice: Despairing > cynical > wry? Each has his/her own style.

And:
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.