Novels II of Samuel Beckett: The Grove Centenary Edition, Volume II: Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnamable/How It Is Book

The three novels - Molloy, Malone Dies, and the Unnamable - are considered one of the greatest trilogies written in the 20th century. I must disagree.

When assessing a work of art, I think, one ought to consider at least three things: 1) style; 2) story; and 3) artistic merit against a backdrop of the historical, cultural, and artistic trends of the day.

Did Beckett create a new genre, a new way to write novels and dramas? Undoubtedly yes. 521 pages of constant, disconnected, meaningless blabber, acutely expressing the painfulness of existence nearing and struggling against death, is something I have never encountered before. But it is, and will be, the most difficult of all the books I read, and will have read, in the past and the future. The difficulty is,not that of, say, Joyce's Ulysses, or Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. It's the difficulty of sheer boredom, of staying focused on the drivel that keeps going without purpose or meaning.

In a sense, it does what I think it purports to do; namely, to express life struggling against death in its death throes. I, the reader, had to really struggle through the reading as life struggled against death. The whole book is a murmur, a voice that keeps murmuring for the sake of murmuring. "I can't go on," it says, "you must go on, I will go on." It did go on, and I had to actually read the text aloud in order to focus; otherwise I'd have been reduced to half-consciousness. Ironically, the voice on the page came alive - it really became voice - through my mouth. I murmured the words on the train to stay focused, murmuring the meaningless murmur that was disengaged from its source.

Artistically, then, I concede him the medal, for his boldness in stripping the novel of its traditional elements, and his lyrical prose. But my tribute stops there. Regardless of its artistic merit, it was maddeningly and frustratingly - and one might even say meaninglessly - boring. And for that, I did not in the least enjoy reading it. Even his humor, which numerous reviewers find "hilarious," I found it dull. There were maybe one or two places I found mildly funny, and aside from that, the book was, in my opinion, devoid of any kind of hilarity.

So for all the reasons above, I give it 1 star, because, after all, I did not like it, and although I do appreciate his artistic originality, I didn't think it offset the hellish unfun-ness of it all.