- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New Ed edition (9 Feb 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192824074
- ISBN-13: 978-0192824073
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 12.6 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
368,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #57 in Books > Languages > By Language > Other European Languages > Celtic Languages > Welsh
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
Ricks fascinates, teases and enriches our understanding (Sunday Telegraph )
Sunday Telegraph
`Ricks fascinates, teases and enriches our understanding'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
On the one hand, everyone knows that Beckett's work is important. On the other, it's doubtful that even the most literary-minded of us would say that we keep a copy of 'Malone Dies' for cosy bed-time reading. Beckett is often highly demanding and after all, most of his work is devoted to a single-minded confrontation with the one thing no one wants to think about (least of all in the wee small hours). As a saturnine, black-clad undergraduate I can remember brandishing a copy of the Trilogy in a seminar (I got half-way through it) only to be told by a tutor 'That won't cheer you up!'.
One of the great joys of Christopher Ricks' marvellous book is the way that he reveals a deeper truth in Beckett's vision. Beckett offers no palliative to the reality of our own mortality other than the uncomfortable idea that the possibility of existence never ending is a far more hellish alternative. Furthermore, the sheer vigour with which Beckett uses language to explore the rigours of existence is itself a triumph.
This is not a book that digs up the hoary old chestnuts of deconstruction. For too long, Beckett has been toted in academic-circles as the patron saint of the 'words words words' school of criticism. Ricks aims a few well-aimed broadsides at the idle musings of the post-structualists, in the process showing how the tragi-comic energy of Beckett's language stems precisely from it's reference to the real.
Ricks' little study is a shining example of what criticism SHOULD be. His feel for language is pretty much unparalleled(alright, perhaps by Frank Kermode). It's testament to his brilliance that he can spend two pages teasing out the connotations of Beckett's use of parantheses AND make it an exhilirating read.
Beckett's humour is often neglected, or seen merely in the context of existentialism- here it is rarely out of the foreground. Ricks convincingly links Beckett to Swift's satirical work and spends a great deal of time toying with the absurdly antithetical definitions and etymologies of some of Beckett's word choices. The last chapter on the 'irish bull' is both fascinating and hilarious and Ricks himself can't help slipping in his own Beckettian mots justes.
It's physically a slight little book, but it's more than worth the cover price (alright - why are academic books so expensive these days?!!!). If you care about literature, this deserves a place on your shelf.
One of the great joys of Christopher Ricks' marvellous book is the way that he reveals a deeper truth in Beckett's vision. Beckett offers no palliative to the reality of our own mortality other than the uncomfortable idea that the possibility of existence never ending is a far more hellish alternative. Furthermore, the sheer vigour with which Beckett uses language to explore the rigours of existence is itself a triumph.
This is not a book that digs up the hoary old chestnuts of deconstruction. For too long, Beckett has been toted in academic-circles as the patron saint of the 'words words words' school of criticism. Ricks aims a few well-aimed broadsides at the idle musings of the post-structualists, in the process showing how the tragi-comic energy of Beckett's language stems precisely from it's reference to the real.
Ricks' little study is a shining example of what criticism SHOULD be. His feel for language is pretty much unparalleled(alright, perhaps by Frank Kermode). It's testament to his brilliance that he can spend two pages teasing out the connotations of Beckett's use of parantheses AND make it an exhilirating read.
Beckett's humour is often neglected, or seen merely in the context of existentialism- here it is rarely out of the foreground. Ricks convincingly links Beckett to Swift's satirical work and spends a great deal of time toying with the absurdly antithetical definitions and etymologies of some of Beckett's word choices. The last chapter on the 'irish bull' is both fascinating and hilarious and Ricks himself can't help slipping in his own Beckettian mots justes.
It's physically a slight little book, but it's more than worth the cover price (alright - why are academic books so expensive these days?!!!). If you care about literature, this deserves a place on your shelf.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Love, death, and the whole of damned Beckett
21 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
Ricks brings an impressively thorough, and necessarily playful, acumen to his very close reading of Beckett. For a critic who has devoted scrutiny to Dylan as well as the canonical heavy-hitting English canon of bards, Ricks comes equipped with his OED and a vastly patient ability to dig into what on the surface, given Beckett's elusive and often skeletal expressions, can be deceptively straightforward utterances.
Markedly even among Beckett's legion of exegetes, Ricks takes time to compare the French with the English renderings. and unearths from both versions witty and insightful analyses. His energy rarely flags. He may think a bit too much of his cleverness, I suspect, but this is forgivable when we can learn so much from his recondite schtick. As these apparently originated as 1990 Clarendon lectures at Oxford, Ricks keeps aware of an audience--on the page or in person--who is following, and presumably chuckling at, his remarks. You get the sense of Ricks, as with Beckett, performing his recitals rather than transcribing them for actors or academics.
The whole point of death and extinction in Beckett remains an often too little observed topic, and that Ricks stays pretty much on target the whole way through proves an impressive feat. The book takes in, by the way, topics germane to anyone with a general knowledge of Beckett, and is not as limited a concern as the title may suggest. Ricks' infectious interest in puns, allusions, and innuendo makes this a bonus for readers similarly afflicted. Ricks remembers that, as so much in life as well as literature, Beckett is deadly serious as he is uproariously sly.
Doomed to lack as encyclopedic a knowledge of the Beckett canon (and who among you reading this could ever attain such a familiarity as Ricks?), still, I enjoyed this work much more than most criticism I've had to peruse, whoever the scholar or subject. John Banville judges this book, at least from the excerpt as a back cover blurb, "extremely and gruesomely funny."
Markedly even among Beckett's legion of exegetes, Ricks takes time to compare the French with the English renderings. and unearths from both versions witty and insightful analyses. His energy rarely flags. He may think a bit too much of his cleverness, I suspect, but this is forgivable when we can learn so much from his recondite schtick. As these apparently originated as 1990 Clarendon lectures at Oxford, Ricks keeps aware of an audience--on the page or in person--who is following, and presumably chuckling at, his remarks. You get the sense of Ricks, as with Beckett, performing his recitals rather than transcribing them for actors or academics.
The whole point of death and extinction in Beckett remains an often too little observed topic, and that Ricks stays pretty much on target the whole way through proves an impressive feat. The book takes in, by the way, topics germane to anyone with a general knowledge of Beckett, and is not as limited a concern as the title may suggest. Ricks' infectious interest in puns, allusions, and innuendo makes this a bonus for readers similarly afflicted. Ricks remembers that, as so much in life as well as literature, Beckett is deadly serious as he is uproariously sly.
Doomed to lack as encyclopedic a knowledge of the Beckett canon (and who among you reading this could ever attain such a familiarity as Ricks?), still, I enjoyed this work much more than most criticism I've had to peruse, whoever the scholar or subject. John Banville judges this book, at least from the excerpt as a back cover blurb, "extremely and gruesomely funny."
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Too much 'death' is a downer
20 April 2006
Format:Paperback
Ricks intelligence and assuidity in reading Beckett are evident.
He also has insights into the subject in general, including one he especially focuses on the fact that 'losing consciousness' is a dream much less spoken about, than felt.
Nonetheless weltering too long, even in mind, in thoughts of oblivion is not the happiest business in the world.
And laughter too takes on a kind of hollowness even if one is laughing only at one's own demise.
Beckett too had this quality, of being an intelligent and poetic writer but one ( at least in my case) one could only take small doses of at a time.
Too much death is a downer.
I myself always keep the contrary- thought of Spinoza in mind.
i.e. " The free man thinks of nothing less than Death. And his meditation is a meditation on Life."
He also has insights into the subject in general, including one he especially focuses on the fact that 'losing consciousness' is a dream much less spoken about, than felt.
Nonetheless weltering too long, even in mind, in thoughts of oblivion is not the happiest business in the world.
And laughter too takes on a kind of hollowness even if one is laughing only at one's own demise.
Beckett too had this quality, of being an intelligent and poetic writer but one ( at least in my case) one could only take small doses of at a time.
Too much death is a downer.
I myself always keep the contrary- thought of Spinoza in mind.
i.e. " The free man thinks of nothing less than Death. And his meditation is a meditation on Life."
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