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How It Is
 
 
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How It Is [Paperback]

Samuel Beckett , Edouard Magessa O'Reilly
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (5 Nov 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571243746
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571243747
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 263,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Samuel Beckett
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Product Description

Book Description

The first time this novel has been published by Faber, with a brand new introduction and edited by Edouard Magessa O'Reilly.

Product Description

Published in French in 1961, and in English in 1964, How It Is is a novel in three parts, written in short paragraphs, which tell (abruptly, cajolingly, bleakly) of a narrator lying in the dark, in the mud, repeating his life as he hears it uttered - or remembered - by another voice. Told from within, from the dark, the story is tirelessly and intimately explicit about the feelings that pervade his world, but fragmentary and vague about all else therein or beyond.

Together with Molloy, How It Is counts for many readers as Beckett's greatest accomplishment in the novel form. It is also his most challenging narrative, both stylistically and for the pessimism of its vision, which continues the themes of reduced circumstance, of another life before the present, and the self-appraising search for an essential self, which were inaugurated in the great prose narratives of his earlier trilogy.

she sits aloof ten yards fifteen yards she looks up looks at me says at last to herself all is well he is working my head where is my head it rests on the table my hand trembles on the table she sees I am not sleeping the wind blows tempestuous the little clouds drive before it the table glides from light to darkness darkness to light

Edited by Edouard Magessa O'Reilly


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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Concerning visual art, Beckett once said "I used never to be happy with a picture till it was literature, but now that need is gone". How It Is is the culmination of this development reflected in his own work.
For those not familiar with much of his output, I would suggest a long term approach... start with All Strange Away (Calderbooks) to ascertain if you have a taste for Beckett's later style. Try the more conventional early novel Murphy followed by Watt as a halfway house. Reward yourself with the How It Is peak. Take as long as you need to read it first time round. Thereafter, try reading it in a week... then read it in one day. How It Is can be revisited again and again. Immerse yourself in the way one approaches a painting (as when the need to convert a picture to literature has gone).
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Format:Paperback
"How is it?" by Samuel Beckett came quickly and in fantastic condition (and took a minimal amount of time to come!). A fantastic read that I only wish I could pass onto others (sadly I can't because my notes are all over the book!). Thank you for a speedy delivery though!
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stranger than nothing 27 Aug 2011
Format:Paperback
It is a very strange book. Beckett describes a journey, a journey to Pim. The book is separated into three parts. The first part is the way to Pim. All what he had is a bag with his belongings. He lies in the mud and crawl his way to him. The second part is close by Pim. He is beating him and enjoys it very much. The third part is the time after Pim. It is the instalment of the unnameable. It is a flush of words. The words are spoken to the reader. It had no direct meaning. The person speaks it just as he hears it. You can read it with astonishment and you can't see a plot. It shows the existence of man to me. All what you are, is symbolised in this little person who lies in the mud and wants someone to hang on. A person to speak with. Toescape from the solitariness. The process is the way ahead. The book is like clockwork. Every word hangs on the other and in the end you can see the whole concept. It is the rhythm of the words that shows his concept.
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