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Book Description
New edition of the classic novel, published for the first time by Faber with an introduction by Beckett scholar Peter Boxall
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'Malone', writes Malone, 'is what I am called now.' On his deathbed, and wiling away the time with stories, the octogenarian Malone's account of his condition is intermittent and contradictory, shifting with the vagaries of the passing days: without mellowness, without elegiacs; wittier, jauntier, and capable of wilder rages than Molloy.
The sound I liked best had nothing noble about it. It was the barking of the dogs, at night, in the clusters of hovels up in the hills, where the stone-cutters lived, like generations of stone-cutters before them. it came down to me where I lay, in the house in the plain, wild and soft, at the limit of earshot, soon weary. The dogs of the valley replied with their gross bay all fangs and jaws and foam...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Malone Dies' - published in 1951 in French as 'Malone meurt', and subsequently translated by the author - is the second of the three novels that Beckett wrote in the late '40s. Gathered together in English, they are referred to collectively as the 'Beckett trilogy', though Beckett didn't sanction this view. Each of the three books is readable without knowledge of the others. Nonetheless, a prior reading of 'Molloy' will add to the experience of encountering 'Malone Dies'. (For that matter, there are also clear echoes of the earlier 'Murphy'.)
It is possible to see the two books - and the final novel, 'The Unnameable', in its turn - as different views of the same subject - just as 'Molloy' itself divides into two narratives, that of Molloy and that of Moran, in a way that blurs the separate identities of supposedly separate characters and calls into question the reliability of memory and narrative.
'Malone Dies' is also one of the primary texts of post-war metafiction. Alone in a room in what may be a hospice, mental asylum or prison, the aged Malone scribbles in an exercise book, recording and confusing events from his own life with that of fictional characters - two of whom, the boy Sapo and the itinerant McMann, may not in fact be fictional. From these fragments Beckett weaves an infuriating almost-narrative, a Cubist autobiography that mimics both the motions of a dying man's consciousness and the willed, frail coherence of fictional story-telling. In doing so it manages the peculiarly Beckettian trick of convincing the reader that the human condition is simultaneously farcical and tragic.
For the reader who knows Beckett only through the famous plays, this and the pre-war 'Murphy' are the most approachable of the novels. 'Malone Dies' may also seem oddly familiar because it has been widely influential on post-war avant-garde writing, though very few later writers have managed as Beckett does to combine high formal intelligence with humanity.
It is possible to see the two books - and the final novel, 'The Unnameable', in its turn - as different views of the same subject - just as 'Molloy' itself divides into two narratives, that of Molloy and that of Moran, in a way that blurs the separate identities of supposedly separate characters and calls into question the reliability of memory and narrative.
'Malone Dies' is also one of the primary texts of post-war metafiction. Alone in a room in what may be a hospice, mental asylum or prison, the aged Malone scribbles in an exercise book, recording and confusing events from his own life with that of fictional characters - two of whom, the boy Sapo and the itinerant McMann, may not in fact be fictional. From these fragments Beckett weaves an infuriating almost-narrative, a Cubist autobiography that mimics both the motions of a dying man's consciousness and the willed, frail coherence of fictional story-telling. In doing so it manages the peculiarly Beckettian trick of convincing the reader that the human condition is simultaneously farcical and tragic.
For the reader who knows Beckett only through the famous plays, this and the pre-war 'Murphy' are the most approachable of the novels. 'Malone Dies' may also seem oddly familiar because it has been widely influential on post-war avant-garde writing, though very few later writers have managed as Beckett does to combine high formal intelligence with humanity.
Format:Paperback
Most of Beckett's titles describe exactly what you get in the works to which they are given. Waiting for Godot, for example, is about two men waiting for Godot; Not I is about being in denial, in all senses of those words. Malone Dies, then, is an account of Malone dying. What you make of it is what you will as the old man pokes, pushes and prods things with his hooked stick; writes stories in pencil in his exercise book; eats and excretes; and rages against the dying of the light in the fabulous poetic language the author coined for his excursions into the twilight zone of meaning. What a lot of critics forget is how funny SB is and this book made me laugh out loud on occasion. Take this from the first page: "Throes are the only trouble, I must be on my guard against throes." Me and you both, Sam. This is classic Beckett in a beautifully presented edition with an illuminating (if that's the right word and SB would probably have preferred it if it wasn't) preface by Peter Boxall. Give it to someone you feel ambivalent about for Christmas.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Drama and Meaning without Plot
22 April 2011
Format:Paperback
This is a remarkable monologue, told by man who knows he is dying. He drifts in and out of consciousness and interacts with no one. The story is one of his thoughts only, and when he dies he just stops talking.
Beckett does not envision one's dying thoughts along the classic lines of one's life flashing before his eyes -- more or less chronologically remembering one's childhood, first love, then adulthood. Beckett is more interested in philosophy than relationships, and for Beckett man's relationships with things seem to define him. The most remarkable passage is one where Malone recalls a menial farm task -- one that a person could stay up all night doing with no hope of finishing. Yet, some progress on the task is still a positive good and something worthwhile. This is Beckett's metaphor for life.
It's a difficult book to read, though the tension and drama of a man's dying thoughts makes up for the lack of plot.
Beckett does not envision one's dying thoughts along the classic lines of one's life flashing before his eyes -- more or less chronologically remembering one's childhood, first love, then adulthood. Beckett is more interested in philosophy than relationships, and for Beckett man's relationships with things seem to define him. The most remarkable passage is one where Malone recalls a menial farm task -- one that a person could stay up all night doing with no hope of finishing. Yet, some progress on the task is still a positive good and something worthwhile. This is Beckett's metaphor for life.
It's a difficult book to read, though the tension and drama of a man's dying thoughts makes up for the lack of plot.
This is another Beckett masterpiece.
26 Oct 2011
Format:Paperback
Even though the subject matter is utterly depressing--I've rarely read such a vivid depiction of abject loneliness and physical and mental degradation, as the narrator and his protagonist progressively rot into nothingness--I found the book to be incredibly exhilarating and uplifting. The earthy realism, pessimistic wisdom, dark humor, and liquid poetry made me feel as if I'd not merely read a book, but lived and suffered, and learned some deep truths about human existence that I can't even express in words.
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