The Life and Work of Samuel Beckett John Montague Translated by Raymond N. MacKenzie (bio) john montague came to know Samuel Beckett after Montague settled in Paris in 1961 to be the correspondent of the Irish Times. He lived near Beckett, with his first wife, the great-great-niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, Madeleine de Brauer, in their artisan's studio at 11 Rue Daguerre off Place Denfert-Rochereau. Montague's essay stems from remembered conversations with Beckett and from Montague's rereading of Beckett. Éditions Rombaldi commissioned the essay for the Beckett volume in its Collection des Prix Nobel de Littérature. Beckett's influence on Montague's poetry can be noted in Tides (1971) and A Slow Dance (1975), as well as in his translations from French poets of Beckett's generation and just after. Raymond MacKenzie's direct translation preserves Montague's evident admiration of his sometime mentor as well as Montague's idiosyncratic citations, which characterize his wide learning and impressionistic approach to his subjects. —Ed. The Sign of Suffering Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in Dublin on the thirteenth of April, 1906. Before discussing the work of one of the most elusive/difficult of contemporaries, one ought to begin with a few specifics before "dragging the balloon of the mind . . . into its narrow shed," to cite his great compatriot W. B. Yeats, also a Nobelist.1 [End Page 23] But immediately, the balloon starts to belly and drag. The official Dublin city registers give the birth date as May, not April. Not a matter of much importance, one thinks, but the middle name is given as Barely, not Barclay. And if we add to this prophetic error the fact that the birth took place not simply on a Friday but on Good Friday, we might feel we're seeing the omens of destiny. One of Beckett's characters, Murphy, consults the stars before going out to seek employment, but in this case Christianity, numerology, and orthography all come together to suggest a destiny of suffering. And doesn't the fact that the stars were in a state of suspension between the ram and the bull suggest that the destiny will be slow in coming? After all, who would accept such a burden all at once? And then his father, William Beckett, was a quantity surveyor. Now we see the science of numbers intervening, and we recall the outraged cry of Mr. Rooney in All That Fall: "Not count! One of the few satisfactions in life!"2 Throughout Beckett's work, whether it's Molloy counting out his pebbles to suck on or the author providing details of the body of the prostitute Celia in Murphy, the importance of precise measurement is emphasized. The stage directions for these later plays are as precise as blueprints. The boy had no doubt been unconsciously fascinated by his father's work. Otherwise, it's hard to see any link between the long, intellectual-looking silhouette of the young man and the solid assurance of the man in the bowler hat, who probably felt closer to his older son, William. The latter would become an engineer and join the family business. But in the domain of heredity, one ought not draw conclusions too quickly: what about the sheer density of bowler hats in Beckett's work? The hat, as hard as iron, superbly domed above its narrow guttered rim, is marred by a wide crack or rent extending in front from the crown down and intended probably to facilitate the introduction of the skull. For coat and hat have this much in common, that whereas the coat is too big, the hat is too small. And though the edges of the split brim close on the brow like the jaws of a trap, nevertheless the hat is attached, by a string, for safety, to the topmost button of the coat, because, never mind. And were there nothing more to be said about the structure of this hat, the important thing would still remain unsaid, meaning of course its colour, of which all that can be said is this, that a strong sun full upon it brings out shimmers of buff and...
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