Beckett's three great novels like his plays, break new ground in their structure and narrative. A bleak emptiness hovers throughout the three novels that one may consider a sort of trilogy. I was mesmerized from the opening pages of Molloy and wondered what it was in this bleak indeterminacy that was so beguiling. Reading slowly and closely I slowly found a method in this seemingly chaotic world. Drawn inward by moments of humor that counterposed the strange events, if they can be called that, I was drawn forward by the narrator even as the narrative itself seemed to be collapsing. These are three novels with so much wonder and ideas to think about that the attentive reader cannot fail to be impressed. I found these novels to be moving in a unique way and important additions to the literature of modernism.

In Samuel Beckett's novel, Molloy, the first sentence states bluntly, “I am in my mother's room.” This is followed on the first page of the novel with the phrase “I don't know” repeated five times, and if you add “I don't understand” and “I've forgotten” you have eight assertions of lack of knowing. How can or should the reader interpret those comments as establishing anything but a high level of uncertainty both about what the narrator (I) is telling us and what the narrator, may or may not, believe about himself and the world around him? Of most interest to this reader is the comment that the narrator would like to “finish dying” and that his mother is dead, although he is not sure exactly when she died.

What is the reader's expectation for the succeeding 167 pages of the novel based on the first page filled with uncertainty and death? There is work mentioned, but the pages he works on are filled with “signs I don't understand”. Can we say the same for ourselves as readers? At best we are left with snippets of possible information about a handful of others (the man who comes every week, they who may or may not have buried his mother, the son that he may or may not have, and the chambermaid without true love, and yet another who was the true love-whose name he has forgotten, repeatedly). As I reread these lines I cannot help but note the humor of the situation. ( )

It's difficult for me to write about this one. When I was a young undergraduate, Beckett's work hit me like a sandbag between the eyes, and this trilogy was the ultimate blow. It was like suddenly understanding the *how* of how awful everything was, in my viscera. I never quite recovered from it: I'm not sure whether to thank Samuel Beckett, or curse his memory.

Of course you must also understand that, as he's showing you the architecture of wrong-ness, Beckett is also excruciatingly funny.

Far beyond 5 stars. ( )

What a trilogy of despair & hopelessness this is! Or, at least, that's the way I remember it. After I read this I'd pretty much had enuf of Beckett for awhile. If you've ever wanted to get inside the mind of a hopelessly trapped person.. & then do it again, these 3 novels are for you! I shd really re-read these but, the usual reason not to holds: there're too many things I haven't read yet that my reading time can be better spent on. ( )

Relentless and amazing internal monologues running throughout these three short novels. ( )

performed by Cyril Cusack