Latest 4 Reviews Here is what people are saying about the The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940
"Like a veil"
2009-05-16
- Reviewed By User: AN4ZE5MO8Z1IU
A masterly job of editing Mr. Beckett's early letters. I found the detailed and scholarly notes essential to deciphering the many obscure references and common foreign language terms strewn through these letters to friends, relatives, and publishing acquaintances. (The translation into English of his many German, French and Italian phrases is essential to the enjoyment of reading these letters by those, such as I, shackled by that one language.)
Being not overly familiar with Samuel Beckett's life, I was surprised at the extraordinary depth of artistic knowledge he possessed beyond literature, into painting, music and foreign languages.
Among the interesting aspects of these letters to me is the scarcity of comment on the political turmoil in 1930s Europe, especially given Mr. Beckett's many travels and stays in Germany and France during that threatening decade... and his fascination with Dr. Samuel Johnson.
I look forward to future volumes.
"A writer finding his voice"
2009-05-07
- Reviewed By User: A3L2PCKTS964KC
Beckett is intensely concerned with language throughout these letters, and it is fascinating to see him experiment with words and different languages. He is also a serious student of art and music and in a single letter will riff between a sonata, a poem and a painting. It is fascinating to read his explanations of what he is seeing, what he is trying to do. For example, seldom have I encountered as many obsessive descriptions of how paintings are hung in a gallery. Or venom for careless restorations.
And the efforts to obtain a publisher for his novel Murphy! It is an inventory of UK publishers that turn down the book, including the "private asylum Hogarth." Yet he is a kind correspondent, always concerned with the person to whom he is writing, even if it is his hapless agent.
He spends several months during 1937 visiting museums and galleries in Germany, and he provides an eerie description of museums with large numbers of "degenerate" works removed from the galleries, and often available for private viewings in the basement, or in the private home of a Jewish collector.
But these are asides. The main focus of these letters is the struggle of the young Beckett to find his voice in a world that had little interest in what he had to say, and provided little opportunity of earning a living. The publisher of his first book of poems sends him the annual statement of sales, recording 2 copies sold in the previous year.
But he plows on, writing careful, thoughtful, generous letters to a wide group of friends and others, and in those letters we are given the rare opportunity of seeing a great and original mind find a language and a voice.
I did not think much of the obsessive footnotes. The introduction explained the tortuous history of the letters, and along the way the project accumulated way too many scholars. The footnotes are endless, and completely without a human touch. Name, dates, a few words about the person. Endlessly I turned to the footnotes hoping for some explanation of this person's relationship with Beckett, or just some gossip. But no, nothing human, ever. And I would happily have avoided the footnotes except that a vast number of Beckett letter are included solely in the footnotes.
"Rating the quality of the printing and binding"
2009-04-09
- Reviewed By User: A23PQSUUQIMJ2T
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940
This review expresses my profound disappointment with the manufacture of the book.
The letters of Beckett are a joy to read but the publisher has made it as difficult as possible. The book is glued (as most books are today) rather than sewn, which makes it hard to hold open. The paper used is dead white---very hard on the eyes---rather than off-white. The margins, especially the inside margin, are narrow. There are pages and pages of notes (sometimes several consecutive pages) set in not very well printed 8-point type (quite small) with very little space between the lines---very hard to read (and they are essential to read). As to the binding: it is not cloth but colored paper over board, which means that once the jacket disappears, the hinges will quickly bruise.
Time was a Cambridge U.P. would manufacture a decent book, especially with an author as distinguished as this one. Very disappointing. To those who haven't purchased it yet, I would wait for the paperback. It will probably last just as long.
A young Samuel Beckett has all the tools to be a great writer, a sensitive mind, a vast vocabulary, the right contacts. But, he also can't find his way, lost in the wilderness of directionlessness.
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"Like a veil"
"Rating the quality of the printing and binding"