(no subject)
178. Beckett: Dante and the Lobster
179. Austen: The Beautifull Cassandra etc. (Little Black Penguin)
180. Beckett: Human Wishes
181. Beckett: Catastrophe / What Where / Ohio Impromptu
182. Pinget/Beckett: The Old Tune
183. Beckett: Cascando / Words and Music / Eh Joe / Play / Come and Go / Film
184. Brontë: The Night Is Darkening Round Me (Little Black Penguin)
185. Hebel: How a Ghastly Story Was Brought To Light (Little Black Penguin)
186. Neruda: 2000
187. Melville: The Maldive Shark (Little Black Penguin)
188. Jacob: The Dice Cup
189. Tolstoy: How Much Land Does a Man Need / What Men Live By
190. Beckett: A Piece of Monologue / Rockaby / Ohio Impromptu
191. Beckett: Ends and Odds
192. Saki: Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped etc.
193. Beckett: All That Fall
I’m behind by almost fifty by my math.
I usually define “book” as liberally as possible to keep myself going, but people let Beckett publish texts as short as a few hundred words by themselves toward the end of his life - I guess he and his readers agreed a little late Beckett goes a long way? Or maybe agreed that it was amusing to have the shortening of his publications duplicate the progressive diminution/concentration of his texts, which of course themselves tracked how much less life, and lessened life, he deemed remaining to him as he becketted on. The “here’s a napkin I scrawled stuff on, who the fuck cares” impression is also kind of hilarious? The more fun we suspect he had with his peculiar brand the more that brand weakens, I suppose, but that shouldn’t stop its being fun for us.
So anyway, I’m trying to stick to those of his releases that are little but not absurdly so, where possible. Sometimes it isn’t - Human Wishes was only in Disjecta, for example, and I balked at learning German just to get through that book, so am declaring it one itself rather than letting my completism be defeated (I’ve read it and all of these before but am pretending I’m a new person). I dictionaried through the foreignese in his Collected Poems last year, but that was all French or very brief, and back then I had the starter-out’s excitement. All wanes now: length … zeal … day
179. Austen: The Beautifull Cassandra etc. (Little Black Penguin)
180. Beckett: Human Wishes
181. Beckett: Catastrophe / What Where / Ohio Impromptu
182. Pinget/Beckett: The Old Tune
183. Beckett: Cascando / Words and Music / Eh Joe / Play / Come and Go / Film
184. Brontë: The Night Is Darkening Round Me (Little Black Penguin)
185. Hebel: How a Ghastly Story Was Brought To Light (Little Black Penguin)
186. Neruda: 2000
187. Melville: The Maldive Shark (Little Black Penguin)
188. Jacob: The Dice Cup
189. Tolstoy: How Much Land Does a Man Need / What Men Live By
190. Beckett: A Piece of Monologue / Rockaby / Ohio Impromptu
191. Beckett: Ends and Odds
192. Saki: Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped etc.
193. Beckett: All That Fall
I’m behind by almost fifty by my math.
I usually define “book” as liberally as possible to keep myself going, but people let Beckett publish texts as short as a few hundred words by themselves toward the end of his life - I guess he and his readers agreed a little late Beckett goes a long way? Or maybe agreed that it was amusing to have the shortening of his publications duplicate the progressive diminution/concentration of his texts, which of course themselves tracked how much less life, and lessened life, he deemed remaining to him as he becketted on. The “here’s a napkin I scrawled stuff on, who the fuck cares” impression is also kind of hilarious? The more fun we suspect he had with his peculiar brand the more that brand weakens, I suppose, but that shouldn’t stop its being fun for us.
So anyway, I’m trying to stick to those of his releases that are little but not absurdly so, where possible. Sometimes it isn’t - Human Wishes was only in Disjecta, for example, and I balked at learning German just to get through that book, so am declaring it one itself rather than letting my completism be defeated (I’ve read it and all of these before but am pretending I’m a new person). I dictionaried through the foreignese in his Collected Poems last year, but that was all French or very brief, and back then I had the starter-out’s excitement. All wanes now: length … zeal … day