Where's Waldo? Also, Malone.

Through all the beautiful, sad, empowering talk from Malone as he ruminates on death, I find myself wondering who, exactly, Malone is.  Maybe that's not important.  I don't know.  Perhaps I shall learn.

It is easy to believe, if you tell yourself so, that Malone is simply Molloy from the preceding novel.  This seems to make sense, given that both find themselves in drab rooms, waiting for--and welcoming--their own deaths while in some way chronicling the summation of their lives.

However, it seems odd that Beckett would choose to write two parts of a trilogy about the same character doing, essentially, the same thing.  It is possible, but let us assume it is not firmly so.

In fact, let us save time and assume that nothing is firmly so.  This assumption must be extended to the characters, ideas, and the narrator himself.  Beckett appears to explain this concept himself in Malone Dies when he states: "The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks release from its formlessness."  What then, if one of the forms that the unchanging has chosen for its formlessness is Malone himself?  It seems entirely possible.  This means that Malone could have been anyone; could still be anyone.


Let us explore our options.

Our Malone shows none of the mustachioed bravery and bullet-defying conviction of Burt Reynolds' Richard Malone, a man for whom death appears impossible.

Nor does he seek anything with quite the ferocity that basketball legend Karl Malone sought an NBA championship late in his career; seemingly knowing that the attainment of just one thing would satisfy him for life.

Our Malone certainly resembles the latter more closely than the former, as neither ever attain the thing which they thought would bring meaning to their lives.  However, with out Malone, he never goes so far as to even identify such a thing.  Accepting instead that the thing may be nothingness itself.

And so, we return to nothing, as so often we do with Beckett.  No legends of over-acting or failed professional athletes to console us.  Only the bitter dark and cold of reality to remind us we are alive.  Only our own formation of nothingness to inform us.

I think, though, if there is one thing that can be agreed upon in Malone Dies, it is that our Malone is not famed rapper Glasses Malone.

Just call it a hunch.

The Many Similar Faces of Reality, I Think.

“They looked alike, but no more than others do.”

This thought, put forth by Molloy early in his writings, tells the reader all they need know about “Molloy.” While here Molloy is specifically referring to two men he sees leaving town, he feels similarly about the rest of the people he meets. He goes so far, even, as to find these people difficult to tell from himself, stating: “People pass by, hard to distinguish from yourself. That is discouraging.”

This difficulty with discernment extends into all facets of Molloy's life and memory. It is in the son he isn't sure he had. It is in the lovers that may or may not flit in and out of his life; morphing and evaporating at his will.

It is the character Molloy's will, as much as anything, that drives the novel "Molloy."  At the outset, Molloy claims he has no will to write, and yet he writes.  He has no will to remember these events, and yet remember he does.  More than that, he invents.

Whether Molloy is ever to believed or not is a matter of judgement, however, it does seem clear that his lasting impressions of people, even himself, have not been all that lasting.  Each face, much like each day for Molloy, is only vaguely different from the one that preceded it.  This is all true if Molloy is to be taken at his word; a word which is established to be as slippery as Beckett himself.

If we, instead, believe that Molloy is lying, we must believe that it is an ultimate lie; that the ills of the world have driven him past hate.  This would mean that the novel "Molloy" would be Molloy's ultimate revenge; catapulting all that has ailed him past hate and into the dark corner of neglect.

And yet, there is one option still left unexamined.

This could all be another of Beckett's games.  Molloy may simply not remember because he (like Beckett) is aware of the fragility of memory.  As an average reader, it is almost too much to accept that the very nature of fiction is being undermined.  However, as a vaguely initiated Beckett reader, this sort of turn may have been expected.

Sometime Beckett, Sometime Belacqua

What, exactly, is More Pricks than Kicks?

A collection of short stories following a central character? An episodic novel charting the life and demise of Belacqua? A metafiction dedicated to Samuel Beckett's mistrust of form in communion with content?

It has come to be known as a collection of short stories which, true or not, presents a number of complications both for the reader and for Beckett himself.

The short story form in and of itself presents a significant challenge to a writer like Samuel Beckett. While a novel allows for content to give way to form,(as the reader is given time to digest the style and direction of the narrator/author) the short story is given much less time for this to take place and must often give major focus to structuring the content.

In reading some of the history behind Beckett, I found that More Pricks than Kicks arose as an outlet for Beckett to escape the writing of his first novel: “Dream of Fair To Middling Women.” It also appears to have started as a novel that fell short of reaching Beckett's expectations. Thus, it was found to be easier digestible as a collection of separate pieces charting the life of a single character.

However, though Beckett at first appears to bow to the conventions of the short story format, he finds a number of ways to subvert it.

First, though including much spoken action in More Pricks, Beckett often refuses any “actual” action. That is to say, anything that is happening at the exact moment. When events do take place they are often irrelevant and attempts by the characters(Belacqua mostly) to escape whatever it is that troubles them.

As we learn in “Ding-Dong” the narrator's “sometime friend Belacqua” has to “move from place to place” as “the mere act of rising and going, irrespective of whence and whither, did him good.” This admission of the character of Belacqua comes just on the heels of his trip to Portrane with Winnie, Portrane being a place that Belacqua claims has “(his) heart.”

As it turns out, any place and any time that are not present seem to have Belacqua's heart.

Not only this, but the phrasing of “sometime friend” by the narrator of “Ding-Dong” says quite a bit about Belacqua. He is, in many ways, “Sometime Belacqua.” Sometime Chef, horrified and deluded by the actuality of the preparation of his food. Sometime Lover and Sometime Friend, never truly present in the presence of his loved ones. Always gone somewhere, though never truly able to leave. A ghost of his own devising.  Still trapped in the content of his life, dictated by past decisions.