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.