As an amateur writer myself, I can tell you guys that Samuel Beckett is the bar for me: the one I am always working towards and may never reach. The key to his work is simple: conversation. Whether it is a character conversing with themselves or with someone else, the story and characters progressed with conversation rather than a stated narrative. Another thing Samuel Beckett is known for is the bleakness of his work. The dark and absurd side of life was interesting to Beckett and, honestly, that may be where I got some of my own morose nature from. For example, consider this line from Malone Dies;
“Or I might be able to catch one, a little girl for example, and half strangle her, three quarters, until she promises to give me my stick, give me soup, empty my pots, kiss me, fondle me, smile to me, give me my hat, stay with me, follow the hearse weeping into her handkerchief, that would be nice. I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?”
Look at all we get from this character from just this line. We not only get a better grip of how insane he is, but also how the very notion of a relationship is absurd. We also see his misery and how ineffective ‘average’ people’s remedies for misery can be. It is brilliant. Beckett is brilliant. And anyone who tries to follow in these footsteps not only has my interest, but a long road ahead of them.
This brings me to Gods of Nowhere. It obviously follows the mold of Beckett: telling a very human tale in a very bleak atmosphere, but can it also capture the spark of brilliance that turned Minimalism into an art form? Let’s find out! Oh and, be warned, there are mild spoilers ahead!
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