Malone Dies

The matchless trilogy by Samuel Beckett is in the first echelon of the everlasting masterpieces – under the mask of feeblemindedness and senility of characters, the greatest wisdom is disguised. When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle,......more

Without question one of the most difficult and challenging books I've ever read. For a while I was sceptical. I wasn't connecting with it and was far from sure I was understanding it. Then, helped by reading it aloud, I suddenly found I had caught its music and now I've finished I really miss it. Th......more

A venomous spate of reviewer’s block has rendered me incapable of forming opinions on all novels over the last few months. So I will keep this simple. I am now a Beckett convert. The prose! The prose! Samuel, O Samuel. It has taken me some time to backslide into the charms of hardcore modernism (so......more

Getting through this loosely-related trilogy of short novels was one of the hardest reading experiences I've ever had, and I'm not exactly sure if I enjoyed it, or even knew what Beckett was getting at half the time. My interest level throughout was all over the place, as the below graphic demonstra......more

Beckett definitely gets 5 stars from me, but he's not for everyone. Nor is he for every mood - this book sat on my shelf for years before I found myself in the right place to give it a read. But once I began Molloy and realized I was feeling it, it shot to the top of my "most brilliant and personall......more