Thursday, April 21, 2005

"Ping" by Samuel Beckett

If you've been worried that our selections are a bit on the conventional side of things, here's a change of pace--a story which is really more an adventure in sound and speech patterns than an exploration of character or plot. Impossible to describe any further, this piece is translated by the author from Beckett's original Gallic version, which was called, inexplicably enough, "Bing." Read by Scoot.

One of the fathers of modern theater, Samuel Beckett is of course known best for Waiting for Godot, done to death in a million venues by amateurs and professionals alike, but still a great play. The absurdist Irishman also wrote fiction and what-you-may-call-it in both English and French. Cranky, dyspeptic, and solidly sordid, his works challenge both language and the reader.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cranky? No.

Dyspeptic? Maybe he was (along with his myriad other ailments), but his writing was not.

Solidly sordid? Not even mildly sordid.

But thanks for the reading, which is somewhat dyspeptic, but at least it exists. I'll post a link to it and if you delete it I'll upload it to my site (click on "lifeform", above).