How It Is

Rating:
Summary: Whither the well-wrought novel?
Review: Beckett mastered standing on both sides of the borderline between convention and experiment. How It Is, both immediate in poignancy and resistant to a straight-forward reading, is wonderful testimony to this incredible ability. What is most wonderful about How It Is, and Beckett's late prose works in general, is how the form of the works speak just as loudly as the meanings of the words, if not louder. If anyone is heralding the death of the well-wrought novel, Beckett has demonstrated a controversal but brilliant way forward. We might baulk at its strangeness, but Beckett's is a very generous strangeness, one that requires work on the reader's part but will give the reader a unique experience of what a literary work can do.

Rating:
Summary: "warmth of primeval mud impenetrable dark"
Review: Imagine. Wallowing, hoping, despairing, sinking, dreaming... then a phrase:

"the air thrills with the hum of insects"

More mud. Grovelling, twisting, stumbling, crying... then another:

"I listen a good moment they are good moments"

Somehow the mud doesn't seem so dirty, the darkness doesn't seem so bleak. For there is lustre even in the mud. Such is the beauty of Beckett.

and is there not infinite wisdom in the following?

there are moments they are good moments.

Rating:
Summary: An eerie, original novel
Review: Once again, that poet of despair Samuel Beckett puts the reader through purgatory--or, in this case, an endless tract of mud, which our narrator muddles through for about 150 pages. Written entirely without punctuation, and sometimes a little obscure as to exactly what is going on, this book does not make for easy reading. It's worth the effort, though.

I almost didn't get through it myself. "Post-modern hocus-pocus," I thought sourly, as I read the first third. But it becomes oddly compelling, even poetic. Beckett's severely minimalistic style is fascinating; there's nothing in this book except the eerily dehumanized voice of its narrator, a lonely monologue that generates real poignancy. The effect is like hearing a voice from beyond the grave, and it haunts the mind like few conventionally written novels do.

Rating:
Summary: Essential!
Review: This is final statement about the meaning of life in the 20/21 st centuries: I can't go on; I must go on; I can't go on; I'll go on. You must deal with this, and you can't live without it.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Epic Poetry
Review: _How It Is_ is another challenging, far-out epic by Samuel Beckett. Beckett pushes the far outer boundaries of what can be accomplished through literary fiction. _How It Is_ brings us to the most remote frontiers of artistic consciousness, pioneering new ground into the furthest reaches of the human mind. Join us for this epic voyage into the mind of a profoundly disturbed genius.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Epic Poetry
Review: _How It Is_ is another challenging, far-out epic by Samuel Beckett. Beckett pushes the far outer boundaries of what can be accomplished through literary fiction. _How It Is_ brings us to the most remote frontiers of artistic consciousness, pioneering new ground into the furthest reaches of the human mind. Join us for this epic voyage into the mind of a profoundly disturbed genius.