Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Alone he watched the sky go out, dark deepen to its full. He kept his eyes on the engulfed horizon, for he knew from experience what last throes it was capable of. And in the dark he could hear better too, he could hear the sounds the long day had kept from him, human murmurs for example, and the rain on the water.
(photograph by Wolf Suschitzky)
(photograph by Wolf Suschitzky)
I’ve never known a review to have so many false starts.
I finished [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] a month ago and was full of ideas for the review, some of which I scribbled in the back of the book. Then I went on a trip and the book was left behind along with the ideas. I set about writing the review again when I got back two weeks later but the ideas I had scribbled in the book no longer made sense so I gave up and wrote a review of a book I’d read on the trip instead. A couple of days later, I began the review of [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] again. A paragraph of nonsense resulted and I abandoned it and reviewed yet another book I’d read in the meantime. It seemed that the book and the review were destined to keep missing each other.
Today, I was determined to stop beating about the bush and to finally keep my appointment with Camier and Mercier, the two characters whose journey is the theme of this book. I thought I’d simply start at the beginning of their story and tell you of the excitement they felt at finally setting out on their long-planned trip, an excitement that was however a little spoiled by them missing each other at the rendezvous point, and then because they were further delayed by a rainstorm so that they had to put off the trip till the next day. But they did set out eventually, after a few other false starts, and they took a bicycle, a raincoat, an umbrella and a bag of food along with them. Any or all of these items may have been stolen because our heroes may have been thieves in a former life. The bicycle gets left behind near the the first pub they meet on the way, the bag is abandoned soon after and, well, you’ll have to read the book yourself to find out about the adventures of the raincoat. As for the umbrella, it was a kind of divining rod, in the sense of a coin to toss. That’s a new idea isn’t it, tossing an umbrella to decide whether you’ll go in this direction or that direction. But that’s what M & C did, although the umbrella suffered in the process and was repaired by Helen, the 'any port in a storm’ person in this story. Helen isn’t a character in the real sense, she just gets mentioned, and you’re not surprised by that, are you, because really, when does a woman ever have a speaking part in a Beckett book? The answer is, as in the bible, not often.
As for speaking parts, Mercier and Camier have quite extensive ones in this novel because it is very like a play, and not just any play, no, it is very like [b:Waiting for Godot|17716|Waiting for Godot|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327910301l/17716._SY75_.jpg|2635502] in that the two heroes come and go a lot, and sit around quite a bit too, philosophising. And there’s a third person, a kind of Godot/Christ character who is never quite present but is not absent either. In fact, it is he who narrates the entire thing. The first line of the book says: The journey of Mercier and Camier is one I can tell, if I will, for I was with them all the time. But he is never mentioned again! Or perhaps he is. Watt, you ask? Yes, Watt is mentioned at the end and there’s a possibility he may be the third person. I have yet to read all of [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908] so I don’t know for certain. But if it came to the toss of an umbrella, I’d bet on it pointing at Watt. (Edit: having long since finished [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908], I think the umbrella was right)
....................................................................................................
The original title of [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] was ‘Le Voyage de Mercier et Camier autour du pot dans les bosquets de Bondy’ (Mercier and Camier's journey spent beating about the bushes in the Bondy woods (or something to that effect)). Bondy is a real forest near Paris famous for highwaymen in the past—it is implied that the two heroes themselves have been thieves in a former life. The English translation of the title was to be ‘The Pointless Voyage of Mercier and Camier into the Den of Thieves’ but Beckett didn’t like that version (it entirely misses the wordplay of the French title) and he shortened both titles to the present versions. This book was the first of Beckett’s work written originally in French. He said that he switched to French because for him, writing in French made it easier to write without style. Perhaps this was an exercise in stripping his writing down even further than he had before but perhaps it was also a recognition that French publishers were slightly more interested in his work than were English ones. He started [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] in 1945, soon after finishing [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908]. He had spent most of the war years living in the French countryside, and [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] reflects that; it is full of descriptions of rural areas, once the two heroes finally get clear of the city they set out from.
The really important fact about [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] that you should know, yes you, the invisible third presence in this review alongside me and the book, is that it is very funny, perhaps the funniest of Beckett’s works - certainly the funniest I’ve read so far.
There, I’ve done beating about the bush and have come to the point, finally.
I finished [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] a month ago and was full of ideas for the review, some of which I scribbled in the back of the book. Then I went on a trip and the book was left behind along with the ideas. I set about writing the review again when I got back two weeks later but the ideas I had scribbled in the book no longer made sense so I gave up and wrote a review of a book I’d read on the trip instead. A couple of days later, I began the review of [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] again. A paragraph of nonsense resulted and I abandoned it and reviewed yet another book I’d read in the meantime. It seemed that the book and the review were destined to keep missing each other.
Today, I was determined to stop beating about the bush and to finally keep my appointment with Camier and Mercier, the two characters whose journey is the theme of this book. I thought I’d simply start at the beginning of their story and tell you of the excitement they felt at finally setting out on their long-planned trip, an excitement that was however a little spoiled by them missing each other at the rendezvous point, and then because they were further delayed by a rainstorm so that they had to put off the trip till the next day. But they did set out eventually, after a few other false starts, and they took a bicycle, a raincoat, an umbrella and a bag of food along with them. Any or all of these items may have been stolen because our heroes may have been thieves in a former life. The bicycle gets left behind near the the first pub they meet on the way, the bag is abandoned soon after and, well, you’ll have to read the book yourself to find out about the adventures of the raincoat. As for the umbrella, it was a kind of divining rod, in the sense of a coin to toss. That’s a new idea isn’t it, tossing an umbrella to decide whether you’ll go in this direction or that direction. But that’s what M & C did, although the umbrella suffered in the process and was repaired by Helen, the 'any port in a storm’ person in this story. Helen isn’t a character in the real sense, she just gets mentioned, and you’re not surprised by that, are you, because really, when does a woman ever have a speaking part in a Beckett book? The answer is, as in the bible, not often.
As for speaking parts, Mercier and Camier have quite extensive ones in this novel because it is very like a play, and not just any play, no, it is very like [b:Waiting for Godot|17716|Waiting for Godot|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327910301l/17716._SY75_.jpg|2635502] in that the two heroes come and go a lot, and sit around quite a bit too, philosophising. And there’s a third person, a kind of Godot/Christ character who is never quite present but is not absent either. In fact, it is he who narrates the entire thing. The first line of the book says: The journey of Mercier and Camier is one I can tell, if I will, for I was with them all the time. But he is never mentioned again! Or perhaps he is. Watt, you ask? Yes, Watt is mentioned at the end and there’s a possibility he may be the third person. I have yet to read all of [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908] so I don’t know for certain. But if it came to the toss of an umbrella, I’d bet on it pointing at Watt. (Edit: having long since finished [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908], I think the umbrella was right)
....................................................................................................
The original title of [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] was ‘Le Voyage de Mercier et Camier autour du pot dans les bosquets de Bondy’ (Mercier and Camier's journey spent beating about the bushes in the Bondy woods (or something to that effect)). Bondy is a real forest near Paris famous for highwaymen in the past—it is implied that the two heroes themselves have been thieves in a former life. The English translation of the title was to be ‘The Pointless Voyage of Mercier and Camier into the Den of Thieves’ but Beckett didn’t like that version (it entirely misses the wordplay of the French title) and he shortened both titles to the present versions. This book was the first of Beckett’s work written originally in French. He said that he switched to French because for him, writing in French made it easier to write without style. Perhaps this was an exercise in stripping his writing down even further than he had before but perhaps it was also a recognition that French publishers were slightly more interested in his work than were English ones. He started [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] in 1945, soon after finishing [b:Watt|104613|Watt|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171520807l/104613._SY75_.jpg|1491908]. He had spent most of the war years living in the French countryside, and [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] reflects that; it is full of descriptions of rural areas, once the two heroes finally get clear of the city they set out from.
The really important fact about [b:Mercier et Camier|766944|Mercier et Camier|Samuel Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178165514l/766944._SY75_.jpg|3076496] that you should know, yes you, the invisible third presence in this review alongside me and the book, is that it is very funny, perhaps the funniest of Beckett’s works - certainly the funniest I’ve read so far.
There, I’ve done beating about the bush and have come to the point, finally.
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A gem from the master of metaphysical and absurd-ism lit, this short and delightful novel was written by Beckett when he was just cutting his teeth on the style that would become his hallmark. I wonder how many times Stoppard read this before writing [b:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead|18545|Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead|Tom Stoppard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1338735611s/18545.jpg|73811]. Funny, brutal and original throughout.
I picked this up at Powell's in Portland over the weekend. For my Goodreads friends that haven't heard of this greatest of bookstores, it is a beacon of light in a world of box-store bookstores. An entire city block in Portland dedicated to one house of the written word (used and new volumes galore). Check them out at powells.com
I picked this up at Powell's in Portland over the weekend. For my Goodreads friends that haven't heard of this greatest of bookstores, it is a beacon of light in a world of box-store bookstores. An entire city block in Portland dedicated to one house of the written word (used and new volumes galore). Check them out at powells.com
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Beckett at his least exhausting. A bridge work but all the better for it. Funny.