A Beckett Canon by Cohn Ruby;

Author:Cohn, Ruby;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

1953–58

Then These Flashes, or Gushes

1953

On January 5, 1953, En attendant Godot opened at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris, but Beckett sought refuge in Ussy. Although the production was not the incendiary explosion of which legends are made, it did bring Beckett some modest public attention. Since he was already at a creative impasse, buffeted between “je” and “il” in fiction, the staging of Godot offered him no palliative. On the contrary. When Suzanne reported to him that Estragon’s trousers failed to drop at the end of the first performance, Beckett wrote Blin indignantly. The undropped trousers proved a harbinger of other irritations during 1953. In February an excerpt from L’Innommable (“Mahood”) was published in the prestigious Nouvelle nouvelle revue française, and he was annoyed by misprints. In August Watt was published in Paris by an improbable partnership of young foreign editors of Merlin (a short-lived periodical) and a seasoned editor of pornographic books; it too sported misprints, in spite of Beckett’s painstaking correction of the galleys. After years of translation for small sums, Beckett felt compelled by requests from theaters in England and Germany to consider translating Godot. Even pleasures were tainted by his failure to write anything new: Meeting Joyce’s biographer, Richard Ellmann, Beckett was reminded of the older writer’s unflagging creativity, in contrast to his own flagging efforts. Reacting companionably to his new American publisher, Barney Rosset, Beckett had nothing new to offer him.

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