I think it's in Malone Dies that Beckett's creature is in a kind of prison or hospital. As I recall, he is visited twice a day, slop brought in and slop taken out. He has a stub of a pencil, a bit of paper. And he asks questions, ten, sven, I don't remember, "Why am I here?" "What day is it?" The last one, no. 10 maybe, says "Number your answers." This is not just desperation and clinging to something called 'reason'--by his fingertips--that is humanity, shit-smeared, hopeless, and mad humanity--in the face of all denial. Our work is about that. My work.

Gerald Stern

Tags: beckett malone-dies

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When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.

Samuel Beckett

Tags: wit logic forest part-i beckett malone-dies molloy page-94 part-1 sly the-unnamable

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