What I'm reading now

This year is the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth, and I realized I didn't know that much about him, which is sad because I was a theater major in college and supposedly well-read. In my freshman drama class we read Krapp's Last Tape, and I had never heard of him (I believe at the time I got him confused with Samuel Jonson, which is only four-hundred years off).

As a junior I finally read Waiting for Godot, but I was resistant to it. I had a bug up my ass about "avant-garde" work. My professor, Carol Rosen, was crazy about Beckett. She showed us his film, titled "Film," and starring Buster Keaton, but I was obstinate.

Years later I saw the Lincoln Center production of Godot, with Steve Martin and Robin Williams, and I finally was able to appreciate it. Perhaps Godot is one of those plays that has to be seen.






Now I'm reading a biography of him called Damned to Fame. What with working two jobs, I'm getting through it slowly, but I'm enjoying it. The author had permission, and interviewed Beckett extensively before his death.

Beckett wrote something that is sticking with me, and if I die tomorrow I want it on my tombstone:

I must go on, I can't go on, I will go on.