Joyce vs. Beckett

[version]

I dunno how well this one'll go as you can't whizz through a book like you can a tune if you aren't familiar, but we'll see.

I'm pretty firmly in the Beckett camp atm. I read Molloy earlier in the year and it put me on my arse. I can't really find fault with it. There didn't seem to be a wasted word and he struck me as sharper and having a better sense of humour than Joyce. I like what I've read of the latter and think he's brilliant at times, but none of it's hit me with the same force thus far. He seems softer, baggier and less focused (... I guess you could counter the latter by pointing out the relative scope of their work).

Anyone have a strong opinion either way?

 

[catalog]

Ive not read any of becketts prose but heard the molloy trilogy is pretty peerless. And I've only read ulysses but it did really sing to me. So it's gotta be Joyce for me I think.

I did see 'Happy Day' with Macine Peake up to her neck in sand at the Royal Exchange a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, very funny. Would like to see a few more Beckett plays.

And I'd also like to read finnegans wake someday after seeing the influence on grapejuice.

 

[version]

A resounding victory for Sam.

 

[version]

Another way to think of Joyce and Beckett is everything and nothing; Joyce is trying to fill up his books whilst Beckett's trying to empty his.

Joyce vs Beckett = catholicism - maximalism (outlandish, over the top) vs reformism - minimalism (gray, no ornaments, eating porridge)

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Do you have anybody who's sort of in between?

 

[Corpsey]

Not read any Beckett.

Well not any substantial amount.

I've read 3/4ths of Joyce's major works.

I keep avoiding Beckett cos I'm worried he'll tear away the veil and I'll have another mental breakdown.

The idea of nothingness is antithetical to Ulysses, for example.

 

[line b]

I read becketts essay about the wake recently, defending and explaining it, and it was funny because he pretends like he wasn't literally helping write the wake and that Joyce didn't tell him all these things personally and also despite this proximity to the project it's still not a very good essay

 

[line b]

The idea of nothingness is antithetical to Ulysses, for example.

When writing the wake he said in reference to Ulysses 'I've already written the book of the day, now I write the book of the night' or something like that and has implied in interviews that the wake is about nothingness in a way- darkness, ignorance, obscurity, the parts of the mind that consciousness can't reach, the lost portions of dreams that we are not even aware we had.

 

[version]

Not read any Beckett.

Well not any substantial amount.

I've read 3/4ths of Joyce's major works.

I keep avoiding Beckett cos I'm worried he'll tear away the veil and I'll have another mental breakdown.

The idea of nothingness is antithetical to Ulysses, for example.

He's a chess man. That might be your route in.

 

[version]

I read becketts essay about the wake recently, defending and explaining it, and it was funny because he pretends like he wasn't literally helping write the wake and that Joyce didn't tell him all these things personally and also despite this proximity to the project it's still not a very good essay

It'd be great if Joyce hadn't intended for it to turn out the way it did at all. It was just that Beckett knew he could make him look an absolute fool by writing it that way and he'd never know due to his blindness.

 

[line b]

He's a chess man. That might be your route in.

I'm loving chessmaster corpsey. Almost as much as sus the chainsaw maniac rapist