Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett: A Celebration

by Samuel Beckett, James Knowlson (Editor), Elizabeth Knowlson (Editor)

Overview

In life, Beckett was notoriously reticent, preferring to let his work speak for itself. In the first half of this collection, he reveals many of his inner thoughts and honest opinions about his life, writing, friends, and colleagues in candid interviews published for the first time in this book. He discusses his friendship with James Joyce and his role in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France. Also included are newly discovered photographs of Beckett—as a young boy, as a teacher, as best man at a friend’s wedding, and with painter Henri Hayden.

In the second half, friends and colleagues share their memories of Beckett as a schoolboy, a teacher, a struggling young writer, and a sudden success in 1953 with the appearance of Waiting for Godot. Readers will be enchanted by the poignant remembrances by those who knew him best, worked with him most closely, or admired him for his enduring influence: including actors Hume Cronyn, Jean Martin, Jessica Tandy, and Billie Whitelaw and fellow playwrights and authors Edward Albee, Paul Auster, E. M. Cioran, J. M. Coetzee, Eugène Ionesco, Edna O’Brien, and Tom Stoppard.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628724929
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	01/02/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	999
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland, in 1906. His plays Waiting for Godot and Endgame revolutionized modern theater, and his trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable ranks among the major works of twentieth-century fiction. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He died in Paris in 1989.
James Knowlson is also the author of Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, among many others. He is professor emeritus at the University of Reading, and, in 2011, he was awarded the title of Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by former French president Sarkozy for “his eminent career devoted to an understanding of European theatre, specifically for his numerous publications on the life and work of the Nobel Prize–winner Samuel Beckett, a friend of many years standing.”
Elizabeth Knowlson lectured in French at the University of Glasgow from 1961 to 1969. After having three children, she resumed her university career as an administrator at the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Reading. She left her post in order to aid her husband with his biography of Beckett and his later books and essays.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Picture Credits xiii

Preface xvii

Part I Beckett Remembering

Chapter 1 The Young Samuel Beckett

Biography, 1906-27 3

Home 4

Family 6

Music and Tennis 17

School 19

University 23

Sport and Theatre 26

Chapter 2 Reluctant Teacher and Lecturer

Biography, 1927-33 32

Campbell College, Belfast 34

The Sinclairs and Kassel 35

The Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris 39

Beckett on the Joyces 44

Trinity College, Dublin 52

Beckett on Jack B. Yeats 58

Francis Stuart on Beckett 60

Chapter 3 The Bad Years

Biography, 1933-9 65

Psychotherapy and Murphy 67

J. M. Coetzee 74

Biography, 1940-6 77

Beckett and the French Resistance 79

Escape to the South 84

The Irish Red Cross Hospital, Saint-Lô 90

Part II Remembering Beckett

Chapter 4 Post-war Success: The French Novels and En attendant Godot

Biography, 1945-55 97

Richard Seaver on Translating Beckett 100

Patrick Bowles on Beckett in the Early 1950s 108

Jean Martin on the World Première of En attendant Godot 116

Peter Woodthorpe on the British Premiere of Waiting for Godot 121

Ruby Cohn on the Godot Circle 125

Chapter 5 Growing Fame

Biography, 1955-69 131

Lawrence E. Harvey on Beckett, 1961-2 133

Aidan Higgins on Beckett in the 1950s 138

Avigdor Arikha on Beckett and Art 143

Martin Esslin on Beckett the Man 146

Eileen O'Casey 152

Shivaun O'Casey 155

Chapter 6 Beckett as Director

Biography 160

The Royal Court Theatre, London

Brenda Bruce 162

Jocelyn Herbert 165

Billie Whitelaw 168

The Schiller-Theater, Berlin 176

The San Quentin Drama Workshop

Rick Cluchey 195

Alan Mandell 200

Lawrence Held 204

Bud Thorpe 208

Chapter 7 Memories of Beckett in London and Berlin

Biography 212

London 214

Berlin 220

Chapter 8 Beckett in the USA: Tributes and Memories

Biography 225

Edward Albee 229

Paul Auster 232

Jessica Tandy 235

Hume Cronyn 238

Frederick Neumann 241

Chapter 9 The Last Twenty Years

Biography, 1969-89 247

James Knowlson 249

S. E. Gontarski 255

Charles Krance 262

Michael Rudman 267

Jan Jönson 272

Anthony Minghella 280

Chapter 10 In Brief 283

Chapter 11 And Finally …

Antoni Libera: Beckett's Blessing 291

Robert Scanlan: Indeflectible Courtesy 294

Raymond Federman: Sam's Gift of Words 300

Appendix: Beckett on Racine: The Unpublished Lecture Notes of Grace West (neé McKinley), 1931 306