SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1UNIT 6. THE BRITISH NOVEL FROM THE 1950s TO THE PRESENT
THE NEW NOVELIST OF THE 1950s:
SAMUEL BECKETT:
Beckett’s trilogy, published in 1959 under the titles Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable was in
every sense the most radically innovative fictional statement of the 1950s. In these novels the prose
becomes increasingly bare and stripped down. Molloy, for instance, still retains many of the
characteristics of a conventional novel and it makes use of the structure of a detective novel. In
Malone Dies, however, is dispensed with movement and plot, though there is still some indication of
place and the passage of time. The "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue.
Finally, in The Unnamable, almost all sense of place and time has been abolished. The essential theme
seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing and
its almost equally strong urge towards silence and oblivion. Despite the widely held view that
Beckett's work is essentially pessimistic; the will to live seems to win out in the end.
Here Beckett opted for the discipline of writing in French rather than in English. He also chose the
form of a fluid monologue and the “stream of consciousness”. Each of the aging narrators in the
trilogy habitually contradicts himself, stumbles over the contortions of his syntax, and is obliged to
pause to reflect on how he has to express himself.
Molloy is built around two self-explorative consciousnesses, the one seeking the other. The plot is
revealed in the course of the two inner monologues that make up the book. The first monologue is
split into two paragraphs.
The first is Molloy, who is now living "in [his] mother's room" and writing to "speak of the things that
are left, say [his] goodbyes, finish dying." He describes a journey he had taken some time earlier to
find his mother. From town to anonymous town he encounters a succession of bizarre characters: an
elderly man with a stick; a policeman; a charity worker...
The second is a private detective by the name of Jacques Moran, who is given the task by his boss of
tracking down Molloy. He sets out, taking his recalcitrant son, also named Jacques, with him. They
wander across the countryside, increasingly bogged down by the weather, decreasing supplies of food
and Moran's suddenly failing body. He sends his son to purchase a bicycle and while his son is gone,
Moran encounters a strange man who appears before him. Moran murders him and then hides his
body in the forest. Eventually, the son disappears, and he struggles home. At this point in the work,
Moran begins to pose several odd theological questions, which make him appear to be going mad.
Having returned to his home Moran switches to discussing his present state. Also a voice, which has
appeared intermittently throughout his part of the text, has begun to significantly inform his actions.
The novel ends with Moran delineating how the beginning of his report was crafted. He reveals that
the first words of the section were told to him by this voice, which instructed him to sit down and
begin writing.
