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Article: Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett.
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- February 28, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Above a darkened stage, a disembodied mouth recites a tale of loss. A blind man drives his servant in harness. A frail couple in nightcaps reminisce from their separate ashcans. Such stark iconography, from the plays of Samuel Beckett, has made the author's name synonymous with nihilism and stoic desperation.
But these images are more than the harvest of a depressed mind, as James Knowlson demonstrates in his masterly biography Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. Beckett had a knack for grim comedy, but he was also a scholar and a connoisseur of high culture, particularly European painting, Knowlson points out, and many of the striking apparitions in his work ...