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GÁBOR ROMHÁNYI TÖRÖK For the centenary in 2006 I succeeded in having the Three Novels republished, this time finely bound, and took it to Reading to show in the week-long celebrations during which numerous world-famous ‘Beckettologists’ delivered lectures. There I also made the acquaintance of Edward Beckett. In the spring of the year 2001 I spent a month in Dublin at my own expense, to study his correspondence in the archive of Trinity College, the university where Beckett once studied. There too the word “Reading” worked wonders, as when it was spoken the required documents were readily placed at my disposal. After the publication of Knowlson’s biography of Beckett it became known that in the mid-1930s he had lived for almost two years in London in order to consult a now famous psychiatrist three times a week. Although no record or document was made of the sessions — or Beckett destroyed it in the meantime — numerous authorities and literary experts consider that the source of several of his later works is to be found in this analysis; indeed, that this explains the cardinal fact that ten years later he seemed consciously to “suppress” his native language and compose his work in French. That is only a work hypothesis, but the question is too complex for us to adopt a unanimous position in answering it. The point is that this incomparable material exists in two forms, French and English. A number of points in his later work give grounds for this slight “error,” and this view is justified in the difficult sphere of the analysis of Beckett texts; nevertheless its conclusiveness is open to question. At the start of this article 1 mentioned that the alpha of my connection with Beckett’s work was Krapp’s Last Tape. Its omega, however, has been a prosepoem of the elderly author’s, Mal vu mal dit/Ill Seen Ill Said. The temptation of comparative analysis is strong. Both masterpieces were conceived in the melancholy of farewell and mourning and both were inspired by (the memory of) a great love. The latter is the memory of a beloved and hated woman of whom the writer thought most in her life and after her death, whom in this piece of writing he sees dying, then in death, whom he resurrects, then watches her die again and this time he too dies with her — forever. Farewell to farewell. Then in that perfect dark foreknell darling sound pip for end begun. First last moment. Grant only enough remain to devour all. Moment by glutton moment. Sky earth the whole kit and boodle. Not another crumb of carrion left. Lick chops and basta. No. One moment more. One last. Grace to breathe that void. Know happiness." For the moment I am planning to write an essay on Ill Seen Ill Said. Steven Connor wrote, “For many writers, Samuel Beckett becomes a kind of life 1 Samuel Beckett: Ill Seen Ill Said, London, Calder, 1982, 58. + 142 +
