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April 29, 2006

beckett's greatest work

Scholarsdiscovercarticle

PARIS—Just weeks after the centennial of the birth of pioneering minimalist playwright Samuel Beckett, archivists analyzing papers from his Paris estate uncovered a small stack of blank paper that scholars are calling "the latest example of the late Irish-born writer's genius."

The 23 blank pages, which literary experts presume is a two-act play composed sometime between 1973 and 1975, are already being heralded as one of the most ambitious works by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Waiting For Godot, and a natural progression from his earlier works, including 1969's Breath, a 30-second play with no characters, and 1972's Not I, in which the only illuminated part of the stage is a floating mouth.

"In what was surely a conscious decision by Mr. Beckett, the white, uniform, non-ruled pages, which symbolize the starkness and emptiness of life, were left unbound, unmarked, and untouched," said Trinity College professor of Irish literature Fintan O'Donoghue. "And, as if to further exemplify the anonymity and facelessness of 20th-century man, they were found, of all places, between other sheets of paper."

more from The Onion here.

Posted by Morgan Meis at 12:14 PM | Permalink

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Comments

Actually, in a rare departure from my normal modesty, I have to disclose that I'm the one who gave Beckett the idea...

Posted by: aguy109 | Apr 29, 2006 3:37:33 PM

...In my seminal work "Sea of Oblivion" (the working title was: "How to flunk a Maths test without really trying") I handed a blank page, after just ten minutes, to the examiner, who was devoid of any capacity to sense literary acheivement. Yes, what took Beckett 23 blank pages, I condensed into just one.

Posted by: aguy109 | Apr 29, 2006 4:56:58 PM

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