The most remarkable thing about Samuel Beckett’s Stories and Texts for Nothing is the percentage of the short ‘nothing texts’ which prefigure or overlap Waiting for Godot. Even to the extent of remarkably similar – if not repeated – phrases. Not surprising really given that they were all written around the same time, 1945-1950.
There are also echoes of James Joyce, particularly in the almost Stream of Consciousness style. However, I have to say that for me Beckett falls between two stools here: he seems to be writing in a Stream of Consciousness fashion, yet insists on fully punctuating the text. I think the danger of this is that neither element works as well as it could i.e. the ‘consciousness’ part is sometimes too conscious, and in places the punctuation seems more random than accurate. They compromise each other.
That said, there is clearly a lot of interest here for those who like Beckett / the sort of work he and Joyce were producing in the first half of the twentieth century.
As an aside, I picked up my copy of the book – a Grove Press, New York publication – in the remainders section of Waterstones in Lincoln…
Ian Gouge - Writer 