Samuel Beckett's 'More Pricks Than Kicks': In A Strait Of Two Wills

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Drawing on private correspondence and little known documents, published and unpublished, Pilling explores every aspect of the More Pricks Than Kicks short story collection. From its publishing history to why they were written, Pilling reveals Beckett's conflicted feelings about the 'compromise' of writing short stories and his struggle to find a voice distinct from James Joyce, his friend and authority of the form. By discussing each story as separate entity, in a grouping that deviates from the collection, and by analysing 'Echo's Bones', Pilling makes new comparisons and contrasts, illustrating Beckett's idiosyncratic handling of the form. Making sure to place the stories in the context of the post-war work, this early study of Beckett highlights the years and work central to his development as a writer.

Reviews

It is very easy to write about indeterminacy, ambiguity, and ambivalence in Beckett, but very hard to do so with the persuasive depth of research and sensitivity to nuance that we have come to expect from John Pilling. In this fresh, revisionary study of More Pricks than Kicks, he captures a critical moment in Beckett's tortuous path to the inimitable voice of his mature art, and Pilling does so in a distinct voice of his own that makes this rigorous scholarly work a pleasure to read. -- H Porter Abbott, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Only somebody with the deep and authoritative knowledge of early Beckett that John Pilling has could have written this book. Pilling brings to Beckett's brilliant, perverse collection of stories a steady and shrewd critical intelligence and perfect pitch for echo, allusion and overtone. This book must be regarded as an indispensable resource for anyone approaching More Pricks Than Kicks. The book that has been so long a phantom presence in Beckett's oeuvre, suffering both from Beckett's deprecation and readers' impatience, has at last been made deliciously and compellingly readable. -- Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Pillings careful excavation of manuscript materials is wholly in line with the aims of this series which stress primary and archival sources as contexts for major (and minor) works of Modernism the volume under review, will prove indispensable for future scholars of what Jean-Michel Rabat once termed Beckett avant Beckett. * The Beckett Circle *

Author Bio

John Pilling is Emeritus Professor of English and European Literature at the University of Reading, UK. He edited the Journal of Beckett Studies for ten years, serves on the editorial board of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui. and has written or edited numerous books, articles, symposia, and review essays on Beckett for more than thirty years. His special interest and expertise currently is in every aspect of Beckett's life and work in the 1930s.