Samuel Beckett - Molloy

"I though i was a big fan of postmodernism until I was told that this is one of the essential texts of the movement."


"Ugh...I made it almost halfway through and gave up. There's no plot, the story is repetitive, disgusting and nothing is ever achieved."


"Most found this book totally irritating and frustrating – just completely aggravating - and one reader had vowed never to read Beckett again. The book was not hateful, but it was repetitive and rambling, with no beginning or end, and nothing achieved.
...
One member, who claimed the eccentricity of always finishing a book once started, found 'Molloy' unfortunately reminded him of 'Ulysses', the one book he had been unable to finish. The critics quoted on his copy referred to Beckett’s remarkable sense of humour, but – with the exception of one remark on page one - he had found nothing humorous. Beckett had severely tested his patience with the first 117 page paragraph, and by five pages devoted to stone-sucking.
...
Another disliked modernism in the novel – which he felt had been an experimental cul de sac from which contemporary novelists had mercifully retreated – and found that 'Molloy' confirmed his prejudices."

READER RESPONSE TIME: HAS ANYBODY EVER ACTUALLY BEEN IN A BOOK GROUP? WHY? WHAT DID YOU DO? DID YOU GET CAUGHT, LIKE, MOLESTING A CHILD? DID YOU EXTERMINATE AN ENTIRE RACE?


"Presumes to lay bare the geriatric mind, but comes nowhere near. Based on the ludicrous proposition that the aging process is hellish and unnatural. Beckett is the true godfather of MTV."


"Becketts turgid prose is virtually unreadable. Beckett is a classic example of someone lionised by the literary mafia for basically parading his neuroses in print; anyone familiar with Becketts background and writing inevitably concudes that for most of his life, Beckettt was quite simply, mentally ill. There are no ideas, no storytelling, just a pervading sense of vacuity and obscurantism, at the heart of all his work."