Peter Boxall - Since Beckett

Since Beckett

Continuum Literary Studies Series

Also available in the series:

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Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad by Jeremy Hawthorn

Such Deliberate Disguises: The Art of Phillip Larkin by Richard Palmer

The Palimpsest by Sarah Dillon

The Measureless Past of Joyce, Deleuze and Derrida by Ruben Borg

Womens Fiction 19452000 by Deborah Philips

Contemporary Writing in the Wake of Modernism

Peter Boxall

Continuum International Publishing Group

www.continuumbooks.com

Peter Boxall 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Peter Boxall has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-0067-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boxall, Peter.
Since Beckett : contemporary writing in the wake of modernism / Peter Boxall.
p. cm.
1. Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Influence. 2. Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Criticism
and interpretation. 3. Literature, Modern--20th century--History and criticism.
4. Modernism (Literature) 5. Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)--History--20th
century. I. Title.

PR6003.E282Z5766 2009
848.91409--dc22

2008047951

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

For my mother

This book has had a long genesis, and has been shaped by conversations over many years. My stepfather, Andrew Neil, was the first person to introduce me to Becketts work, and he remains obscurely associated with Beckett, for me, to this day. The late Jim Smith ran an undergraduate course on Samuel Beckett at Southampton University in 1991, and the fondness of my memories both of this course and of Jim himself make it easier for me to see the warmth in Becketts writing. Conversations with Drew Milne over the course of my years as a student at the University of Sussex were an uninterrupted lesson on how to read Beckett, a lesson which I am still trying to learn.

I first laid out the arguments developed in this book in an essay entitled Since Beckett, which appeared in Textual Practice in 2006, and my thanks go to Pete Nicholls and to Daniel Katz for their insightful work on this essay. I have since given parts of the book as papers at conferences in Tokyo, Rome, Osnabrck, Oxford, Durham, Reading, Belfast, Birmingham, London and Brighton. My thanks go to all those who responded to these papers, and made this book a great deal better as a result. I have also published some essays in the last two years that have been related to chapters in the current volume. These include essays in Mark Nixon and Matthew Feldmans collection Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies, in Russel Smiths Beckett and Ethics and Sean Kennedys Beckett and Ireland. My thanks go to the editors of these volumes for their comments and thoughts.

This work has also been supported by a very large number of friends, colleagues and students. These include, in particular, Steven Connor, Leslie Hill, Enoch Brater, Laura Salisbury, Jo Brooker, Simon Morgan Wortham, Shane Weller, Daniela Caselli, Paul Sheehan, Laura Marcus, Peter Brooker, John Pilling, Rick Crownshaw, Andrzej Gasiorek, Roger Luckhurst, Mary Bryden, James Knowlson, Ronan McDonald, Ulrika Maude, Sam Thomas, John Calder, Andrew Hadfield, Steve Burman, Nicholas Royle, Keston Sutherland, J. D. Rhodes, Lara Feigel, Pamela Thurschwell, Vicky Lebeau, Margarete Kohlenbach, Daniel Steuer, Sebastian Franklin, Kumiko Kiuchi, Anthony Leaker, Victoria Blunden, David Tucker and Alvin Birdi. I owe a debt of gratitude also to all my colleagues and students at the University of Sussex.

Anna Fleming and Colleen Coalter at Continuum have been supportive throughout this project, and made the final stages a pleasure. The London National Gallery kindly gave permission for me to reproduce Hieronymus Boschs Christ Mocked.

This book is at its heart about the relationship between parents and children. In writing it, I have been supported above all by my own family, by my partner Hannah and my children Ava and Laurie. The Jordans, Boxalls, Moenchs, Losassos, Chamberlains and Neils, as always, have my thanks. My parents have never been far from my mind when writing what follows, both my mother who brought me up, and my father who was not able to. This book is dedicated with love and gratitude to my mother, and to the memories I preserve of my father.