Samuel Beckett by Charles R. Lyons (review)

512 Book Reviews Aside from this weakness, though, Whitaker's study is impressive. It gracefully and concisely illuminates some very difficult works and therefore stands as an important contribution to Stoppard scholarship. VICTOR L. CAHN, SKIDMORE COLLEGE CHARLES R, LYONS. Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press 1983. Pp. 201. $8.95. . Charles Lyons's study appears in the Grove Press Modem Dramatists series, and is therefore forced into a certain mold. Those who write for the series are expected to include a brief biography of the dramatist in question, a survey of the plays, including detailed analyses of those considered more significant, "along with discussion, where relevant, of the political, social, historical and theatrical context." The audience envisioned is one of "people interested in modem theatre who prefer concise, intelligent studies ... without jargon and an excess offootnotes." I have quoted these guidelines at some length, because it is only fair to judge the book in these terms. Samuel Beckett is not a book from which the specialist should expect to learn anything new; nor is it a book for the more serious students of theatre. Instead, it provides a rapid overview of Beckett's major plays, and in doing so inevitably covers ground already quite familiar to most readers of Modern Drama. The daunting task of making Beckett available to the general reader is handled here in a straightforward fashion. After an introductory chapter covering the early years, each chapter deals with one play or more under three headings: "character," "scene" (space), and "time." Although the order ofthe categories is varied on occasion, the overall effect is unfortunately mechanical and somewht dull, as we are taken from Waiting For Gadot, Endgame, and Krapp's Last Tape, through each of the major plays until we reach Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu. Suggested further reading is kept to an almost embarrassing minimum in the "bibliography": of the six books recommended for "a clearer understanding of Beckett's work and his place in twentieth-century fiction and drama," three are by Rpby Cohn. Ruby Cohn's central importance to Beckett scholarship is undeniable, but surely major works by Hugh Kenner, James Knowlson, John Pilling, and Clas Zilliacus, to name only a few who come quickly to mind, deserve to be mentioned in this context as well. Kenner's Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett would seem to be just the sort of thing for Lyons's audience. The list offive "Chapters in Books" is likewise startlingly brief and arbitrary. Studies such as Samuel Beckett carry with them a certain burden of trust. The average reader who wants a quick overview of Beckett's life and work has to assume that the specialist who has written the work is in tune with the major scholarship in the field and accurate in the presentation of detail. Lyons is certainly comfortably located in the mainstream of Beckett criticism; in spite of his occasional efforts to distinguish his own ideas from those of his colleagues (see for example p. 171), he makes no extended argument for which he could not find ample support in the work ofothers. On the matter ofdetail, including interpretative detail, however, his work is at times less satisfactory. Book Reviews 513 One example must suffice here: in discussing Murphy's attraction to Mr. EndoD, Lyons suggests that the former is "delighted to discover that EndoD's solipsistic world is so complete that the man cannot see him even though his eyes are fixed upon him"; and he goes on to claim that the "experience of being unseen by Mr. EndoD allows Murphy to complete the process of erasing himself from his own field of perception, disciplining his mind to accept his suicide." This interpretation of the final events of the novel is questionable, to say the least. The very passage Lyons uses to make his point (pp. 249-250 in Murphy) goes on to refer to Murphy's sadness, not delight, at finding himself unseen. Moreover, the close of the chapter offers no indication that Murphy intends to corrunit suicide. As he rocks off into his mind , his plans for the coming day are to leave the asylum and return to Celia. True to...