Reading Beckett's Chora

This review of Anthony Ulhmann's Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image and Elizabeth Barry's Beckett and Authority: The Uses of Cliché uses Julia Kristeva's concept of the semiotic chora as a lens through which both texts can be read. For Barry, cliché is linked to stupidity, inertia, memory and religion. Each of Barry's forms of cliché displays a link between Beckett's lack of Symbolic sense and the nonsense heard in the chora. For Uhlmann, the chora is heard in Beckett's deployment of common philosophical concepts, such as Deleuze's theories of language and Geulincx's "cogito nescio." The emphasis in Uhlmann on lack of knowledge in Beckett also echoes the sound of the chora, which eschews the value of traditional learning or language. Both books are valuable for their insights into Beckett's works, and their connections to literary and philosophical traditions.