The Essential Samuel Beckett: An Illustrated Biography

For writers, the face of Samuel Beckett, in all its graven, leathery, wrinkled severity, remains an object of great aspiration--it seems to be what a writer's face should look like. So it's fitting that this updated biography of the self-conscious author and playwright offers so many photos. Moving from Beckett's youth in Ireland, through his Parisian years and into his world fame, the text presents a fairly straightforward, if episodic and lightly organized, narrative of the absurdist's ascension, without much in the way of probing speculation, but plenty of detail. ""Beckett made his only known stage appearance in a short skit he wrote after his return to Trinity with George Pelorson, an exchange student from Paris,"" opens one paragraph, by the end of which Beckett has graduated from school. Filled with asides and passing critical commentary, the text meanders alongside the photographs to draw a picture of Beckett's emotional, intellectual and professional dimensions, settling finally on the story of Waiting for Godot and its global acclaim. The candid photo diary segues into production stills from early performances, and later ones featuring celebrity casts, and the text becomes increasingly impersonal. At moments, this book feels cobbled together from a slim archive of images, but for the Beckett completist it offers a wealth of rich material. 122 illustrations.