Malone Dies (1951)

This was interesting but so scattered and hard to follow as perhaps the thoughts of a dying man would naturally be, but I was frustrated at times, not to be able to figure out what was going on. What was true and what was made up? Why did the characters switch names? Malone was mostly unlikeable, but pitiable because he was dying. He seemed to have killed several people during his life. He seemed to be mentally deficient in some way. It was weird and disconcerting.

It gave one a chance to reflect on the nature of existence however, and that was interesting to me. ( )

Perhaps I found this book almost unreadable due to the fact I had not read it's prequale; being the second of a trilogy. Nonetheless, I struggled continually to read this book to the end and admitedly in doing so, paid scant regard to it.
I think I may return to this again at some stage and review it again. ( )

Bad Books 634

The narrator, Malone, who says that he imagined the characters of Beckett's previous works, and often confuses his own story with theirs, is going to die. Before his end, he wants to tell himself stories and make an inventory of his 'possessions, ' in order to pass the time as best as he can. He lies motionless on a miserable bed, in a cell bathed day and night in the same grey light, not really knowing where he is nor who he is. His memories are evanescent, perhaps imaginary. He fails to create stories which 'hold together, ' confusing the characters and the adventures which happen to them. Is he talking about himself, or are they just creations of his mind? He dies without having managed to elucidate anything: his past life, his present illness, the places where he lived, the people he met. He was searching for something, but what? Everything, including himself, disappears in an indistinct mist beyond time and space. Even the reality of his approaching death is not certain.

Nothing is certain apart from that inaccessible reality which the narrator's voice alone ultimately expresses. However metaphysics here is very concrete and explosive, even merry. It proclaims the nothingness of life, the nothingness of man; it moves in an absolute nihilism.