Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist

Following close on the heels of James Knowlson's tremendous recent biography of Beckett, Damned to Fame, Irish poet and broadcaster Cronin's opus is an altogether different effort. While both start and end at the same place and are similarly lengthy, Cronin's work arrives at the writing of Waiting for Godot (1948) almost two-thirds of the way into his work, concentrating on Beckett's early "modernist" years, with excellent coverage of Vichy France; in contrast, Knowlson offers intensive focus on the writing and production of Beckett's plays. Cronin is a fluid, witty writer who does not refrain from inserting his own editorial comments into Beckett's story; nor does he idolize his subject. Beckett's liaison with Barbara Bray, who is Cronin's friend, is fully fleshed here, to the exclusion of other romances, the details of which Knowlson has reliably supplied. While Knowlson cracked every safe to fill in his portrait, Cronin conjures the spirit of the man.