Malone Dies

The second part of the trilogy feels if anything even bleaker than the first. Malone is in bed awaiting death, with an exercise book and a stub of pencil to record his thoughts, but no clear idea of where he is beyond the room he can see, or of how he got there. At first there's someone who brings him food and takes away his filled chamber pots, but at a certain point even that stops and he's left alone with his reflections, which alternate between his descriptions of his current state and episodes from a story (perhaps several stories) he is telling us about a character confined in what seems to be some kind of asylum. Unpleasant, disturbing, but strangely gripping. And even occasionally very funny.

Beckett, at last, faced with the sentence, the semi-sentient, sentence-like non-sentence. Even dying, especially so, Beckett alone in the rotting body of Malone, the rolling, roiling, sacrosanct body Malloyed against the scat of Saposcat like a hat on a hill. Oh, we’re getting on, alright, Macmann. Let’s gasp. Let’s grasp for our stick better to poke-at with, our nub of lead better to write with, this letter of cease and decease.

For there is a joy in here that is hard to describe. On the one hand I am ecstatic about these sentences, language, syntax, humor. There is a surprising quietness too, that I love. Nevermind. There is no other hand. I was about to say something about the despair, the madness and decay. But they are show more intertwined like a good split brain soup.

Beckett does it to me in the first half of this book like no other. When he is on, there is no-one better. Then around 3/4 of the way in, the level drops slightly. In that the surprises, the tiny pleasures, don’t come as often, or not as tightly packed as before. It becomes easier to read, smoother, lacking the constant change of direction and backtracking I loved earlier. But still, even at its weakest this stuff is miles above the others.

I remember admiring Molloy greatly, but not being able to really sink my teeth deep into it. This book on the other hand was so tactile for me, it drew me in so that I read it almost in one sitting (Molloy took weeks!). I’m not sure if this is the book’s fault or mine, maybe I’m more susceptible to his rhythms this time around.

“Standing before my high window I gave myself to them, waiting for them to end, for my joy to end, straining towards the joy of ended joy.”

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Beckett, at last, faced with the sentence, the semi-sentient, sentence-like non-sentence. Even dying, especially so, Beckett alone in the rotting body of Malone, the rolling, roiling, sacrosanct body Malloyed against the scat of Saposcat like a hat on a hill. Oh, we’re getting on, alright, Macmann. Let’s gasp. Let’s grasp for our stick better to poke-at with, our nub of lead better to write with, this letter of cease and decease.

For there is a joy in here that is hard to describe. On the one hand I am ecstatic about these sentences, language, syntax, humor. There is a surprising quietness too, that I love. Nevermind. There is no other hand. I was about to say something about the despair, the madness and decay. But they are show more intertwined like a good split brain soup.

Beckett does it to me in the first half of this book like no other. When he is on, there is no-one better. Then around 3/4 of the way in, the level drops slightly. In that the surprises, the tiny pleasures, don’t come as often, or not as tightly packed as before. It becomes easier to read, smoother, lacking the constant change of direction and backtracking I loved earlier. But still, even at its weakest this stuff is miles above the others.

I remember admiring Molloy greatly, but not being able to really sink my teeth deep into it. This book on the other hand was so tactile for me, it drew me in so that I read it almost in one sitting (Molloy took weeks!). I’m not sure if this is the book’s fault or mine, maybe I’m more susceptible to his rhythms this time around.

“Standing before my high window I gave myself to them, waiting for them to end, for my joy to end, straining towards the joy of ended joy.”

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I'm clearly missing something since this is considered to be a masterpiece. Very tedious in my experience. Malone is dying. He muses about a variety of random things, memory, human nature, aging, loneliness. The whole book is told as if it were an inner monologue.

Very well written. No one can claim that he wasn't an extremely skilled and intelligent writer but I disliked the experience reading this book.

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 show more 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. show less

La segunda novela de la famosa trilogía de Beckett ('Molloy', 'Malone muere' y 'El innombrable') tiene como protagonista a Malone, un viejo que está postrado en cama, solo en la habitación, escribiendo en su cuaderno mientras espera su muerte, aunque no sabe cuándo va a ocurrir. Pocas cosas le suceden, y cada una de ellas se convierte en toda una odisea en este su mundo de soledad: la comida diaria que le pasan a través de una rendija en la puerta, o las veces que se le cae de la cama el bastón o el lápiz. Malone pasa el tiempo que le queda alternando su propia historia con historias que va inventando, alrededor de la vida del joven Sapo, que pasará a llamarse Macmann al crecer. A lo largo del libro, Malone desfallecerá una y show more otra vez a la hora de continuar su historia, entre reflexiones sobre la muerte, la soledad o simplemente el absurdo de la vida. Para Malone todo se convierte en materia de observación, cualquier minucia. Sin embargo, estos titubeos no lo desaniman para continuar su historia.

Se necesita mucha paciencia para leer a Beckett, en una obra donde el autor deja ver un cambio a una escritura más significativa y desnuda, casi minimalista. No he llegado a disfrutar de su escritura, algo que sí hago con autores que se mueven por territorios parejos, como son Bernhard o Sebald. show less

Reason read: This was my 2026 March TBR takedown book. What can I say. Its Beckett. This was not as bad as some, It was short. It is the second novel in his modernist trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable). In this one, the dying narrator, Malone, fills his days writing stories. Perhaps the book is a bit about the authors ideas on the writing process.

Themes: exploration of the self, the nature of storytelling, the futility of existence, and the struggle to find meaning as life ends, often seen as a satire on the creative process. Other themes suggested are existential dread, bleakness,slow decay, and profound isolation.

Published 1956.
First sentence: "I shall soon be quite dead at last in spit of all.

Some quotes:
"I shall be show more neither hot nor cold any more, I shall be tepid. " almost a quote from Bible/Revelations

"...for already from the world that parts at last its labia and lets me go." (is he comparing death to birth?)
"He would stand raptor, gazing at the long pernings, the quivering poise, the wings lifted for the plummet drop, the wild renascent, fascinated by such extremes of need, of pride, of patience and solitude."
"But indeed his dream was less of girls than of himself, his own life, his life to be."
"If it can, could not this songI have just heard, and which quite franklyis not yet quite stilled within me, could not this song have simply been to the honour and glory of him who was the first to rise from the dead, to him who saved me, twenty centuries in advance?" Another Biblical reference to the resurrection.

I didn't mind this. does that mean I am getting used to Beckett. Well there is still more to go. show less