Malone is an old man lying in a room, perhaps a hospital or asylum, who is waiting to die. He has a stick, a few possessions, and a notebook, and to pass the time he tells himself stories: one about a boy named Saposcat, later called Macmann, and another about a man in an asylum. Beckett wrote the book in French in 1948, the second in his trilogy that includes Molloy and L'Innommable. Malone's voice wanders, contradicts itself, and fades as he loses control of the narrative.
It suits readers of experimental fiction who are prepared for a bleak, comic, and very strange text. You get a view of how Beckett turned the novel into a monologue near silence.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2004
- Publisher
- Les Éditions de Minuit
- ISBN
- 9782707318909
- Language
- FR
