Beckett and Sarte and Philosophy

Lots of gems in this essay on the writings of Beckett and Sartre in the new journal Limit(e) Beckett (devoted to the man’s writings). Here are a couple:

But importantly, it seems, just like existentialism’s patriarch, poststructuralism’s own godfather was curiously tongue-tied when it came to Beckett’s œuvre. Strangely enough, the only reference to Beckett in Jacques Derrida’s extensive canon occurs in an often-cited interview with Derek Attridge, published in the latter’s 1992 Acts of Literature. As with previously paradigmatic existential readings, Derrida’s view of Beckett’s self-deconstructive literature seems to suggest that, here too, Beckett is the spokesperson for a movement still attempting to catch up with his legacy. Put another way, for Derrida, Beckett’s literature has already anticipated the disconnected communication, floating signifiers, and linguistic instability at the heart of deconstruction . . .

And the second:

Have contemporary philosophers had any influence on your thought?
I never read philosophers.
Why not?
I never understand anything they write.
All the same, people have wondered if the existentialists’ problem of being may afford a key to your works.
There’s no key or problem. I wouldn’t have had any reason to write my novels if I could have expressed their subject in philosophic terms.
(to Gabriel D’Aubarède, 16 Feb. 1961, qtd in Graver and Federman, 217)

One cannot speak anymore of being, one must speak only of the mess. When Heidegger and Sartre speak of a contrast between being and existence, they may be right, I don’t know, but their language is too philosophical for me. I am not a philosopher. One can only speak of what is in front of him, and that now is simply the mess. (to Tom F. Driver, Summer 1961, qtd in Graver and Federman, 219)

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