Waste Books

In this episode we discuss Samuel Beckett's oddball novel, Watt. Overview Be prepared for Watt. Few novelists find the ability (or gall) to include the syncopated musical notation of three croaking frogs or a two-page description of the twenty ways four objects in a room are positioned. There are sentences written backwards, a man who eats the same meal every day, and an unseen dog that has its origins explained for longer than any other scene in the novel. This unseen dog’s story begins to feel more real than most of the surreal novel, and these moments clarify that amidst the abysmal tones and purgatorial drudgery, Beckett is trying to tell you the most important fact about life. The story about the peculiar protagonist, Watt, is not a direct one. All that can be said of the plot is that our Watt ventures to a manor in the Irish countryside where he works for an obscure duration for obscure reasons, eventually leaving having learned nothing. Watt works for a Mr. Knott, even more enigmatic than our “hero”