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(More customer reviews)This review refers to the recent and very welcome bilingual edition of En attendant Godot.
Originally written in French as a break while Mr. Beckett tackled his obscure and thick novel writing in exile within southern France from occupied Paris (where he served in the Resistance until directly threatened; please the excellent biography Samuel Beckett: A Biography), Waiting for Godot became one of the most influential plays of the Twentieth Century.
Grove Press early cornered the American market for Beckett, its wisest and most respected publications. Here Grove Press and Les Editions de Minuit graciously combine copyrights to publish this important bilingual edition.
This edition contains only the barest of introductions, basically the English textual genesis with little background. For instance we do not read in this introduction how barely authorized, if at all, was the Miami production with the great Bert Lahr, a production one wishes deeply might have been recorded in some media, yet we read the cast of characters twice. We do not read of several other influential and important productions, including the full story of those directed by Mr. Beckett himself, not the prison productions. I certainly wish this play could be produced as written with a quartet of sextagenarians.
We have here in this introduction only the barest of bones of some textual variants, with a very brief bibliogrpahy.
Yet not much more is needed. The history and meaning have been deeply discussed in other publications, including several available here upon the amazon. For those who wish to learn the "back story" of Didi and Gogo, we may read the entertaining Beckett novel Mercier and Camier; also recommended for beginners is his intriguing first novel Murphy By Samuel Beckett.
What counts here is this bilingual edition, presenting face to face, line by line, the two languages, English and French, in which this play was written by Beckett.
The left hand page presents the original French text; the right hand page presents what the introduction indicates is the most authentic English translation available. This presents us with several advantages, and not only in bilingual education or sencond language instruction. We see here more broadly the intent of the author.
This therefore is a very important copy to have and to study, in this generous and easily readable Grove bilingual edition, durably hardcovered.
We each of us wait for Godot. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe we will forget.
Read here and remember.
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From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment by American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become one of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. Now in honor of the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth, Grove Press is publishing a bilingual edition of the play. Originally written in French, Beckett translated the work himself, and in doing so chose to revise and eliminate various passages. With side-by-side text the reader can experience the mastery of Beckett's language and explore the nuances of his creativity.Upon being asked who Godot is, Samuel Beckett told Alan Schneider, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." Although we may never know who we are waiting for, in this special edition we can rediscover one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time.
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