Ministerio de Ambiente y Espacio Público
RESOLUCIÓN N.° 695/MAYEPGC/
More Pricks than Kicks is the first of Beckett’s works with which we challenge and put to the test the
analytical tools developed in Chapter 3. As we said, we test the resourcefulness of our analytical tools by seeing whether they contribute to discussions that take place in the literature around the work examined, as well as by proving their ability to capture pivotal elements of the work analysed. Particularly, to carry out this test we choose to focus our discussion of More Pricks than Kicks on one of its aspects, i.e. its discontinuous nature.
The uneven and discontinuous styleof More Pricks than Kicks, Beckett’s first collection of short stories, has captured the attention of Beckett’s critics since its appearance. The contrast between the continuity given to the collection by the ubiquitous presence of Belacqua and the discontinuity of styles and tone from story to story, as well as the fragmentation internal to individual stories due to the various digressions and the vagaries of the art of making “a great deal of everything”,2 have been recognised
since early criticism.3 John Pilling and H. Porter Abbott see this tension between continuity and
discontinuity, with both its positive sides as well as its limits, as the hallmark of the collection of short stories.
John Pilling argues that “it was doubtless part of Beckett’s purpose in putting More Pricks than Kicks together to frustrate a reader’s attempt to make the collection a more ordered one than its narrative discontinuities allow it to be”.4 Pilling presents a range of evidence in support of his claim, amongst
which, for example, he points out that the order in which the stories are collected invites the reader to
2Edwin Miur’s review of More Pricks than Kicks for ‘Listener’, collected in L. Graver and R. Federman, Samuel Beckett: The
Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1979), p. 44.
3 See the reviews collected in ibid., pp. 43-46. 4 Pilling, Beckett before Godot, p. 99.
149 expect a continuity for then frustrating this expectation.5 Similarly, the continuity established by the
ubiquitous presence of Belacqua is supported by the presence of footnotes where episodes are cross- referenced and, at the same time, frustrated by remarks that do not match up with other stories. This, for example, is the case, Pilling points out, of the remark at the beginning of ‘Fingal’, where we are told about “The last girl [Belacqua] went with”,6 without having yet met the first of Belacqua’s girls.7 Then
again, as Pilling says, the discontinuity is established by the open-ended finale of some of the stories which invites readers to expect that the last episode will continue in the following story, only to find the expectation frustrated each time.8
If taken farther, Pilling’s comments seem to unravel a playful attitude behind the construction of More
Pricks than Kicks: readers’ expectations of an ordered collection of stories are set up and frustrated
contributing to the overall comic tone of the collection. Similarly, Porter Abbott singles out a constant tension between unity and disunity in More Pricks than Kicks and he explicitly attributes to its presence the intention to mock fictional conventions.9 The discontinuity in this work, according to Abbott, could
be seen in the lack of consistent “satiric butts nor a consistent sympathetic portrait of Belacqua”, as well as in the “use of distinct stylistic departures for certain chapters as a whole”.10
Both Pilling and Abbott singles out the variety of styles as one of the factors of discontinuity in the collection of short stories. This variety is apparent just by skimming through the book. Compare, for example, these incipits:
My sometime friend Belacqua enlivened the last phase of his solipsism, before he toed the line and began to relish the world, with the belief that the best thing he had to do was to move constantly from place to place.11
Hark, it is the season of festivity and goodwill. Shopping is in full swing, the streets are thronged with revellers, the Corporation has offered a prize for the best-dressed window, Hyam’s trousers are down again.12
The Toughs, consisting of Mr and Mrs and their one and only Ruby, lived in a small house in Irishtown.13
Bel Bel my own bloved, allways and for ever mine!!14
5 “The final order of More Pricks misleads the reader into thinking that ‘Dante and the Lobster’ will be followed by similar stories, and by following it with ‘Fingal’ and ‘Ding-Dong’ Beckett misleads the reader into thinking that there will be more variety in the stories than in the event there proves to be. The relative sameness of the More Pricks material is, however, tacitly acknowledged by placing two very similar stories, ‘Walking Out’ and ‘Love and Lethe’, alongside one another at the centre of the collection”. Ibid., p. 100.
6 Beckett, More Pricks Than Kicks, p. 17. 7 Pilling, Beckett before Godot, pp. 100-101.
8 This is, according to Pilling, the case for the ending of ‘Fingal’, ‘Ding-Dong’, ‘A Wet Night’, ‘What a Misfortune’. Ibid., pp. 101-102.
9 Abbott, The Fiction of Samuel Beckett: Form and Effect, p. 22. 10 Ibid., pp. 25-26 passim.
11 Beckett, More Pricks Than Kicks, p. 31. 12 Ibid., p. 43.
13 Ibid., p. 79. 14 Ibid., p. 143.
150 Whilst the majority of the stories in the collection are told by a third person external narrator, some of the stories depart from this model. As the first incipit illustrates, ‘Ding-Dong’ is told by an internal character. By contrast, as shown in the last incipit, in the ‘The Smeraldina’s Billet-Doux’ we hear Smeraldina’s voice, who writes a loving and lustful letter to Belacqua. There is also a good variety of styles amidst the stories told by a third person external narrator, and the second and third incipit quoted should give a good taste of it.
The discontinuity of the styles of the stories of this collection does not only depend on the nature and type of their narrators. The frequency and intensity with which, in each story, the narrative voice decides to reveal itself with comments and asides is another factor that distinguishes the stories collected. The intrusions of the narrative voice, which as we have seen in Chapter 2 is individuated by Cohn as one of Beckett’s comic devices, have been singled out by both Abbott and Pilling as a device to dis-unify the single stories, as well as the entire collection. According to Pilling, the interventions are used to fragment the style and “interrupt any continuum which might threaten to take over”.15 According to
Abbott, the continuous ‘interjections’ are used by Beckett to manipulate his authorial image, and in particular, to present it as a “flux of shifting attitudes”. The various interjections contribute to picture Beckett as an author, Abbott argues, who is “alternately bored and amused, indifferent and exasperated”, and who manifests “a complete indifference to the value or success of the book itself”. However, Abbot warns against seeing in this disdainful attitude a residue of unified personality, and hence a last fortress of unity. Indeed, one must compare the authorial attitude that is evinced from the intrusions with the fact that the author took “trouble to compose the book, to give it characters and chapters, and to publish it”.16
Pilling, Abbott and Cohn agree in interpreting the interjections as the intrusion of a single voice, but they disagree on the identity of the voice. Whilst Pilling suggests that the voice belongs to the narrator, Abbott and Cohn seem inclined to identify it with the voice of the author. Furthermore, these scholars stress different effects brought about by the interjections: whilst for Pilling the interventions interrupt a continuity in style, for Abbott they interfere with the unity of the authorial attitude.
In what follows we want to engage with this debate by providing a different reading of these intrusions. Whilst we do not question the role that these intrusions and interjections play in dis-unifying the text, we take issue at the views of these scholars insofar as they see these intrusions as being performed by a single agent (the narrator for Pilling, and the author for Abbott and Cohn). On the contrary, by using our analytical tools, we aim to show that the discontinuity of voices in the texts is more radical and the identity of the intruding voice more uncertain. Far from aiming to argue for each passage for one of the
15 Pilling, Beckett before Godot, p. 103.
151 possible interpretations of the identity of the voice, we shall show that the result of the abruptness and the ambiguity of the illocutionary act performed allows for the presence of a polyphony of voices. This polyphony enhances the comic tone of the passage as well as introducing a more radical disunity of that described by Abbott and Pilling.
Let us first start our analysis by looking at those instances of intrusions that support Pilling, Abbott and Cohn’s view. We have already analysed some of these comic instances in the previous chapters. We have discussed the comic intrusion of the author or narrator onto the narration of events in ‘Love and Lethe’ to give definitions of terms (‘Reader…’). Then again, we have discussed the comic intrusion onto the narration of events in ‘Dante and the Lobster’ when the narrator switches from the illocutionary act of reporting to the illocutionary act of stipulating (‘Let us call it…’). Finally, we have discussed the comic interruption of the narrative in ‘Draff’ to comment on the use of ‘two adjectives and two nouns’ in a sentence.
These instances, as with several others in the texts, share the fact that the narration is interrupted by metanarrative intrusions which are about some elements of the narration: defining terms in ‘Love and Lethe’, devising the setting where the events take place in ‘Dante and the Lobster’, and commenting on some of the words used in the description in ‘Draff’. The fact that the narration of the events is interrupted by metanarrative utterances is perhaps what invites the identification of the intruding voice with that of the narrator or the author: the voice is of someone that is handling the narration. Note that this type of comic intrusions not only supports the interpretation of the intrusions as performed by a single voice, but it also supports Pilling and Abbott’s descriptions of the comedy established by the intrusions. Indeed these intrusions, when conceived as performed by the narrator or the author, frustrate the expectation of an ordered narration, which is typical of traditional literature; this frustration could be considered as a source of comic amusement.
However, in More Pricks than Kicks there are many intrusions which are not metanarrative, and which allow for multiple interpretations of the intrusive voice’s identity. In these instances the narrator or author are not the only candidates as possible speakers. Analysing these instances allows us to capture two features of the writing of More Pricks than Kicks. Firstly, it leads us to identify a movement - a ‘twist’ - that takes place at the level of the illocutionary acts, and, secondly, it allows us to capture further incongruities that are characteristic of the comedy of this collection of short stories.
Let us start from those instances where some elements of the texts allow for reading the voice of the narrator as entering in a dialogue with the character. The possibility of this interpretation is generated by the abrupt changes of illocutionary acts performed as well as by the ambiguities around the illocutionary force of the acts performed. This is to say that the texts contains words and sentences for which it is difficult to say with a good degree of confidence what illocutionary acts are performed. It is difficult to say what the speakers are doing in uttering those words and sentences.
152 Examine, for example, the following passage taken from ‘Fingal’. Belacqua and Winnie are out for a walk in the countryside. The narrator reports their dialogue in the form of direct speech:
‘Oh Winnie’ he made a vague clutch at her sincerities, for she was all anyway on the grass, ‘you look very Roman this minute.’
‘He loves me’ she said, in earnest jest.
‘Only pout’ he begged, ‘be Roman, and we’ll go on across the estuary.’ ‘And then…?’
And then! Winnie take thought!
‘I see’ he said ‘you take thought. Shall we execute a contract?’ ‘No need’ she said.17
The utterance ‘Winnie take thought’ could be considered as one of the intrusions that Abbott and Pilling attribute to the narrator or the author. They, for example, would be intruding onto the narration to perform the illocutionary act of warning, or urging, Winnie to take thought.
One could even take this reading further, and pursue the possibility that, by urging the character to take thought, the narrator also shapes the story. Belacqua’s reaction (‘I see […] you take thought’) suggests that Winnie takes thought, and one could say that Winnie does so because the narrator or the author urges her to do so. The intruding voice could be seen as a sort of inner voice, or someone who has the control of Winnie. If this is the case, then the narrator or the author would be interfering with the story and not simply narrating it or commenting on it. Seen in this way, the illocutionary act of urging and its consequences establish new incongruities which facilitate comic amusement.
However, this is not the only interpretation of the utterance ‘And then! Winnie take thought!’. In the part of the story that precedes this excerpt, the narrator has been proven to be able to access and report both Winnie and Belacqua’s thoughts. Given that Belacqua repeats something similar right after the exclamation under discussion, it would not be surprising if the exclamation is actually a report of Belacqua’s thoughts. Perhaps it is Belacqua, and not the narrator or the author, who is hoping that Winnie takes thought, or who is perhaps ironically urging her to do so.
The elements that the text offers are not enough to favour one interpretation over the other, leaving the matter ambiguous. The presence of this ambiguity initiates the ‘twist’ at the level of illocutionary acts. Indeed, by taking in consideration one of the available options, others are blocked but not cancelled. For example, if we consider the words ‘Winnie take thought!” as uttered by the narrator and as performing the illocutionary act of warning or urging, then the interpretation that sees these words as uttered by Belacqua is blocked. However, given that there are no conclusive evidence in favour of the former interpretation, the latter is still there available to be taken in consideration. If this happens, then the pictures of the situation, of the identity of the speaker and of the illocutionary acts performed twists to a different scenario where the speaker is Belacqua who is commenting on Winnie’s thoughts. This
153 time too, there are not enough elements for deciding in favour of this option, and the other which is momentarily blocked, is not discarded.
In passages like this, the source of comedy is thus at least twofold. On the one hand, the abrupt intrusion causes comic amusement. This comic aspect is the one highlighted by Pilling and Abbott’s description. On the other hand, the comedy depends on the ambiguity of the acts performed and of the identity of the voice who speaks. The ambiguity around the identity of the voice as well as around the nature of the illocutionary acts is comic.
Many passages in More Pricks than Kicks are similar to the last one quoted insofar as they contain intrusions where identifying the identity of the intruder is challenging and insofar the ambiguity thus established give way to illocutionary ‘twists’. Look at the following instance from ‘Dante and the Lobster’. Belacqua’s aunt opens the parcel containing the lobster that Belacqua had bought from the fishmonger and carried with him all day. He discovers in that moment that lobsters are boiled when still alive:
‘Christ!’ he said ‘it’s alive.’
His aunt looked at the lobster. It moved again. It made a faint nervous act of life on the oilcloth. They stood above it, looking down on it, exposed cruciform on the oilcloth. It shuddered again. Belacqua felt he would be sick.
‘My God’ he whined ‘it’s alive, what’ll we do?’
The aunt simply had to laugh. […] ‘Well’ she said ‘it is hoped so, indeed.’
‘All this time’ muttered Belacqua. Then, suddenly aware of her hideous equipment: ‘What are you going to do?’ he cried.
‘Boil the beast’ she said, ‘what else?’
‘But it’s not dead’ protested Belacqua ‘you can’t boil it like that.’ She looked at him in astonishment. Had he taken leave of his senses?
‘Have sense’ she said sharply, ‘lobsters are always boiled alive. They must be.’ She caught up the lobster and laid it on its back. It trembled. ‘They feel nothing’ she said.
[…]
She lifted the lobster clear of the table. It had about thirty seconds to live. Well, thought Belacqua, it’s a quick death, God help us all.
It is not.18
During this passage the narrative voice, which is performing the illocutionary act of describing, is perceived as neatly separate from the voices of the characters. On the one hand, this neat separation is achieved by allowing the readers to hear the characters’ voices in the dialogue, which is reported in direct speech. On the other hand, the short descriptive sentences create the impression that the narrator is looking at the scene from an external position and describes it almost objectively (‘It moved again’, ‘they stood above it’, ‘it shuddered again’).
154 By contrast, the final ‘it is not’ is uttered in such a sharp contrast to what precedes it that identifying whose voice is saying this is not as straightforward and gives way to the comic ambiguities. Firstly, the utterance ‘it is not’ comes after a tight and fast exchange of lines between Belacqua and his aunt. The abrupt contradiction of what Belacqua thinks and hopes sounds as a direct response to those thoughts and hopes. If it was the narrator uttering those words, he would not be simply stating that something is the case (i.e. that lobsters do not die quickly), but also responding to Belacqua and thus entering into a dialogue with him. Secondly, even if we consider the final remark as uttered by the narrator, it is not clear what other illocutionary acts this utterance is performing. Is it a description? Or is it a comment? Is it a scornful remark on Belacqua’s naiveté? Thirdly, the utterance of ‘it is not’ stands in such a sharp contrast with what precedes it, that it gives raise to the possibility that it is not the narrator the one who