Tag Archives: Samuel Beckett

This afternoon.

Spencer Place, North Wall Quay, North Dock, Dublin, 1

The launch of The Samuel hotel, featuring Irish TikTok sensations Cairde (top) and sweatshirted lovers of tragicomic literature (above).

Near his bridge, The Samuel pays homage to Beckett with references to the Dublin-born Nobel Laureate throughout the hotel.

Although what’s with the bowler?

He’s not Magritte.

FIGHT!

The Samuel Hotel


Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Samuel Beckett

Just-released documents from 1968 show the [Nobel Prize for Literature] committee’s chairman, Anders Österling, writing that “regarding Samuel Beckett, unfortunately, I have to maintain my basic doubts as to whether a prize to him is consistent with the spirit of Nobel’s will”.

“Of course, I do not dispute the artistic effect of Beckett’s dramas, but misanthropic satire (of the Swift type) or radical pessimism (of the Leopardi type) has a powerful heart, which in my opinion is lacking in Beckett,” wrote Österling.

He had previously slammed the possibility of the Waiting for Godot author winning the Nobel in 1964, when he said that he “would almost consider a Nobel prize for him as an absurdity in his own style”.

…Beckett, despite Österling’s previous reservations, would win the next year, “for his writing, which – in new forms for the novel and drama – in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation”

Samuel Beckett rejected as unsuitable for the Nobel prize in 1968 (The Guardian)

Pic: Getty

Thanks Ultan Mashup

Screen Shot 2015-02-17 at 13.26.27

Playwright Danny Thompson, co-founder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, takes footage of Samuel Beckett wandering around Berlin in 1969, adds the theme from The Streets Of San Francisco and creates opening titles for the best, moodiest and most existential 70’s Quinn Martin cop show you never saw.

The episode title is Beckett’s own.

openculture

(Thanks Cúán MacConghail)