I hesitate to condemn it as wholly a bad novel...
November 24, 2014 8:51 AM Subscribe
I purchased an Olympia Press first edition of Beckett's Molloy a while back. Tucked inside was a four page handwritten review (scans). In the back of the book is written "Reviewed NSN Dec. 3 1955." I've poked around but I can't find anything. Is this a published review or draft of one?
Of course, NSN could just as easily be the author's initials rather than an acronym for a magazine.
Sorry about the readability of the scan. It's written in fairly faint pencil. Note that in the upside down text of the letter on the last page of the review, the author begins by writing "Royal Air Force Technical College, Henlow." The first two pages of the review are written on the back of the gridded military document in the final image.
It's an interesting review to me - a relic of the very style of reading that Beckett sought to frustrate and overcome - and I'd love to know who the author was, slim as the likelihood of being able to turn him up on the basis of the evidence at hand may be.
Of course, NSN could just as easily be the author's initials rather than an acronym for a magazine.
Sorry about the readability of the scan. It's written in fairly faint pencil. Note that in the upside down text of the letter on the last page of the review, the author begins by writing "Royal Air Force Technical College, Henlow." The first two pages of the review are written on the back of the gridded military document in the final image.
It's an interesting review to me - a relic of the very style of reading that Beckett sought to frustrate and overcome - and I'd love to know who the author was, slim as the likelihood of being able to turn him up on the basis of the evidence at hand may be.
It looks personal to me. The author signs it "My Dear Diana, The Black Dog." I suppose it COULD have been a review, and Diana his editor, but it seems unlikely to me. If we assume the author was at the RAF Technical College, then he or she wasn't Vivian Mercer. Just a young reader passing along his thoughts to a friend?
posted by ubiquity at 10:05 AM on November 24, 2014
posted by ubiquity at 10:05 AM on November 24, 2014
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Vivian Mercier's review of Molloy was published in the New Statesman on 3 Dec 1955, and is reprinted in Graver and Federman, Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage (1979). However, it's a favourable review and doesn't seem to resemble the handwritten notes in your copy. I think it's more likely your copy belonged to someone who read the review in the Staggers and was inspired to write down his own reactions to the book.
(The RAF Technical College was at Harlow, by the way, not 'Henlow'.)
posted by verstegan at 9:59 AM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]