Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex. - Frank Zappa.

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche




Sunday, July 12, 2015

Happy Birthday Essay

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether you believe it or not."  Slogan on a black tee shirt.

I recently read "Waiting for Godot" on my Kindle.  It didn't quite feel right to read Samuel Beckett's 1953 Absurdist masterpiece on a Kindle.  A beer-stained, dog-eared old Vintage paperback would be much better.  Paper yellowed with age, the glue dried out, pages slipping loose. Authentic, in other words.

I've read the play before, have seen it performed two or three times.  The plot is easy to follow, since it doesn't have one.  Vladimir and Estragon are standing by a tree on a country road in some unspecified place.  It may be France.  They're often described as "tramps," and that seems possible. You gather they've known each other a long time; a reference is made to picking grapes together in Macon 50 years before the scene in the play.  They might be in their sixties or seventies now.

We never find out who or what Godot is.  Naturally, there is much speculation about the symbolic suggestion of the first three letters of this name.  Are they waiting for Death? While they're standing there, waiting for Godot, an obnoxious character named Pozzo comes along with his servant/slave Lucky.  All in all, Pozzo and Lucky are around for about half the play, and there's a lot of interaction, most of it irritating and uninformative.  You wish that Pozzo and Lucky would leave, so the dialogue could return simply to Vladimir and Estragon's desultory exchanges about nothing in particular. Pozzo keeps saying he's going to leave, then doesn't.  Estragon expresses his desire to leave often, but Vladimir asks him to tarry, so they can wait for Godot.  They contemplate suicide by hanging themselves in the tree.  They lament that they were not among the first to jump from the Eiffel Tower when they had the chance.

Vladimir holds forth early in the play about the Crucifixion.  He's curious why only one of the Gospels relates that Jesus saved one of two thieves being crucified along with him.  He first notes that one out of two thieves "is a reasonable percentage."  But he notes that the other three Gospels do not have this detail.  Either they don't mention thieves at all, or both thieves are damned.  Why, then, Vladimir wants to know, is this the version passed on as the authentic account, since it's a minority report? Estragon doesn't care, but feigns exaggerated interest. 

Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) aren't even sure they're in the right place.  They're not sure it's the right day.  They can't remember if they were waiting in the same place the day before.  In a haunting exchange, Estragon points out they have no way of knowing any of these things:

Estragon:  You're sure it was this evening?
Vladimir:  What?
Estragon:  That we were to wait.
Vladimir:  He said Saturday. I think.
Estragon:  You think.
Vladimir:  I may have made a note of it.
Estragon:  But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday?
Vladimir:  It's not possible!
Estragon:  Or Thursday?
Vladimir:  What'll we do?
Estragon:  If he came yesterday and we weren't here you may be sure he won't come again today.
Vladimir:  But you say we were here yesterday.
Estragon:  I may be mistaken.

Interwoven in the dialogue are bits and pieces of physical comedy.  You might picture Laurel and Hardy as the tramps and get a sense of how they carry on.  A funny scene is made of Didi and Gogo trying on three different hats in a circular motion, so that a hat is always on their heads while the third is passed between their hands, as if they were juggling.  I've seen it done on stage and it's mesmerizing when done right.

Also, it's completely pointless and has nothing to do with the play.  But then nothing in "Waiting for Godot" seems to have anything to do with anything.  There is a flow, but no development, and at the end of the play they're standing on a country road by a tree waiting for Godot.

A great deal of ink has been spilled in academic and critical efforts to figure out what "Godot" means. I think that's Beckett's slyest joke.  An extraordinarily brilliant and erudite writer (like his mentor James Joyce before him), Beckett's play is about that very thing: Waiting for Meaning.  Vladimir and Estragon lived a long time, they've been friends for 50 years, and Meaning never showed up.  "Nothing to be done," says Vladimir as the first line of the play.  All that was left them was to pass the time, and they do so together, these aging tramps. They don't hang themselves on the tree because Estragon, who only plays at being the lesser thinker, cautions Vladimir that Didi's greater girth means the spindly bough will probably break under his weight. So that if Gogo goes first, Vladimir will be left without him but without a way to join his friend in death.

So they resume their vigil on a country road by a tree, with no memory of how they got there, nor how long they have been there, nor any idea how much longer they will wait.







1 comment: