Published in French in 1961, and in English in 1964, 'How It Is" is a novel in t
hree parts, written in short paragraphs, which tell (abruptly, cajolingly, bleak
ly) of a narrator lying in the dark, in the mud, repeating his life as he hears
it uttered - or remembered - by another voice. Told from within, from the dark,
the story is tirelessly and intimately explicit about the feelings that pervade
his world, but fragmentary and vague about all else therein or beyond. Together
with "Molloy", "How It Is" counts for many readers as Beckett's greatest accompl
ishment in the novel form.
It is also his most challenging narrative, both st
ylistically and for the pessimism of its vision, which continues the themes of r
educed circumstance, of another life before the present, and the self-appraising
search for an essential self, which were inaugurated in the great prose narrati
ves of his earlier trilogy. She sits aloof ten yards fifteen yards, She looks up
looks at me says at last to herself all is well, He is working my head, Where i
s my head, It rests on the table, My hand trembles on the table, She sees I am n
ot sleeping, The wind blows tempestuous, The little clouds drive before it, The
table glides from light to darkness, Darkness to light. This title is edited by
Edouard Magessa O'Reilly.
