UNNAMABLE

It wasn’t until Samuel Beckett won worldwide acclaim and a Nobel Prize as a great existential playwright that his novels MALONE, MALONE DIES, and THE UNNAMABLE were published. The three are of considerable importance, given their author’s lofty position in modern world literature. They’re brilliant achievements, albeit difficult reading, especially this, the concluding volume in the trilogy. Who is the first-person narrator? Where is he? Is he alive, dead, in a coma? He doesn’t know, how can we? Sean Barrett doesn’t always know what he’s reading (who could?), but to his considerable credit, he understands and delivers most of it with zest and an authentic flavor reflecting the text’s Irish melodiousness, pessimism, and black humor. Sour, old Beckett would not approve of his approach, as Barrett makes the text too interesting. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 06]