Samuel Beckett - Endgame (Summary)

This has been probably the most eccentric and illogical play that I have ever read. I mean where to start with this. The settings, the characters, the story line everything is so unconventional, I wonder what really was going on in the writer's head. I am not privy to it and I don't claim to deduce any intelligent undertones from it all.

In a sparse setting in a room with couple of windows, this one act play has four characters that all live in this room. Hamm is blind and on a wheelchair. Clov his servant is his only eyes and help and who can not sit. Hagg and Nell as Hamm's parents and they have no legs and they live in the dustbins in the room itself. The drama drags itself over obsessively hopeless situations and dialogues. As with Beckett's any other work, repetition is the key aspect. Hamm and Clov increasingly engage in a despairing banter that is difficult to make sense of. Outside the room, through the windows the scene is of desolateness, the reason to which are unknown. Nature has abandoned them and all and the only view outside would be of uncompromising invariability.  Though there is an passage of time as in day and night, but in the large scheme of things, time is meaningless. We are not told of their ages or of the times in which they lived. Any attempt to make meaning (of life) is doomed to fail. There is no wholesome life or living, any grandstanding or intellectual discourses on how to live it. Instead what we have are small absurd moments, repetitive actions, banal talk, overhanging gloom and an eventual death. Life has been broken into inconsequential moments that are to be lived and lived in doing that amounts to nothing more. The absurdity of these moments (and life itself) is not in living it, but in trying to make a sense or any sense of it.

Hamm: Clov! 
Clov: [impatiently] What is it? 
Hamm: We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something? 
Clov: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh.] Ah that's a good one! 
Hamm: I wonder. [Pause.]” 

In making it absolute of time, the writer has negated a possibility of linear progress, of betterment. Instead, the continual repetition of banal acts reinforces that the only end if of nothingness. Even the idea of change, of meaning, of nature is frowned upon, because something like this has previously happened and it will happen again with the same outcome. But beyond death, what is that outcome is not certain. Death is an inevitable conclusion to this charade of an existence, but isn't it for all existences. In showing the torment is eternal and cyclical where each day unfolds the same farce of 'living' till eternity, and nothing ever changes in this slow march to nothingness, the writer turns inside out that small room into the bigger canvas of our lives where the self is trapped similarly (in a small room) trying to live those moments, grappling and trying everything in the hope that something sticks before the coming Endgame.

“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that… Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.” 

Albert Camus - The Plague (Summary)

I just completed reading Albert Camus work - The Plague. This is the second book by Camus that I have read after his best know work 'The Stranger'. The Plague is a story of the plague that reaches epidemic levels before dying out in small coastal town Oran in French colonial territory of Algeria. It chronicles the lives of people caught up in that quarantined city and narrates the lives of doctors, lovers, trapped tourists and ordinary day people in-midst of the horrible tragedy.

The novel starts with occasional dying out of rats in Oran. Soon thousands of rats start dying, leading to panic and hysteria in the city. The civic authorities unaware of the seriousness of the situation start half-hearted measures. In some days, human deaths follow. Rieux (the main character) is convinced that plague is taking hold of the town. As more people die, the authorities start desperate measure and the town is sealed off. No one can enter or leave the town and all other services are restricted. These measures have an effect of an exile on the citizens who feel as if trapped and isolated. Rieux is friends with Rambert (a journalist who was visiting Oran but is trapped in the city now), Tarrou (a vacationer), Paneloux (the town priest), Cottard (a former criminal who attempted suicide but is smuggling goods now) and Grand (a ageing civil servant obsessed with composing a perfect sentence). Rieux's wife is under treatment in a difference city for some grave illness. The book accounts for the feeling of isolation that is all pervasive and the despair that gives rise to emotional collapse. Paneloux using masterly oration chides people that this plague is God's will and its time for all to turn to church. Tarrou comes up with the idea of the health teams that will aid the civic authorities. Rieux and Grand joins him in these teams. Rambert initially desperate to flee the city (to be with his wife in Paris), later feeling ashamed, joins these health teams. Paneloux also joins. As the situation worsens, even more desperate measures follow. People are shot while fleeing, mass funerals are conducted and occasional looting happens. Rieux and the health teams work tirelessly. Slowly as the winter chill starts, the plague starts to loosen its grip over the city but not before Paneloux and Tarrou die of it. Grand is infected but makes a surprise recovery. The town's quarantine is lifted. Cottard is arrested for his past crimes and Rambert is reunited with his wife. Rieux is informed that his sick wife is dead while Grand goes back to composing his sentence.

The storyline is fairly straightforward. It is story of lives of people who got caught up in the epidemic sweeping the town. As with situation, you have all kind of people behaving in all kind of ways. Some turn to God, others to crime and fatalism, some to a higher purpose and others rise to the occasion and do what is correct. The book makes no notion about what is correct and what was wrong. It is a narration of events filled with narrator's point of view. The theme of separation from either the loved ones or from one's daily habit is recurring throughout the book. This feeling of separation leads to hopelessness pervading everyday lives were people now attempt to live the moment as it comes and not looking out for the hopes of future for the exile could be endless. Besides their thoughts, their personal freedom (like the beaches that they enjoyed previously) also gets restricted. Absurdity of human life (on which Camus writes repeatedly), the idea of a absent Benevolent and rational God or that human lives having any higher purpose is the other prominent idea of the book. The plague is the irrational executioner that will come after anyone irrespective of who they are how they live their lives. The lack of control over our lives and our destiny, the randomness of life and death. In all this, death and suffering however absurd they might be seem is the only certainty that awaits us all. And in this constant overhang, one has to live life and give meaning to life by living it. Life is not sacred, the act of living is sacred and worth fighting for, even in the face of insurmountable plague. Another aspect of the story was that of health teams and even tough they did not achieve much, but the resistance they offered was worth it, not for some grandiose idea of heroism or bravery but for a simple fact that it was a noble struggle and defiance against death. For even a rat when pushed to a corner, will fight it out/ We for all the 'isms' and spirit, can definitely accomplish more.

Thought Of The Day

We have come to a stage where the aesthetics of the newly acquired book shelf engages more conversation than the type of books that are on the bookshelf. The content of the message has been lost in hubris or our so called busy-ness or plain nonchalance, but the messenger still evokes frantic sentiments on all sides of the spectrum. Since when did we became so partisan and hacks for someone's agenda. No one reads the story these days, people go straight to the comments section to check out the abuse happening around or promote their own bias. Any sane debate or view point is lost in this theater of the absurd. And now this theater pervades all around from art to politics to media to everyday lives, covering the real.

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”  

- Isaaac Asimov

The Cartographer's Surreal Dream

Today is a good day for India. It is not everyday you go about fixing a seventy year old nightmare. The nightmares I am talking about are the intractable border disputes that India has with pretty much with all its neighbours.

India and Bangladesh signed the Land Border Agreement (LBA) today that fixes the seventy year old monstrosity that has defined their border and made life miserable for people inhabiting these enclaves. I wonder why it took so long to fix a problem that was so idiotic to begin with. For the people living in those enclaves, it is probably an end to uncertainty, end of abandonment, of the state failing to provide even basic services.

Just to give you an idea of how absurd that situation was, check the image below. The area in pink is Bangladesh and inside it is an Indian enclave and inside is it a Bangladesh enclave and inside it is an Indian enclave. Now that is some cartographer's surreal dream. I am pretty sure the situation for people living in these ridiculous enclaves were of dread and not of dream!

Kafka - The Trial (Summary)

"The Trial" by Kafka like lot of his works was never completed. Though there is a chapter at the end that brings the story to a conclusion but one does get a feeling if it was the way it was originally intended by the author. Like lot of Kafka's works, this also can be interpreted in many different ways.

The novel starts with protagonist Joseph K.waking up and finding two persons near his bed who inform him that he is being arrested for crimes that are no specified. The real authority of the ones arresting him is also left unknown. He is told that though he is 'arrested', he is free to continue with his normal life as before. K. is a senior bank official finds this kind of arrest strange. He goes on with his daily life. One day he is summoned to attend a court on coming Sunday. K. reaches the place where the court is in progress. The court is disordered, crowded and unregulated. There is a sense of sham in its proceedings. K. makes a speech deriding the whole system yet he is unsure if he made an impact or if anybody cared. K. visits the place next week but the court is not in session and he meets the court attendant who takes him to law offices located in attics.Again the whole legal system comes out as dark, unknown and impenetrable. Till now nothing is divulged of the crime or the authority that bought the charges against K. An uncle of K. takes him to a advocate as he thinks K. is not serious about his case. The advocate discloses the internal workings and the extent of the Law. Since the charges are unknown, he proposes that their defense would involve considerable work. The advocate discloses that the working of court are hidden, the charges, the judges, and laws, the rules, the previous judgments everything is a secret. The advocate tells that the major task of defense is to work with court officials in the background to get a favorable judgement. They start working on the first plea.

K. work at the bank deteriorates as the case disturbs him mentally. One day, a client of the bank tells K. that he is aware of the case and refers him to a painter who may help him. K goes to the painter who is the official painter of the court painting portraits of the judges. He divulges more details about the courts. He tells that absolute acquittal is impossible The only options is either make the case go very slowly by influencing officials or get the case stuck in bureaucratic maze. K. is convinced that the advocate is not working hard on his the case for he has still not completed his plea. He visits him with a plan to dismiss him. There he meets another of advocate's client Block, whose case is going on for five years. There he sees Block's excessively submissive behavior towards the advocate.The scene breaks. In the next, K. waits for a bank's client to show him around a cathedral. The client is late, and instead the cathedral priest starts talking to K. He tells a fable about Law to K. and they both discuss its various interpretations. In the last chapter two men arrive at K. room. They lead him to a abandoned quarry and over him as he lay on the dirt, pass the long knife back and forth between them (to provoke him to commit suicide). At last one holds his shoulder and the other stabs him in the heart.

The inaccessibility of the justice, the over-bearing bureaucracy, the dark and airless corridors of law, the omni-presence of all things legal is the repeating theme in the chapters. The tragic situation of K. where he condemned for a "crime" that he does not know, by a "court" that he can not not reach. In midst of all this, there is the meek human existence trying to penetrate the Law, working hopelessly to curry some favors with officials and trying all possibilities only to be dashed in the next layer of this vast unforgiving organization. The unreachable Law feeds on hope and laying waste the human spirit. The only working principle being that all accused are always guilty and complete acquittal is impossible. In this world, all the parts work giving hope from one hand and extinguishing it from the other in sole purpose to break the human will and make him accept not the invincibility of the Law's power but of individual's hopelessness. The absolute power makes people not question as to why they are arrested or what their crime is, but just trying to work with the Law and its officials to get some reprieve. There is no heroism, no valiant defense in courts and definitely no redemption. Instead there is a bleak existence, the helplessness, the anxiety, the unknown guilt, the final realization, the absurdity of the whole premise, and of the life itself. Like a web, the more one struggles the more he will get stuck in its web.

Beckett : Waiting for Godot (Summary)

This had been a long pending read for me. And it wasn't such a long read. Probably more thoughtful though. A very classic example of "Theater of The Absurd". It is the story about two characters (Vladimir and Estragon) waiting for a person named Godot to show up. Their wait is endless without getting tired only to be interjected with their talking, sleeping, entertaining, reminiscing and yet more waiting. Most of the time they end up doing nothing, most of their actions itself are of no importance and that is the recurring theme in the play.

The play itself is divided into 2 acts that are happen over two days. The general tone of their actions over these two days repeats itself loosely. The settings are the same. The people they meet are the same. The day starts with both struggling to sort themselves out and the day end with the realization that Godot is not going to come today and they will wait for him tomorrow at the same place. The realization of time is not distinct here. Probably its even not important. What matters is that they exist and they have spare time at hand. These two days are separated over time for we see the colors of tree change over these two acts. So it appears the two are waiting for Godot probably for a long time and will wait for him endlessly. Time is non-linear as well as periodic. It will repeat. All of us are trapped in it, with no chance of escape. The only escape is the realization of the meaningless of the existence and silently accepting it. As they say it "Nothing to be done", it is exactly Nothing that has to be done. All we have to do is to pass the time, doing something to keep ourselves engaged. All this philosophizing, fighting, writing ect is just distractions in human life to make sure we do not have time to understand that "Nothing to be done". All this waiting for Godot and not really sure what we are waiting for and what it will bring? That is the human condition, busy in distractions and meaningless antics waiting for something and trying to avoid the realization that life itself is pointless.

The complete books fails to fit into a pattern, a clear understanding of it. Time does not move linearly and sub plots also look disjointed over the two acts. Actions happen arbitrarily and characters do not recall what happened the other day. The idea being Universe is chaotic and lacks an order and sequence. Time is disordered and so will be life. But the bigger picture is still the same. Even midst of this great chaos, the human nature will adjust and find something to keep itself occupied and busy and wait for Godot to show up. The purpose (or the lack of it) keeps us busy in passing our time here. We develop a pattern, a semblance of sanity to keep the horror of pointless life away. To keep up with the charade, but then is their a Choice? As they said "Nothing to be done"