Three late "novels" (a generous designation, since the longest of them--Company--is just 45 pages) written from 1980 to 1983. Long gone is the rambling, darkly humorous narration of Watt and Molloy, but what remains isn't so radically different that the reader won't recognize it as Beckett. These are sad, surprisingly personal reflections from the margin of human existence, articulations of the dim anguish that always lay just below the surface of his earlier, absurdly funny work. This isn't the place to start if you're new to Beckett, but longtime admirers will find this brief collection rewarding. ( )

These three short works are almost like the Molloy trilogy in miniature. As each one increases in its spareness, so does it increase in its opacity. Company contains the clearest narrative, while still planting the seeds for the unyielding repetition that is to come. Beckett plumbs the depths of existence and the inevitable approach of death in a personal way while resisting the first person perspective ("he speaks of himself as of another"). In Company he vacillates between second and third person. Ill Seen Ill Said is told in third person alternating with a speakerless narration. The final text, Worstward Ho is completely told in the speakerless narration and resembles The Unnamable in its descriptions of body failing and the void that awaits. Recommended for those already familiar with Beckett's prose stylings. ( )

Reading at airport. Airport? Port of air. Air of port. Air air port. Rereading. Now reading. Not reading. Back to reading. Nohow on back to reading. Woman sitting. But kneeling? Back to sitting. Reading. No sitting. Unsitting. Unreading. No rereading. A review? A pro view. Say yes. No a view again. Woman sitting. Unsitting. Trouble? Say yes. No. On airplane. Woman eating? Eating woman. No. Back. Review. Rereview. Ill seen. Ill smell. Say yes. Poor worst missaid. Mind long lost to longing. So missaid. Sad go. Longing go. Now now back and then on. Back for nohow on. Words that dim. Then all undimmed. State undimmed. Nohow again.

Brilliant. Melodic. Hypnotic. Yes. Say yes. ( )

To my mind this is Becketts finest work. Worstward Ho, in particular, is a joy to read. It is filled with comedy and song. It is a book you can dance to. ( )

Thick reading; a duty, not love. ( )