More Pricks than Kicks: Samuel Beckett

Synopsis:

Samuel Beckett’s first published work of fiction, More Pricks than Kicks (1934) is a collection of ten interlocking stories, set in Dublin and involving their adrift student hero Belacqua in a series of brief encounters, parodically elaborated, as woman after woman comes crashing through his solipsistic carapace. More Pricks contains in embryo the centrifugal world of Beckett’s later men and women.

‘The incidents themselves do not matter much; the point of the story is in the style of presentation, which is witty, extravagant, and excessive. Mr. Beckett makes a great deal of everything; that is his art. Sometimes it degenerates into excellent blarney, but at its best it has an ingenuity and freedom of movement which are purely delightful.’ - Edwin Muir, The Listener, 4 July 1934

Tags:

Categorised as:
Fiction
Sub-categories:
General Fiction
Genres & Themes:
Absurdism; Beckett; Modernism
Awards & Prizes:
Nobel Prize in Literature - Winner 1969
Belongs to:
Series: Samuel Beckett
More Pricks than Kicks book cover

Selected edition:
Paperback
ISBN:
9780571244607
Published:
03.06.2010
No of pages:
224
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