The Drama in the Text Beckett's Late Fiction [Hardcover]

The Drama in the Textargues that Beckett's late fiction, like his radio plays, demands to be read aloud, since much of the emotional meaning lodges in its tonality. In Beckett's haunting prose work the reader turns listener, collaborating with the sound of words to elucidate meaning from the silence of the universe. Enoch Brater ranges across all of Beckett's work, quoting from it liberally, and makes connections mainly with other writers, but also with details drawn from the entire Western cultural heritage. Brater serves as an authoritative and persuasive guide to the rich texture of such a difficult but compelling vocabulary, providing recognition, insight, and accessibility.

Bravo for a virtuoso performance, a realtour de force. --Edward Beckett

The strength and importance of Beckett's acoustic materiality and performative tonality has never been so forcefully and so aptly analyzed before; we owe Brater a wealth of suggestions that must influence future readings of Beckett's works. --The Beckett Circle

The Drama in the Textis a searching, sometimes lyrical work of scholarship and a lasting, original contribution to Beckett studies. The sections on the late trilogies are deep, lovely, and brilliant. Brater gives Beckett life on every page. --Ruby Cohn,University of California, Davis

Brater makes an important and innovative contribution to Beckett studies. --Theatre Journal

The Drama in the Textproves to be yet another significant achievement....Brater is an extremely engaging critic. His analyses, in this and the preceding volumes on Beckett, are immensely insightful, offering not only a staggering wealth of information (he is certainly among the best resources available) about a given text, but a most pleasurable-in-itself- key to the `pleasures of the text.' --New Novel Review