Waiting for Godot

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Samuel Beckett

Grove Press, New York, 2011, English; originally published 1954 in English, 1953 in French

Drama

8.3 x 5.5 inches, paperback, 128 pages

ISBN: 9780802144423

Suggested Retail Price: $14.00

A classic and influential work of 20th-century drama, as well as Beckett’s first professionally produced play (1953 in Paris). Two seemingly homeless men, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for someone—or something—named Godot, and the drama is rendered through expressively minimalist language capturing the existentialism of post-World War II Europe.

On 3 book lists

Jonathan Barnbrook

On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List

Samuel Beckett puts in words the noise of my existence, the internal monologue that is on repeat inside my soul and that questions why I am here, what I am doing, and whether there is any point to doing it. If it sounds heavy, you would be both right and wrong. It’s full of big questions (as one of the greatest pieces of 20th-century literature should be), but balancing the heavy is simple slapstick silliness and observations on the pettiness of humans. This manages to make the idea of existence—knowing you are alive—even more absurd. See it performed at the theater first, if you can, to understand the meaning of silence. The silences are as important as the words in this play—oceans that last a few seconds but contain centuries of human existence: life, death, and everything.

Sagi Haviv

On Sagi Haviv’s Book List

The play is a harsh critique of the paralyzing effect religion can have on people’s lives. But Beckett disguises the subject of his critique so brilliantly and yet so minimally that no one could attack him for it.

Eric Owen Moss

On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List

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