“Christ this is Getting Tedious!”: Beckettian Tone Versus Autobiographical Memory in B. S. Johnson’s Trawl

Abstract

“I admire Beckett very much,” B.S. Johnson told Christopher Ricks in 1964, “while I don’t imitate him in any sense. . . . I think personally he is in a cul-de-sac.” This chapter examines Johnson’s debt to Samuel Beckett through a reading of Johnson’s 1966 autobiographical non-fiction novel Trawl. It argues that although Trawl frequently adopts the syntax, tone, and humour of Beckett’s prose—particularly the “trilogy” of Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable—it ultimately moves beyond imitation to experimentation. Johnson pushes Beckettian style to the breaking point by demonstrating how its trademark cynicism and despair are unsuitable for narrating personal memories, particularly Johnson’s traumatic childhood experience as a wartime evacuee. Johnson chooses autobiography, the chapter argues, to extract the experimental novel from its “cul-de-sac.”