Abstract
Beckett’s Molloy provides an interesting standpoint from where to analyze the close connection that exists between the grotesque and the abject as well as the motif of the “strange loop,” while also humorously capturing the potential dehumanization, the perpetual disintegration and privation of the human becoming inhuman in an endless process of non-becoming. In this chapter, I focus on Molloy’s grotesque behaviors and the abject depictions of his body. I also discuss, through the character of Moran, how Beckett’s detectives can be seen as other “William Wilsons,” doubles who do not only mirror but also influence each other. The chapter concludes with a brief analysis of the use of language in the novel.
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Notes
- 1.
As a brief reminder, Hofstadter defines the form of the “strange loop” in the following terms:
What I mean by ‘strange loop’ is […] not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive ‘upward’ shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one’s sense of departing ever further from one’s origin, one winds up, to one’s shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (2007, 101–102)
- 2.
- 3.
This passage echoes another one from the first part of the novel where Molloy implies that asking questions and thinking are one and the same thing: “For my part I willingly asked myself questions, one after the other, just for the sake of looking at them. […] I called that thinking. I thought almost without stopping, I did not dare stop. Perhaps that was the cause of my innocence” (Beckett 2009, 44).
- 4.
As for Moran, he lives in Turdy, which is as good a place to live for a “moron.” What is also striking is that the detective has a theory about how the name varies according to whether one is talking about a town, city , or region. As in agglutinative languages, suffixes are added to the name depending on the dimension of the place referred to. For instance, Bally is the name of the town and Ballyba that of the town “plus its domain and Ballybaba [that of the] domains exclusive of Bally itself.” And the same thing happens with Turdy which becomes Turdyba and Turdybaba (Beckett 2009, 128).
- 5.
One can also think of Molloy’s girlfriend called Edith, but also Ruth and Rose or Sophie who becomes Lousse.
- 6.
This is also what occurs when a word is repeated often enough: “it loses its meaning and becomes a moment of pure sound” (Abbott 2010, 215), suggesting that sound overcomes meaning.
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Dechêne, A. (2018). Samuel Beckett’s Molloy. In: Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge. Crime Files. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94469-2_8
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