That Unheeded Neither

Abstract

There is one sense in which the entirety of this study of Beckett can be explained by one brief work: his 100-word text neither, in 1995 for the first time readily available in print in an uncorrupted form.¹ Of its spontaneous origination in Berlin in 1976 in reply to a spoken question, James Knowlson reports ‘Beckett said there was only one theme in his life. Then he spelled out that theme’² on a scrap of paper.

Mind, or Brain, or Self — we have invented to stand for our exile from meaning.

Richard Grossinger

The body, with its spirits, is the antenna of all perceptions, the receiving aerial for all wavelengths. But we are disconnected.… Our objective eye, the very strength and brilliance of our objective intelligence, suddenly turns into stupidity — of the most rigid and suicidal kind.

Ted Hughes