May 2, 2010

Beckett for PM

I haven't been following the British election except by browsing past Andrew Sullivan's endless posts on it, but this is a real find: that Lib-Dem Nick Clegg's hero is a man whose endorsement, were he alive, would surely not be forthcoming:
Every time I go back to Beckett he seems more subversive, not less; his works make me feel more uncomfortable than they did before. The unsettling idea, most explicit in Godot, that life is habit – that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning – never gets any easier.

It's that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?

One thing I can say: Clegg has got the theater critic vote sewed up.

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