I thought it was a rather sweet (sorry, insert better word here) question in the first place and that it was jumped on for being daft or redundant. You big bunch of meanies

In that case, myrtle, the best ever writer has to be Shakespeare, if only because, after 4 centuries, he has proved his sticking power, has had an enormous influence on the written word, and is still quoted extensively, and still taught in schools. Take a head count in any class as to whether the children have heard of Shakespeare or Beckett, and the result will be Shakespeare.

I think shakespeare is a pretty good writer too and perhaps one could argue that anything you find in writers like Beckett you can find better expressed in shakespeare. However, shakespeare isnt exactly our contempoary in the way Beckett is..
As to my argumentive manner...ok I am man enough to admit that I shouldnt have insulted your literary efforts without reading them but I just know they will be a load of old bullocks compared to Beckett so I am reluctant to waste my shillings upon them.
I can well imagine sam looking down at me from Heaven and saying: 'well done, brightlad! You have given that bunch of second-raters a few good digs! Long live good literature!'

brightlad, you still haven't addressed Emma's questions about Beckett, ie, you still haven't discussed him properly - so there is nothing we can get our teeth into. All you have said is that, in your opinion, Beckett is the best because he has had such an influence on contemporary writing and on yourself, personally. So, how, exactly, has he influenced contemporary writing? How, for example, would it have influenced Aravind Adiga's Man Booker prize winning 'White Tiger', or Sebastian Barry's close runner up 'The Secret Scriptures'? - or any other contemporary literary fiction novel of your choice.





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If you wish to discuss it you must lay out your proof; you must critique the work.

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Part of the problem you have is defining the parameters of the discussion, when set at best ever contemporary writer (which is why some people dismiss it as irrelevant). Do you mean best of the current generation? Best of the 20th Century? Best of their generation, which has influences writers who have come after them? Is the latter, then in what way have thry been influenced? Writers such as Hemingway, Tolkein, Hunter S. Thompson, Raymond Chandler have all been very influential in their own right, within their own genres, so how do you separate out such influence?
It is impossible.
Each writer builds on the past, just as each new generation of painters are influenced by the likes of Rembrandt, Picasso, Pollack, etc, but it is impossible to know what lasting influence they will have since we will be dead by then.

I am not interested in all that man booker prize crap....do you think beckett would go have went in for those childish competitions?

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I know that Beckett has influenced pinter..one of the few respected English writers on the world literary scene.
As to the names you mention I just havent read them.
And I dont have to read them. It suffices for me just to read a sentence or two of these writers to see that they still write as if Beckett has never existed, a bit like those stubborn academic painters who went on painting as if impressionism had never happened.

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True we cant know for certain who will last and who will not but sometimes throughout history there have been people with exceptional judgement who have correctly judged that an artist will survive..both beethoven and shakespeare were correctly tipped to have an eternal reputation in their lifetime

Pinter is a good example. Certainly performed the role in Beckett's Krapp Last Tape as a tribute to Beckett, and to critical acclaim, in 2006.
'Mimimalist monologue' - Beckett being seen as one of the last modernists of literature, and the first postmodernist.
Presumably, being minimalist, he was building on the woks of Hemingway and James Joyce.
From wikipedia:

Beckett's career as a writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which period he wrote what are probably his most well-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and shorter and his style more and more minimalist.

So which do you prefer? The 60's period, maybr? Or the minimalist later works?

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I think minimalism has it's place in literature, but it is at one end of the spectrum. Personally, I prefer those writers who know how to handle adverbs, metaphors and similies, and use the whole range in their prose, since it gives a richer texture to the basic story, and alows it to be read time and again, each time one finds something new.

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...although I would never say no to a nice Mondrian on my wall.

What makes you think Beckett couldnt handle his adverbs and similies?
Picasso was accused of not being able to draw properly but if he wanted he could draw like the old masters apparently.
Beckett could have written like the literary greats if so wanted...I presume.

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Thinkin about it..I prefer the classic sixties period where he blew every other writer out of the water.
The later works are a bit bare..he had reached a dead end you could say, his endgame, but he had always maintained that capturing the reality of being in words was a futile project.

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But I would say that most of us are missing the point when we discuss Beckett purely as a writer. The point of Beckett,I would maintain, is the heroic effort to confront both life and literature full on and stretch his mode of expression to its very limits....this is why he appeals to a broad range of artists and not just fellow writers.

Yes, technically Picasso was brilliant, which is why there is a backlash againt modern painters (and Turner Prize entries) who seek to emulate him - but only because, basically, they cannot draw.
The same with writers of today who seek to emulate Beckett, but only because, technically, they cannot write, so in that respect, I conceed that just as Picasso was a great painter, so Beckett was a great writer.
The problem, for both, with respect to minimalism, is it reaches a dead end. How minimalist can one get? We would not have the likes of Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scriptures if he had followed the minimalist route, and literature would be the poorer for it.
Ultimately it's horses for courses, some will take the minimalist route, some will take one of the other, well worn paths, and some will cherry pick from the best of everything and then make their own.


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If one's work is simply based on a single 'great' (be it painter, play write, or novelist) then one is simply a clone and one's work is little more than fan-fiction. One must study a range of 'greats' as one perfects one's own style and breaks new ground with one's Art or craft.

do you think beckett would go have went in for those childish competitions?

Teensy little grammatical glitch there, brightlad…

So level with us, eh, are you taking the piss?

Of course he/she/it is taking the piss.

'clacked-out' means you're out of clacks - which is a wooden noise-making machine. A bit like you, really.

Brilliant! f@@@ing brilliant!

It’s been fun, but bear in mind this person is a troll whose only aim is to upset people. Don’t indulge it and it’ll become bored and go pester some other site.

Dee

Dee..forgive me if I dont make a comment upon your post because after a few readings I came to the conclusion that you must be very young...probably too young for this forum. I know its the christmas holidays but I think that you should be doing your homework and dont come into these places of disrepute.

Fuck me, Bright lad, but I have just received my sales figures for this week and yeeeeee haaaaaah.
We may be a bunch of clacked out old feckers on this site but I know every and each member will be as over the moon as I am. Tis called camaraderie.
So merry xmas to you mate...and to your old pal, Beckswith.
HB x

Congratulations on your sales success, helen , though I will have to gracefully refuse your offer to f**k you.
I dont think Beckett would be concerned with sales success..for he lived upon a higher spiritual plane than most.
'Camarderie'..thats a french word so you see I do know what it means!

The way I see it I just came into his bar to have a quiet drink with some writers and find that I have been forced to use my gunslinging skills!
But i dont really mind, I know how to handle writers as a schoolmaster knows how to handle unruly pupils.

I think shakespeare is a pretty good writer too

He speaks very highly of you too brightlad.

No you've not. You've come in to bang on and on and on and on about bloody Beckett, and to ignore any discussion or questions put to you and to play at being an arrogant shit. I hope you christmas isn't as lonely as it appears it'll be.

You know, I find it really difficult to believe that any artist can be so narrow minded and to not even want to look beyond one person's work; but that probably says a lot.

Congrats on the sales, Helen.



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Oops. Crossed with Jem.