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Rizla reveals himself to be a big philistine by saying..

 
 
rizla mission
14:54 / 06.07.01
..Waiting for Godot. What the fuck was all that about?
 
 
Not Here Still
15:49 / 06.07.01
JB adds to the misery by saying: Fucked if I know...
 
 
Mazarine
00:24 / 07.07.01
Mazarine adds to the woe by being too nervous to answer for fear of being wrong.
 
 
Red Cross Iodized Salt
05:20 / 07.07.01
What's it all about? It's about Beckett wanting to punish actors and audiences due to his repressed puritan distrust of theater.
 
 
Cat Chant
07:38 / 07.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
..Waiting for Godot. What the fuck was all that about?


Who can say? But I read in my handy Postmodernism Reader that "Postmodern man has stopped waiting for Godot". So maybe it was about modernism.
 
 
rizla mission
10:06 / 07.07.01
quote:Originally posted by basic:
What's it all about? It's about Beckett wanting to punish actors and audiences due to his repressed puritan distrust of theater.


that's what I thought.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
10:57 / 07.07.01
Heh. With that view in mind, Riz, I thought you might dig these: GodotCam and, more importantly, Waiting for Godot: The Interactive Adventure. They should keep you busy. Heh.

I was never really that impressed with the play - or with Beckett in general, to be honest. I can see how it would've challenged theatrical standards and practices at the time, but it just doesn't speak to me other than being a stage-bound oddity with, perhaps, an existential lean. That said, I also read Malone Dies, that's meant to be Important in terms of the concept of the death of the author, and found it more to be about the death of the reader - due to boredom - instead.
 
 
CameronStewart
12:49 / 07.07.01
Read Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead" (or see the film). It's very Godot-like but has the benefit of being highly entertaining.
 
 
ynh
13:40 / 07.07.01
Deva: modernism

(hey, which reader is that?)

Rothkoid: existential

Covers most of what I got out of it. It also makes for good jokes at the pub if y're all lit wankers. Suprisingly more than R&G are Dead.

see also: God is Dead, Post-trauma, Ice Cube: "what can I do?"
 
 
imaginaryboy
14:07 / 07.07.01
And now to show what a big literature goob I am, I'll say that although I've never seen it performed, I read Waiting for Godot in high school & thought it was funny as hell. I also think William S. Burroughs is hilarious, though.
On a side note: the Road Runner/Coyote cartoons? Based on Beckett. Chuck Jones wanted to make cartoons about absurdist futility.
 
 
ynh
14:10 / 07.07.01
Did Beckett kill his wife, too?

(promised myself I'd ask that next time it came up)
 
 
imaginaryboy
14:13 / 07.07.01
Chuck Jones killed his wife? Jesus...You think cartoonists will all be happy, goofy people, and then...wow...
 
 
rizla mission
18:28 / 07.07.01
Maybe he *was* happy and goofy, but then one day he was clearing out an old iron monger's yard with the missus, they're trying to load the anvil onto their truck, the rope slips and ... he relived the trauma for the rest of his life...

a tragic tale.

But anyway,

I'm glad to hear that some others found Waiting for Godot ... somewhat less than enlightening.

'absurdist futility' yeah, that just about sums it up. So bloody-mindedly obtuse and directionless it makes you want to top yourself .. but then maybe that was the point.

I'm loading the 'Interactive Adventure' as I type.
 
 
Cochese
12:04 / 09.07.01
All I know about waiting for Godot is that when I was studying for A level I managed to convince my wet-behind-the-ears, puppyishly enthusiastic teacher (who we all of course hated and whose enthusiasm we brutally neutralised for two years with our sullen silence and complete disinterest in the pieces of shit she was teaching us)...where was I? Oh yeah, I convinced her that waiting for Godot was an elaborate joke about eggs...she didn't buy it at first, but once I started giving the names of the books and articles that I had read about this well known theory she was hooked. well, for about a day. Just remember though - Estragon is the yolk, Vladimir is the white. And Godot is the frying pan.
Waiting for Godot does more to make teenagers become goths that marilyn bloody manson.
 
  
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