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What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett
Drama
James Mustich
Jul 27, 2018
Waiting for Godot was Samuel Beckett’s first performed play, written in French and then translated by the author into English. It is one of the signal accomplishments in twentieth-century theater and one of the touchstones of modern literature. It is also, as one contemporary critic said of its two acts, “a play in which nothing happens, twice.” What was revolutionary about Waiting for Godot was its extreme minimalism, from the starkness of its setting to the spareness of its speech. Paradoxically, Beckett’s paring down of existence to just two tramps by a tree has given the play both emotional resonance and enduring relevance.
I had to read this in college for theater class, and I recall performing parts of it with a friend, and thinking that we'd really plumbed the depths...really we'd only scratched the surface!
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Absurd. Also made me think about life and what is meaningful, if anything.
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It was a provocative experience at the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario in 1968 for my wife and I. It provoked one of us to attend a class in the French Theater of the Absurd to begin to appreciate and understand Becket's work which was later added to the last edition of the Great Books of the Western World. The play emphasizes the futility of humanity waiting around for meaning that never comes from external sources.
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My appreciation for this play only increases with age. It used to sound truly "absurd"; saw in on stage last year and now it sounds like conversations I have with my loved ones.
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Quite humorous; I wish I could have seen it performed.
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I love this book! My buddy and I read it together multiple times in college. Something about the hopeless hilarity of Gogo and Didi's lives really gets to me.
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Another cultural touchstone that can't be missed. Although viewing it would be even better than just reading it. I recommend both.
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"1,000 Books To Read Before You Die" is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing, Inc. Based on the book: 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich, (Workman Publishing Co., Inc.: © 2018 James Mustich)
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