| Introduction
At the suggestion of loyal readers Nicolas Pineau and Gregory Seagle, I plunged headlong into this daunting assignment of tracking down and meeting with this most difficult, shy and reticent of modern literary giants. The very prospect of my speaking personally with this truly canonical Irish-born playwright, poet, French tax-payer, dramatist, biographic journalist, stamp collector and dog owner (border collie bitch) filled me simultaneously with terror and wild anticipation. I procrastinated for weeks before trying to secure an appointment in time. Finally I resolved to follow through and, after at least a thousand telephone calls (for some reason, the line was always busy) to Beckett's modest but handsome study at 38 boulevard Saint-Jacques, a charming person claiming to be 'Mr. Beckett's personal assistant and invisible friend' answered the telephone and spoke with me. It was agreed that I could indeed come to conduct the interview and that I could stay as long as I like, provided I come immediately, bring my own cigarettes and smoke them only sparingly. "Ah, que vous avez raison!", I said to myself (unofficially) as I hung up the phone, remembering the disastrous result of my copious cigar smoking during my interview with Marcel Proust in 1922, even though I was only in my teens at the time! At Mr. Beckett's friend's insistence, the agreed upon rendezvous was at a nearby cafe whose out-of-doors tables stayed   open
all winter. After a quick trip to the kiosk and newly provisioned with
a fresh packet of Gitanes, I went to the cafe, sat down and ordered two
cups of coffee to prepare for his arrival and to bolster my courage, all
the while tolerating odd stares from the proprietor. Beckett arrived only
slightly later than expected, sat down and finished his coffee. We left
the cafe and I followed the taciturn écrivain past the Sofitel,
down the boulevard and up the oddly familiar stairs, hoping that my own
effervescent personality would not overwhelm this orphic prophet of comic
gloom and burlesque despair, leaving me to fill my note pages with only
the dotted ellipses of silence, of unhearable laughter and weeping. Not
to worry! I thought he'd never shut up! I can't recall ever having such
an agreeable subject. Page size constraints limit our publication to only
fragments of our absolutely delightful banter. |
