I wasn't in class on Thursday, and so I hope I'm not bringing up a topic that has already been discussed. I'd like to focus my blog post on language and Beckett's invention of words in the text (which we have seen in previous texts). How might his experimentation with words benefit or inhibit the text and our reading of it? How might it compare with the use of language in Lessing's The Golden Notebook or Green's Loving?
I have some examples: "pitilessmost" and "corncrakes"(21); "index-knuckle" (23); "connexion" (28); "raglimp" (34); "sucking-stone" (59); "coenaesthetically" (72); and "floccillate" (89).
While I think words such as these are fun to come across, we can only somewhat decipher their meaning (some better than others--though many derive from actual words or mirror them closely). It's interesting to examine these in contrast to the simpler language. Take page 56. If you look at this page as a whole, the word "I" prominently jumps out to the eye. They're a series of first person, simple sentences. Compare: "The next day I demanded my clothes" (56) to "But sucking-stones abound on our beaches, when you know where to look for them, and I deemed it wiser to say nothing about it..." etc. (59).
Where do these words get us? They're becoming less fun, and more like little frustrations for me as I'm writing this blog post. Where does this experimentation with language get us, besides confusion?
The use of the neologisms that you pointed out, Blythe, might contribute to express Molloy's egotism (I'm not sure if that is the correct English translation for the concept I mean), and in general, the focus on interiority in the novel. Molloy's thoughts mainly concentrate on himself (as you said, "I" is one of the most repeated words throughout the novel) and so the full meaning of the words he mades up is only graspable for him, but not for the reader.
ReplyDeleteFunny how a character who is mostly unintelligible to others, as we learn through his own narration, obliquely, is able to use such words as "perforce," or make wry jokes like "I don't like gloom to lighten, there's something shady about it." I think the contrast or undoing is important. Also, coenaesthetically is, I believe, uninvented by Molloy. Coen comes from "koine", greek for "Common", so it means "feelings experienced in common."
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of egotism, notice the incredible frequency of "I" in this passage: "And of that life too I shall tell you perhaps one day, the day I know that when I thought I knew I was merely existing and that passion without form or stations will have devoured me down to the rotting flesh itself and that when I know that I know nothing..." This reminds me of Anna being unable to understand Saul, it just comes out as "I,I,I,I,I"
ReplyDeleteMost of those words aren't, in fact, neologisms. He does have quite the vocabulary, doesn't he, our Molloy. What's up with that?
ReplyDeleteIn Moran's portion of the narrative, I found similar linguistic patterns. For example, Moran uses words such as knout and insuperable on page 127 (both are real words). This show of vocabulary was like Molloy in that the words appear to be made up but instead are just a show of vocabulary. Another example is when Moran's son uses liliaceae in reference to flowers (the scientific name for lilies, wouldn't you know). This extensive knowledge of words provides a continuity between the two characters (Molly and Moran, and/or Molly and Moran's son) which supports the claim that they might be one and the same.
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