Beckett's first full-length novel to be written in French, MERCIER AND CAMIER is close to WATT in style and humour and is clearly a precursor of the celebrated theatre work WAITING FOR GODOT written some two years later.
Mercier and Camier, another addition to the list of Beckett's pairs of characters, have an arrangement to meet but keep missing each other by a series of extraordinary coincidences until their luck changes and they eventually manage a meeting.
Undoubtedly one of Beckett's funniest fictions, rich in both verbal and situational humour, its exploration of the comings and goings of Mercier and Camier reflects the role of chance in all our comings and goings, our meetings and our missings. It reflects, too, situations that Beckett himself must have encountered, albeit in a grimmer light, during the war years.
MERCIER AND CAMIER was long suppressed by its author because he was unwilling, after the success of the TRILOGY, to release work in his earlier style. Today's reader will discover a prose of original and unusual force and beauty beneath the fast-moving style of this highly entertaining addition to the Beckett canon.
Mercier and Camier, another addition to the list of Beckett's pairs of characters, have an arrangement to meet but keep missing each other by a series of extraordinary coincidences until their luck changes and they eventually manage a meeting.
Undoubtedly one of Beckett's funniest fictions, rich in both verbal and situational humour, its exploration of the comings and goings of Mercier and Camier reflects the role of chance in all our comings and goings, our meetings and our missings. It reflects, too, situations that Beckett himself must have encountered, albeit in a grimmer light, during the war years.
MERCIER AND CAMIER was long suppressed by its author because he was unwilling, after the success of the TRILOGY, to release work in his earlier style. Today's reader will discover a prose of original and unusual force and beauty beneath the fast-moving style of this highly entertaining addition to the Beckett canon.
