More gossip with less art?

To say that this first volume of Samuel Beckett’s collected letters is a puzzle and a disappointment is to suggest that one might have had specific expectations of it. Where did this cryptic and poetic writer come from? What did so very affectless an author sound like when he was talking in his own voice to his intimates? And, considering the remote relationship most of his writing bears to the world, how did he look at it? Added to this specific anticipation is the knowledge that Beckett, in tthe Thirties, had an exceptionally interesting life. He was an intimate of the Joyce household, trusted by all members of it. He played an important role in the composition and development of Finnegans Wake. He travelled in Germany in the historically crucial years of 1937 and 1938; his subsequent war record in the French Resistance might lead one to suppose that he would have something decisive to say about the Third Reich on the ground. And, perhaps quite trivially but certainly of human interest, he was a surprisingly accomplished cricketer — famously the only Nobel prize-winner to appear in Wisden. The letters, so far, disappoint on every one of these grounds. There is only one letter to Joyce here, a formal and respectful one of no great interest. There are only passing references to Finnegans Wake, and to the difficulties the Joyce family faced in the 1930s, particularly concerning Lucia Joyce’s mental illness. Amazingly, the detailed letters relating to his German travels are almost entirely about paintings he has seen — often acute comments, but the silence on other subjects is positively deafening. And there is nothing whatsoever about cricket. The lack of gossip, of healthy human interest, makes the first volume of these letters rather heavy-going. There is a possibility, however, that some odd requirements placed on the editors have excluded some interesting material.