How It Is

It is one thing to be informed by Shakespeare that life is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing; it is something else to encounter the idea literally presented in a novel by Samuel Beckett. But I am reasonably certain that a sensitive reader who journeys through How It Is will leave the book convinced that Beckett says more that is relevant to experience in our time than Shakespeare does in Macbeth. It should come as no surprise if a decade or so hence How It Is is appraised as a masterpiece of modern literature. This poetic novel is Beckett at his height. Webster SchottA wonderful book, written in the sparest prose. . . . Beckett is one of the rare creative minds in our times. Alan Pryce-JonesWhat is novel is the absolute sureness of design. . . built phrase by phrase into a beautifully and tightly wrought structure a few dozen expressions permuted with deliberate redundancy accumulate meaning even as they are emptied of it, and offer themselves as points of radiation in a strange web of utter illusion. Hugh Kenner