How it Is

Resumen del libro

Published in French in 1961, and in English in 1964, 'How It Is" is a novel in three parts, written in short paragraphs, which tell (abruptly, cajolingly, bleakly) of a narrator lying in the dark, in the mud, repeating his life as he hears it uttered - or remembered - by another voice. Told from within, from the dark, the story is tirelessly and intimately explicit about the feelings that pervade his world, but fragmentary and vague about all else therein or beyond. Together with "Molloy", "How It Is" counts for many readers as Beckett's greatest accomplishment in the novel form.

It is also his most challenging narrative, both stylistically and for the pessimism of its vision, which continues the themes of reduced circumstance, of another life before the present, and the self-appraising search for an essential self, which were inaugurated in the great prose narratives of his earlier trilogy. She sits aloof ten yards fifteen yards, She looks up looks at me says at last to herself all is well, He is working my head, Where is my head, It rests on the table, My hand trembles on the table, She sees I am not sleeping, The wind blows tempestuous, The little clouds drive before it, The table glides from light to darkness, Darkness to light. This title is edited by Edouard Magessa O'Reilly.

Biografía del autor

Samuel Beckett (Dublín, 1906 " París, 1989). Tras cursar estudios en el Trinity College de su ciudad natal, fue nombrado profesor de la École Normal Supérieure de París. En esta ciudad conoció a James Joyce, de quien se convirtió muy pronto en amigo y confidente. Pariticipó activamente en la Resistencia francesa durante la segunda guerra mundial, desdeñando su neutralidad de ciudadano irlandés, y, a partir de 1945, se instaló en Francia, donde escribió toda su obra, indistintamente en inglés o francés. En 1969 recibió el Premio Nobel de Literatura; eso no turbó la vida retirada que llevó hasta su muerte. En su obra, se cuentan piezas teatrales (como Esperando a Godot, Fin de partida, Film o Pavesas), narrativa y poesía.