E.M. Cioran
ENCOUNTERS WITH BECKETT
To perceive the sort of
separate
man that Beckett is, one would
have to ponder the expression "to stand apart"-his tacit motto of every
moment-its implications of solitude and subterranean obstinacy, of being
on the outside, implacably pursuing some endless task. The Buddhists say of
one who tends towards illumination that he must be as relentless as "a
mouse gnawing a coffin. " Every true writer is engaged in such an effort: he
is a destroyer who
adds
to existence, wh9 enriches it while undermining it.
* * *
"Our allotted time on earth is not long enough to be
used
for anything
other than ourselves. " This remark by a poet is applicable to anyone who re–
fuses the extrinsic, the accidental, the
other.
Beckett, or the incomparable
art of being oneself. Yet with this, no apparent pride, and n,o sign of the
stigmata manifesting an awareness of a unique predicament: if the word
:'amenity" did not exist, one would have to invent it for him. Hardly to be
believed, almost unnatural: he never disparages anyone, he seems unaware
of the hygienic function of spite-its salutary possibilities, its usefulness as
an outlet. I have never heard him belittle friends or enemies. That's one
form of superiority for which I pity him, and which must make him suffer
unconsciously. If I were prevented from maligning people, what agitation
and uneasiness, what complications I could expect!
And yet, amenity does not exclude exasperation. At dinner with
some
friends, while they showered him with uselessly erudite questions about
himself and his work, he took refuge in complete silence and finally even
turned his back
to
us-or almost did. The dinner was not yet over when he
rose and left, preoccupied and gloomy, as one might be just before surgery
or the torture chamber.
* * *
