Beckett at 100.

"Welcome to the mirthful world of Samuel Beckett, the much-worshipped, much-misunderstood Irish writer who, had he lived, would be 100 today," writes Michael Hall in today's addition to the Guardian's special section celebrating the centenary:

How, then, does one begin to "get" Beckett? Why, indeed, would you bother, given his reputation for being the "poet of nothingness"? Will he depress you, drive you to drink or worse?

Depending on your constitution, perhaps he will. But there's much more to this great writer than an impossibly bleak view of the universe. Honest. He's incredibly funny, for one.

For the New York Times, Frank J Prial talks with the remarkable Barney Rosset, whose Grove Press was the first to publish Beckett in the US, and Jonathan Kalb reviews Grove's Centenary Edition, "more than 2000 pages, in four thick volumes... Anyone with plans to explore the work of this morbidly inspiring, comically solipsistic, nuclear-age Dante more widely at some point ought to grab this boxed set while it's available." More from Jim Knipfel in the New York Press.

The Beckett on Film project has a site and The Modern Word's invaluable collection of Beckett resources includes a page linking to pieces such as the Observer's 2000 account of its making.

See today's Perlentaucher for a roundup of pieces in the German papers today (though related essays have been appearing for weeks).

More: The Beckett Centenary Festival in Ireland and an online exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.

Update: Magnum Photos at Slate.

Posted by dwhudson at April 13, 2006 4:35 AM