Безымянный: Роман Сэмюэля Беккета

Novel by Samuel Beckett

The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later translated by the author into English. Grove Press published the English edition in 1958.

Following the completion of Malone Dies in 1948, Beckett spent three months writing Waiting for Godot before beginning work on The Unnamable, which he completed in 1950. The Unnamable is the final volume in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy and continues with Malone Dies. As Benjamin Kunkel observes, "The trilogy proceeds by way of collapse. Beckett’s successive monologuists, confined to a series of small rooms, try and fail to tell their stories; and each narrator is then revealed to be the alias, and each story the alibi, of its successor, until, pulling all of Beckett’s earlier creations down upon its nonexistent head, there is only the disembodied voice of the Unnamable." In this way, according to Gabriel Josipovici, "Beckett’s trilogy returns us to oral literature, to an art more honest and more immediate than that of the novel." now it comes back to me, what it can possibly be, and where it can possibly come from, since all is silent here, and the walls thick, and how I manage, without feeling an ear on me, or a head, or a body, or a soul, how I manage, to do what, how I manage, it's not clear, dear dear, you say it's not clear, something is wanting to make it clear, I'll seek, what is wanting, to make everything clear, I'm always seeking something, it's tiring in the end, and it's only the beginning, how I manage, under such conditions, to do what I'm doing, what am I doing, I must find out what I'm doing, tell me what you're doing and I'll ask you how it's possible, I hear, you say I hear, and that I seek, it's a lie, I seek nothing, nothing any more, no matter

The Unnamable consists entirely of a disjointed monologue from the perspective of an unnamed (presumably unnamable) and immobile protagonist: the narrator’s body is successively described as curled in the fetal position, as a limbless body stuck in a deep glass jar, and as a featureless egg like creature.

A reading of selected passages from The Unnamable was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 19 January 1959, and repeated on 10 February. Beckett selected the passages, which were read by the actor Patrick Magee, and incidental music for strings was composed by Samuel's cousin John S. Beckett. The producer was Donald McWhinnie.