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If The Unnamable represents the apogee of Beckett's trace, that classic Beckettian voice that quivers and strains in doubt and indecision, much of his other prose demonstrates not simply a reduction of this manner but a renewal and reinvention of technique and style for that medium. The well-known pun of Comment c"est with commencer is not simply a wry comment on Beckett's first substantial use of prose since The Unnamable. For although How It Is, Comment c"est 's English translation, is exemplary in its emphasis on and demonstration of a demand to begin again, the manifestation of such a need is not simply a one-off occurrence within Beckett's career. Indeed the imperative to begin again could be seen as one of the most enduring and potent features of Beckett's corpus. However, although the many modifications in Beckett's style have been frequently acknowledged by scholars, facilitating a widespread division of the works into three broad stylistic periods, few have been sufficiently bold as to suggest that such a capacity for and obligation toward renewal is more than an incidental and unfortunate demand that allows subsequent fulfillment of the reductive urge.¹ As a consequence of the neat caricature of Beckett's "progress' being identical with regress—always simply reducing from what has gone before—the vital generative aspects of Beckett's work are often overlooked.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137319241_5

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