Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Name: Samuel Beckett

Year Won: 1969

Read: Waiting for Godot

Original Language: English and French (strangely as he's Irish - whoda thunk?)

Reason: "for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation"

About: "Waiting for Godot" follows two homeless men who sit around, make up stories, talk about nonsense and...you got it!...wait for Godot, a mysterious *someone* who never shows up. Along the way they digress into talking about politics, hanging and nonsense. A LOT of nonsense.

What I liked: Desite the nonsense, there's a sense that there's a meaning behind what the men are saying. Godot has a sort of messianic feeling, but precisely what he's supposed to do is unclear, which allows the reader/watcher (it's a play, after all!) to project their own opinion on things - sort of like many religions, I guess.

What I Disliked: The play is nonsense. Heavily nonsense. Almost complete and total nonsense. It's really, really weird. (And I'm not sure what, if anything is supposed to be taken away from it other than that it's werid. I can see why this is satirized so often.)

Should it have won a Nobel: I don't know. It's considered a classic, so probably? But it's also just...weird. I feel like there are a number of other works that tackle the same topics more coherently. (Although I do feel like the lack of coherence is the point?) Who knows any more?

Next Up: Something by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn