Waiting for Godot

It's important to note that December 22 marked the ten year anniversary of the death of the great playwright Samuel Beckett.

Beckett's most enduring and well-known play is Waiting for Godot, a 'tragi-comedy' (as Beckett called it) following the inextricably linked characters Vladimir and Estragon as they wait on a bare country road for another character, Godot, to arrive.

While the play is known for being complex and perplexing, it is also a perennial favorite among students for many reasons: it is filled with witty jokes, its characters are believable and identifiable, its messages and questions are compelling, and its strangeness in general leads to mass interest and appeal. Overall, its themes are profound and thought-provoking, while its characters and lines are unforgettable.

My Theatre class will begin reading Waiting for Godot when we return from winter break, and while I am sure many students will approach the reading of the play with apprehension, I guarantee by its conclusion many more will be captivated by the plot, will feel pity for the protagonists, and will gain confidence in their abilities to decode and analyze complex literature. We will follow up reading Godot with viewing a stage version of the play, enabling students to better understand the physical movement of the characters and the metaphorical appearance of the landscape and setting.

And on a humorous sidenote, I'd like to pass on a bit of quirky trivia regarding Samuel Beckett: After Beckett moved to rural France, to write without distraction, his neighbors encountered a problem--their son was unable to fit into the small car that served as the schoolbus, and as a result the boy was unable to attend school. Beckett volunteered to drive this boy an hour and a half each way to and from school so that the boy could receive an education. The boy promised Beckett he would become famous one day, even more famous than Beckett. That boy had the disease hypothyroidism which caused him to grow to more than seven feet tall and more than 500 pounds before his premature death. That boy grew up to be Andre the Giant, arguably one of the most popular wrestlers (after Hulk Hogan) in WWE history.

Time Magazine Releases Their Top 10 Books of 2009

With 2009 coming to a close, Time magazine has released their 2009 top 10 lists of 'everything.' And since Time is one of the most respectable news magazines, I thought their 'best books' top 10 list was one to take notice of.

The best fiction book of 2009, according to Time, is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The book is set in early-17th century England, and follows protagonist Thomas Cromwell who dreams of a better and more enlightened political future for England. While Cromwell does live in romantic England, the book strips his life of any romantic glamour and instead displays the frightening scenarios of daily life, and the vain, cynical, paranoid and treacherous citizens and dignitaries who would have lived around Cromwell at that time. Cromwell is almost an action hero in the novel, but his tragic downfall is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.

The best non-fiction book of 2009, according to Time, is The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. The book is comprised of dozens of stories, but the most memorable follows William Herschel, the impoverished artist-turned-astronomer who designed and built his own telescopes and ended up discovering Uranus after becoming infatuated and enamored with the heavens.

The remainder of the top 10 list is below:

1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
3. Swimming by Nicola Keegan
4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
5. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
6. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
7. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
8. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
9. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
10. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell

Death of a Salesman

I am extremely excited because today my Theatre class begins Death of a Salesman. Since Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is one of my all-time favorites, I cannot wait for my class to meet Willy Loman and his less-than-successful family. As characters they are enduring, and their struggle is poignant and affective. There is perhaps no better and more accessible play to portray the realities of the American Dream and to scrutinize the American family and the American landscape of the time.

What will become particular interesting is how my Theatre students will draw parallels between the characters in Long Day's Journey Into Night and those in Death of a Salesman. I'm particularly interested in observing their conclusions about the father figures in both plays and how they relate and differ.

I wonder if certain elements of Miller's characterization, especially of Willy, will become immediately evident, or if the students will discover, as I did upon first reading this play my Freshman year of high school, the triumph, tragedy and irony of Willy's existence. I cannot wait for the class to begin reading.