William Michaelian: "No symbols where none intended."

The following paragraphs about Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot; The Unnamable) are taken from the March 3, 2008, edition of a daily newsletter I receive from www.todayinliterature.com, a worthwhile website that I heartily recommend.

Samuel Becket's Watt was published on this day in 1958. The “Addenda” which Beckett attaches to the end of the novel begins with this instruction: “The following precious and illuminating material should be carefully studied. Only fatigue and disgust prevented its incorporation.” The Addenda concludes with a playful and cryptic counterpoint: “no symbols where none intended.” Taken together, these statements reflect Beckett’s career-long attempt to tease his interpreters — in these program notes for Endgame, for example:

"Endgame does not want to be anything but a mere play. Nothing less. No thought, therefore, as to riddles, solutions. For such serious stuff we have universities, churches, coffee houses, etc."

Beckett scholar Raymond Federman says that one passage from Watt “may be Beckett’s best explanation of his own work.” It describes Watt standing transfixed before a painting of an almost-complete circle and a blue spot, the myriad possible meanings overwhelming Watt “to the point of bringing tears of incomprehension to his eyes.” Watt wonders if the circle and the spot were “the playthings of chance,” or if they might “eventually pause and converse, and perhaps even mingle, or keep steadfast on their ways, like ships in the night”…:

And he wondered what the artist had intended to represent (Watt knew nothing about painting), perhaps a circle and its centre in search of each other, or a circle and its centre in search of a centre and a circle respectively, or a circle and its centre in search of its centre and a circle respectively, or a circle and its centre in search of a centre and its circle respectively, or a circle and a centre not its centre in search of its centre and its circle respectively, or a circle and a centre not its centre in search of a centre and a circle respectively, or a circle and a centre not its centre in search of its centre and a circle respectively, or a circle and a centre not its centre in search of a centre and its circle respectively, in boundless space, in endless time (Watt knew nothing about physics), and at the thought that it was perhaps this, a circle and a centre not its centre in search of a center and its circle respectively, in boundless space, in endless time, then Watt’s eyes filled with tears that he could not stem, and they flowed down his fluted cheeks unchecked, in a steady flow, refreshing him greatly.