Abstract
In the wake of P.J. Murphy’s and Nick Pawliuk’s celebration of Beckett as a ‘postmodern icon,’ this conclusion will explore the rich possibilities for reading Beckett’s legacies in America in the twenty-first century. As a free-floating symbol of authorial commitment and regenerative failure, Beckett’s name has become a steady fixture of American consumer culture (Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign). At the same time, the Beckett catalogue remains a complex reservoir of both ending and affirmation despite the waning relevance of postmodernism as a distinctly literary category. This chapter will chart a tentative course for Beckett’s posthuman legacies, focusing on DeLillo’s late novel Zero K (2016) in which the American author channels Beckett’s post-Unnamable prose to imagine the abstract disembodiment of transhuman futures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
H. Porter Abbott, ‘The Legacy of Samuel Beckett: An Anatomy,’ in A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. by S.E. Gontarski, (Blackwell: Chichester, 2010), p. 75.
- 2.
Beckett in Popular Culture: Essays on a Postmodern Icon, ed. by P.J. Murphy, Nick Pawliuk, (McFarland & Co: Jefferson, NC, 2016).
- 3.
P. J. Murphy, ‘Beckett as Pop Culture Icon,’ in Beckett in Popular Culture: Essays on a Postmodern Icon, p. 170.
- 4.
P. J. Murphy, ‘Saint Samuel (à) Beckett’s Big Toe: Incorporating Beckett in Popular Culture,’ in Beckett in Popular Culture: Essays on a Postmodern Icon, p. 11.
- 5.
Dale Peck, ‘Apophasis, or “Widget” is a Name for Something Whose Name You Don’t Know,’ in Evergreen Review, (Spring 2017), http://evergreenreview.com/apophasis-dale-peck/
- 6.
Andrew Hoberek, ‘Introduction: After Postmodernism,’ in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, (Fall, 2007), p. 237.
- 7.
Ibid. p. 239.
- 8.
Simon Malpas, Andrew Taylor, Thomas Pynchon, p. 141.
- 9.
Paul Virilio, Polar Inertia, (Sage: New York, 1993).
- 10.
Boxall, Since Beckett, p. 11.
- 11.
‘Brian Evenson on Samuel Beckett’s Molloy,’ in Electric Literature, (June 17, 2014), https://electricliterature.com/brian-evenson-on-samuel-becketts-molloy/
- 12.
Noah Cicero, ‘explaining the style of the human war,’ 2012, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M07jFcrr1WY
- 13.
Charles Isherwood, ‘A Long Wait for Another Shot at Broadway,’ in New York Times, (April 22, 2009), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/theater/26ishe.html?pagewanted=all
- 14.
Paul Giles, ‘Sentimental Posthumanism: David Foster Wallace,’ in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, (Fall, 2007), p. 330.
- 15.
This is partially rectified by Lucas Thompson, Global Wallace: David Foster Wallace in World Literature, (Bloomsbury: London, 2016).
- 16.
David Foster Wallace, ‘The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress,’ in Both Flesh and Not: Essays, (Penguin: London, 2013), p. 83.
- 17.
Clare Hayes-Brady, The Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace: Language, Identity and Resistance, (Bloomsbury: London, 2016), p. 8.
- 18.
Quoted in Ralph Clare, ‘Introduction: An Exquisite Corpus: Assembling a Wallace Without Organs,’ in The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2018), p. 2.
- 19.
Tom McCarthy, ‘David Foster Wallace: The Last Audit,’ in New York Times, (April 14, 2011), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/books/review/book-review-the-pale-king-by-david-foster-wallace.html?mcubz=0
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Samuel Beckett, ‘German Letter of 1937,’ p. 172.
- 22.
Jonathan Boulter, Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed, (Bloomsbury: London, 2008), p. 13.
- 23.
Don DeLillo, ‘In the Ruin of the Future,’ in Harper’s Magazine, (December 2001), https://harpers.org/archive/2001/12/in-the-ruins-of-the-future/
- 24.
Boxall, Since Beckett, p. 173.
- 25.
Alex Preston, ‘The Silence by Don DeLillo review: Beckett for the Facebook Age,’ in The Guardian, (October 27, 2020), https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/27/the-silence-by-don-delillo-review-beckett-for-the-facebook-age
- 26.
N. Katherine Hayes, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1999), p. 286.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Ruben Borg, ‘Putting the Impossible to Work: Beckettian Afterlife and the Posthuman Futurity of Humanity,’ in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 35, No. 4, (Summer 2012), p. 164.
References
Abbott, H. Porter, ‘The Legacy of Samuel Beckett: An Anatomy,’ in A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. by S.E. Gontarski, (Blackwell: Chichester, 2010)
Beckett in Popular Culture: Essays on a Postmodern Icon, ed. by P.J. Murphy, Nick Pawliuk, (McFarland & Co: Jefferson, NC, 2016)
Beckett, Samuel, ‘German Letter of 1937,’ in Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, (Calder: London, 1983)
———, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, (Borzoi: New York, 1997)
———, Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose: 1929–1989, (Grove Press: New York, 1995)
Borg, Ruben, ‘Putting the Impossible to Work: Beckettian Afterlife and the Posthuman Futurity of Humanity,’ in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 35, No. 4, (Summer 2012)
Boulter, Jonathan, Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed, (Bloomsbury: London, 2008)
Boxall, Peter, Since Beckett: Contemporary Writing in the Wake of Modernism, (Continuum: New York, 2009)
‘Brian Evenson on Samuel Beckett’s Molloy,’ in Electric Literature, (June 17, 2014), https://electricliterature.com/brian-evenson-on-samuel-becketts-molloy/
Cicero, Noah, ‘explaining the style of the human war,’ 2012, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M07jFcrr1WY
DeLillo, Don, ‘In the Ruin of the Future,’ in Harper’s Magazine, (December 2001), https://harpers.org/archive/2001/12/in-the-ruins-of-the-future/
———, Zero K, (Scribner: New York, 2016)
Giles, Paul, ‘Sentimental Posthumanism: David Foster Wallace,’ in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, (Fall 2007)
Hayes-Brady, Clare, The Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace: Language, Identity and Resistance, (Bloomsbury: London, 2016)
Hoberek, Andrew, ‘Introduction: After Postmodernism,’ in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, (Fall 2007)
Isherwood, Charles, ‘A Long Wait for Another Shot at Broadway,’ in New York Times, (April 22, 2009), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/theater/26ishe.html?pagewanted=all
Katherine Hayes, N. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1999)
Malpas, Simon, Andrew Taylor, Thomas Pynchon, (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2013)
McCarthy, Tom, ‘David Foster Wallace: The Last Audit,’ in New York Times, (April 14, 2011), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/books/review/book-review-the-pale-king-by-david-foster-wallace.html?mcubz=0
Peck, Dale, ‘Apophasis, or “Widget” is a Name for Something Whose Name You Don’t Know,’ in Evergreen Review, (Spring 2017), http://evergreenreview.com/apophasis-dale-peck/
Preston, Alix, ‘The Silence by Don DeLillo review: Beckett for the Facebook Age,’ in The Guardian, (October 27, 2020), https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/27/the-silence-by-don-delillo-review-beckett-for-the-facebook-age
Wallace, David Foster, ‘The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress,’ in Both Flesh and Not: Essays, (Penguin: London, 2013)
———, The Pale King, (Hamish Hamilton: London, 2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Baxter, J. (2021). A ‘Postmodern Icon’?. In: Samuel Beckett’s Legacies in American Fiction . New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81572-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81572-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-81571-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-81572-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)