{"product_id":"first-love-and-other-shorts-9780802151315","title":"First Love and Other Shorts","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe volume brings together six previously uncollected works by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, among them a major work of fiction, \u003cem\u003eFirst Love\u003c\/em\u003e, which he began in French in 1946 but didn't finish translating into English until 1972. Also included is the stage work, \u003cem\u003eNot I\u003c\/em\u003e, which premiered at Lincoln Center in New York in 1972.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe story of \u003cem\u003eFirst Love\u003c\/em\u003e, a man's musings about his youth occasioned by his visit to his father's grave, is designated by its title. Christopher Ricks, in \u003cem\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/em\u003e, described it as follows: \"The cracked and crackling narrator of \u003cem\u003eFirst Love\u003c\/em\u003e who tells of how he met a woman on a bench, went back to live with her, and left her as she was giving birth to his child-has all the pertinacity of that bone-deep fatigue which gives Beckett's decrepit figures (ruined leech-gatherers) their ruthless strength, their rigor, not mortis but of moribundity.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eNot I\u003c\/em\u003e, a Mouth resembling a throbbing wound in the dark, discharges words that, in Ruby Cohn's phrase, 'musically shape a Beckettian life. Beginning with birth-\"out into this world\" -a female voice tells of a sudden April onslaught of words, undergone by a woman nearing the age of seventy.\" At its premiere, Clive Barnes in \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/em\u003ecalled it 'superb,\" and Martin Gottfried of \u003cem\u003eWomen's Wear Daily\u003c\/em\u003e said it was \"a major theatrical and literary event . . . very beautiful and deeply moving-a small and unique masterpiece.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom an Abandoned Work\u003c\/em\u003e, written in English in 1956, tells the story of a narrator's three-day journey in his youth, turning his back on his weeping mother. \u003cem\u003eImagination Dead Imagine\u003c\/em\u003e, written in French in 1965 and translated by the author two years later, focuses on two white bodies, each inscribed in its semi-circle, in a rotunda empty of objects. \u003cem\u003eEnough\u003c\/em\u003e, written in French a few months after \u003cem\u003eImagination Dead Imagine\u003c\/em\u003e, and also translated into English in 1967, has a nameless narrator in a timeless presence reliving her activities \"with him.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe volume concludes with \u003cem\u003ePing\u003c\/em\u003e, one of the three French pieces written during 1965-66 and translated in 1967, and the short piece for the stage, \u003cem\u003eBreath\u003c\/em\u003e, which comes from the same period. Of \u003cem\u003ePing\u003c\/em\u003e, Ruby Cohn has said: \"In its text of 1030 words (in English), a mere 120 are permuted and combined into one of the most remarkable verbal melodies ever written.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFew writers have explored more genres than Samuel Beckett-essay, poem, story, novel, play, mime, radio play, and film.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Grove Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50492062302482,"sku":"9780802151315","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_17030ac5-da04-4e09-beb0-4889e19ef88c.jpg?v=1730569138","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/first-love-and-other-shorts-9780802151315","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}