In continuation of the previous post, in which I told about the work of Samuel Beckett " Waiting for Godot", further describe his work and elements of biography.
In 1969, the French writer of Irish origin was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, after which he was recognized not only in Europe but throughout the world. The Nobel Committee perfectly formulated the essence of Beckett's work: "Samuel Beckett was awarded the prize for innovative works in prose and drama, in which the tragedy of modern man becomes his triumph. Beckett's deep pessimism contains such a love for humanity that only grows with the depths of abomination and despair, and when despair seems boundless, it turns out that compassion has no limits.
EDWARD ALBY, "THREE TALL WOMEN"
A classic of American literature and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Edward Albie began to write when the theatre of the absurd had already conquered art - he became a worthy successor to the work of his older "colleagues in the shop". In his plays, more than in the plays of the same Beckett, attention is paid to the lives of ordinary people and their difficult relationship with each other. Conflicts between loved ones - and the person with himself - are what Albie occupies in the first place. "Deaf" dialogues, ridiculous situations, brought to the point of absurdity (for example, in one of the texts, the husband falls in love with a goat, as the stunned wife learns), witty play with words and endless sarcasm - the main literary tools that the author uses.
The greatest success has always been enjoyed by two plays by Albie: "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Three tall women". In the first work tells of love-hate each other aging husband and wife, disappointed with his own life, and in the second - an elderly woman who suffers from the first manifestations of Alzheimer's disease. She remembers her years of life and discusses them with her two younger "hypostases" - who, however, do not like her equally.
DANIIL HARMS, "I AM A GENIUS OF FLAMING SPEECHES"
Daniel Harms - the brightest representative of the Soviet literature, which largely anticipated the emergence of European and American writers-absurdists. His poems and stories amaze the imagination - it is no coincidence that he wrote so much for children, whose imagination is much better than that of adults. His literary talent is doubly surprising if we remember the tragic biography of the writer. The main period of Kharms's work fell on the 20-30-ies when there was a lot of absurdity in the USSR, but its reflection in the literature was almost absent. For his texts, Harms paid two arrests: the second time he was arrested in the summer of 1941. To avoid execution, he faked insanity, and he was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Leningrad. There he died of starvation during the blockade in 1942.
It is difficult to single out one work, which best demonstrates the author's style of Harm's. Still, it is more correct to get acquainted with his poetic works - against the background of all the Soviet literature, they stand apart:"A hand to a poodle / sticking a fist out of the side / a poodle of a side noise / a poodle of milk / an old woman in that village lived / had a dairy goat / and suddenly saw a dog / in her own eye / here she calls the village / on the bench herself rises / waving her teeth whimper / cherub's singing.