What and Whom

Samuel Beckett, like the best poets, packs meaning and resonance into each word, and does it without seeming to do so. The density of his language and its compressed meanings are disguised. His best critic, Christopher Ricks, notes that when Beckett uses "mew" in Murphy rather than the conventionally correct "mews," he is exploiting the archaic meaning of the former: "cage." No reader needs to know this, but knowing it increases our understanding of the work and our pleasure in Beckett’s virtuosity.

This morning in our local newspaper, I read a book review by a writer identified as an English professor and poet. What attracted me was the reviewer’s pedantically proper use of "whom" three times in a brief review: "doesn’t know whom to trust," "doesn’t know what or whom to believe," "what and whom to trust." My reaction is mingled. I admire proper usage but scorn leaden repetitions, which imply indifference to the sound of words – a fatal defect in a putative poet. The reviewer writes:

"And although each of the characters in this complex book comes fully alive, the reader is left with more questions than answers, a powerful reminder of the ways in which our knowledge is always limited."

I note five cliches in language or thought in those 35 words. A review is not a novel, poem or play. It is a popular, bastard form, but language deserves our respect, as readers and writers, regardless of context. A reader-writer who does so is Derek Mahon, whose haunting poem, "An Image from Beckett," is rooted in 32 words spoken by Vladimir in Waiting for Godot:

"Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries."

Here’s Mahon’s poem:

"In that instant
There was a sea, far off,
As bright as lettuce,

"A northern landscape
And a huddle
Of houses along the shore.

"Also, I think, a white
Flicker of gulls
And washing hung to dry –

"The poignancy of those
Back yards – and the gravedigger
Putting aside his forceps.

"Then the hard boards
And darkness once again.
But in that instant

"I was struck by the
Sweetness and light,
The sweetness and light,

"Imagining what grave
Cities, what lasting monuments,
Given the time.

"They will have buried
Our great-grandchildren, and theirs,
Beside us by now

"With a subliminal batsqueak
Of reflex lamentation.
Our knuckle bones

"Litter the rich earth
Changing, second by second,
To civilizations.

"It was good while it lasted,
And if it only lasted
The Biblical span

Required to drop six feet
Through a glitter of wintry light,
There is No One to blame.

"Still, I am haunted
By that landscape,
The soft rush of its winds,

"The uprightness of its
Utilities and schoolchildren –
To whom in my will,

"This, I have left my will.
I hope they have time,
And light enough, to read it."

Mahon manages to sound grimly hopeful in Beckett’s landscape of life-in-death. I like "grave/Cities," and "a subliminal batsqueak/Of reflex lamentation." Mahon unpacks Beckett’s meanings and re-packs his own, and we, as readers, know what and whom to trust.