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Title: Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (Modern Critical Interpretations) by Harold Bloom, William Golding, Samuel Beckett ISBN: 1-55546-058-5 Publisher: Chelsea House Pub (Library) Pub. Date: May, 1987 Format: Library Binding Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $37.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (124 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: to appreciate it, try to see a production or read it aloud
Comment: It's hard to imagine a first time reader of this classic sitting down in a chair, reading it and saying, Oh, now I know why it's great. It's more likely than this reader would throw the book down and ask what the fuss is about. But, if you've seen any production of it or tried to read the dialogue out loud, it can really make a huge difference. Even the expression "waiting for Godot" has taken on a mythic meaning in cultures around the world. You cannot summarize the "point" of the play in one pithy sentence, but the play will make you think about whether what happens between the two protagonists is what is important, or the imminent arrival of Godot. Beckett takes such a simple idea and makes it contain the answers to all the big questions. If nothing else, the play will make you think about how we pass time, how we process information and where the focus is in our own lives -- what is the point and is there a point? That is why the play has achieved worldwide literary status, at least in my humble opinion.

Rating: 5
Summary: The definitive Intro to Metatheatre
Comment: Waiting for Godot is perhaps the most brilliant peice of theatrical genius I have come across in my varied, albeit brief, carreer in modern and classical drama. The play that launched the metatheatricallity movement will undoubtedly be understood by very few of those who read it their first, second, even tenth times. Yet the symbolism in this play, once found, makes the reader want to jump to his feat and scream "NOW I get it!"

The dialogue is so disjointed and repetitive that it will seem to make no more sense than...well, for lack of a better example, the Bush v. Gore decision written in Sanskrit. But every line, every action, every direction in the play was placed with an enormous amount of thought. My director once told me it is impossible to cut anything out of this play because everything is so important.

I don't want to give away the excitement of the play by telling about the symbolism in any great detail, but the play's original title lends greater sense to the meaning. <> translated literaly means "While Waiting for Godot" which can lead to a greater sense of what the play is truly about. Second, as a real treat, Lucky's monologue in Act One is not the gibberish it seems to be. There is something extremely and frighteningly coherent about it: but that's something for you to find on your own (I'm certain any Cliff's Notes or similar text would reveal the secret if you're unsucessful). In short, this is my favorite straight play of all time, and I strongly suggest it those who want a truly theatrical adventure.

Rating: 5
Summary: I never decided to leave while reading this play
Comment: Apparently, people have made much of the "fact" that Godot is god. While hardly being a fact (and in fact, being outwardly denied by Beckett himself), people who search too desperately for the specific personage Godot represents miss the point. One can say that Godot is god, especially if one is a New Critic and therefore ignores whatever the author may have said about his work. And while at one point Vladimir exclaims (and I'm just paraphrasing): "Godot is here! We are saved," this does not explicitly explain who Godot is. He could just as easily be bringing money to Vladimir and Estragon as he could be bearing salvation for them. The point is, that Beckett was an essentially existential writer, and saw that all of life was just waiting for the terminal breath. Furthermore, in the act of waiting for an ending, Vladimir and Estragon constantly make the existential choice: whether or not to keep on waiting. Several times they contemplate committing suicide; several times Estragon threatens to leave. In the end, they confirm their existence (yes, only one existence--they seem to be as one person in the dialogue: this is no mistake) by deciding, if offhandishly, to remain living; living, and waiting.

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