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Watt and the Textual Genesis of Stirrings Still Dirk Van Hulle

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Watt and the Textual Genesis of Stirrings Still Dirk Van Hulle ‘(HIATUS IN MS.)’: Watt and the Textual Genesis of Stirrings Still Dirk Van Hulle “So on”, the first words of the last section of Stirrings Still could serve as the motto of Samuel Beckett’s poetics of process. His last piece of prose shows that in order to study this poetics, it is illuminating to concentrate on moments in the genesis when he could not proceed. One such cul-de-sac in the writing process is based on an intratextual reference to the first sentence of Watt, omitting a few words. Even though this passage did not make it into the final text of Stirrings Still, it is an integral part of Beckett’s work, showing the importance of pauses, gaps, hiatus, breathing spaces, as well as the significance of punctuation and – perhaps even more the striking – the lack thereof. During the Second World War, when Beckett was writing Watt, his French colleague Francis Ponge (1899-1988) published Le Parti pris des choses.1 One of the texts in this book, Escargots, is conceived as a modest poetical statement on writing. Ponge describes the snails’ main activity simply as “Go on”. In retrospect, from a post-Unnamable perspective, these two English words sound very Beckettian, especially since they are italicized and highlighted as foreign words in this French text: Les escargots aiment la terre humide. Go on, ils avancent collés à elle de tout leur corps. Ils en emportent, ils en mangent, ils en excrémentent. Elle les traverse. Ils la traversent. (Ponge 1999, 24-5) Go on was to become the motto of Beckett’s poetics, and precisely because it is such a crucial notion in his writing, it is important to focus on those instances in the writing process where he could not go on. This genetic study is an attempt to assess the importance of textual dead ends in Beckett’s poetics of process by focussing on a cul-de-sac in the writing process of Stirrings Still. Around the time Beckett was writing the Ur-Watt in 1941 (Cohn 2001, 108), Francis Ponge wrote a set of reactions to Albert Camus’ essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe.2 As an alternative to Camus’ notion of the “nostalgie d’absolu” Ponge suggested the notions of “mesure” and “succès relatifs.”3 Ponge did not deny the nostalgia of absolute perfection. In Escargots he praises the snails’ example: “ils font oeuvre d’art de leur vie, – oeuvre d’art de leur perfectionnement” (Ponge 1999, 27). The difference between “perfection” and “perfectionnement” is crucial. Even though it is impossible to reach absolute perfection, it may still be worth striving for. This applies to writing as well. Eventually Ponge decided to publish what he called his failures to describe, “échecs de description” (Ponge 1999, 207), regarding his drafts as an integral part of his work and publishing them as such. In 1949, one year after the publication of Ponge’s intention to publish his échecs,4 Beckett’s Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit came out. Beckett always stuck to his statement that “to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail” (Beckett 1984, 145), even after having “said nohow on” (Beckett 1989b, 128). After Worstward Ho he continued to “[f]ail better.” The result was called Stirrings Still. It was first published in a limited de luxe edition and in a newspaper edition (The Guardian and The Irish Independent, 3 March 1989). The first manuscripts were written almost six years earlier, in the summer and fall of 1983, shortly after the opening production of three plays directed by Alan Schneider in New York on 15 June 1983 (Catastrophe, What Where, and Ohio Impromptu). The good reception of his plays may have been an incentive to start writing a new piece, as the first date on the first tentative drafts of Stirrings Still (27 June 1983, RUL MS 2933/1/1) suggests. Although the writing proceeded slowly, especially when in January and May 1984 Roger Blin and Alan Schneider died, Beckett showed his determination to try and “eff” the “ineffable departure” in spite of the sad circumstances (in a letter to Anne and Avigdor Arikha, 27 April 1984; Knowlson 1996, 697). In this letter, Beckett quotes the first sentence of the piece he is working on: “From where he sat with his head in his hands he saw himself rise and disappear.” In August, 484.
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