Description
Book SynopsisThis book will be a key resource for readers interested in one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of the twentieth century, Samuel Beckett. In clearand accessible prose, the book reassesses and elucidates the Buddhist thinking coursing through Beckett's fiction and theatre for over half a century.
Trade Review'Readers interested in the transmission of Eastern thought in modernist texts will find this exploration of the congruence of Beckett's texts with Buddhist thought useful and informative … Recommended.' J. S. Baggett, Choice Connect
'Moorjani is a scholar doing a scholar's work, and the results are exhilarating' Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania
'… the study [goes] a long way toward illuminating things that have previously and notoriously puzzled readers of Beckett, from the paradoxical style to the seeming pessimism that pervades his works. … Moorjani's study deserves to be known to readers not only in twentieth-century literary studies but also in world literature, comparative literature, and beyond.' Lidan Lin, Modern Language Quarterly
'… this impressive monograph not only continues Moorjani's long career of path-breaking contributions to Beckett studies, but it achieves a mastery of material and persuasiveness of exposition that few researchers can ever hope to attain.' Douglas Atkinson, The Beckett Circle
'Beckett and Buddhism explores the 'imaginative dialogue' between Samuel Beckett's writing and Buddhist and Eastern thought. Drawing on published correspondence and prodigious archival material both to confirm Schopenhauer as a source of Beckett's knowledge of Buddhism and to substantiate her research, Angela Moorjani traces back Buddhist influences on the author's early fiction and meticulously uncovers their reverberations in his entire oeuvre.' Nadia Louar, L'Esprit Créateur
'Moorjani undertakes 'to refute the charge of nihilism against Beckett' (p. 76) by focussing on how the effect of emptiness or emptying (a key Buddhist notion) is realized with powerful aesthetic and spiritual impact in particular texts, underlining in particular the role of meditation in Beckett's later works and the value attached to the void as a longed-for 'home'.' Joseph S. O'Leary, Journal of Irish Studies
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Buddhism, Schopenhauer, Beckett: Influence Affinity, Relay?; 1. Schopenhauer's Buddhism Revisited: Recent Archival Evidence; 2. East-West Dialogue via Schopenhauer; 3. Buddhist and Mystic Threads in the Early Fiction; 4. Beckett's Paradoxical Logic through Buddhist and Western Lenses; 5. The Coincidence of Contraries and Noh Drama; 6. The No-Self Staged and Voices from Elsewhere; 7. Rebirth and the Buddhist Unborn in the Fiction and Drama; 8. Dreaming 'all away' in the Final Texts.
