Watt (novel)

Watt was Samuel Beckett's second published novel in English. It was largely written on the run in the South of France during the Second World War and was first published by Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in 1953.

Gestation

In the summer of 1945, Beckett gave the manuscript of Watt to his friend Leslie Daiken, in the hope that Daiken could find a publisher for it, but he failed to do so. In 1950, an extract was published in the Dublin literary review Envoy. The work was finally published by Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in 1953.

A French translation followed in 1968. This was translated by Beckett in collaboration with Ludovic and Agnès Janvier.

Contents

Narrated in four parts, the novel describes Watt's journey to, and within, Mr Knott's house, where he becomes the reclusive owner's manservant, replacing Arsene, who delivers a long valedictory monologue at the end of section one. In section two Watt struggles to make sense of life at Mr Knott's house, experiencing deep anxiety at the visit of the piano tuning Galls, father and son, and a mysteriously language-resistant pot, among other incidents. In section three, which has a narrator called Sam, Watt is in confinement, his language garbled almost beyond recognition, while the narrative veers off on fantastical tangents such as the story of Ernest Louit's account, to a committee at Beckett's old university, Trinity College, Dublin, of a research trip in the West of Ireland.