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Molloy
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Molloy
Unavailable
Molloy
Audiobook8 hours

Molloy

Written by Samuel Beckett

Narrated by Dermot Crowley and Sean Barrett

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Molloy was written by Samuel Beckett initially in French, only later translating it into English. It was published shortly after World War II and marked a new, mature writing style which was to dominate the remainder of his working life. Molloy is divided into two sections. In the first section, Molloy goes in search of his mother. In the second, he is pursued by Moran, an agent. Within this simple outline, spoken in the first person, is a remarkable novel, raising questions of being and aloneness that marks so much of Beckett’s work, but richly comic as well. Beautifully written, it is one of the masterpieces of Irish literature. This is the world premiere recording. Written by a master dramatist, it is ideally suited to the audiobook medium.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 1, 2010
ISBN9789629545826
Unavailable
Molloy

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Reviews for Molloy

Rating: 4.065836134519573 out of 5 stars
4/5

281 ratings12 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Audio book and then first book read on my kindle. Absolutely incredible. One of my all-time favorites. Absurd, insane, real. Beautiful use of language, combining high and low cultural influence. Incredible psychological introspection. Brilliant narration. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. And funny as hell.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    ??? Question marks would be my best review. I listened to the audio version after reading a review that said the narrators were good and it made the story easier to understand. I can attest that the narrators are great, especially the narrator of the first half of the book in the voice of the title character. That part has a vague semblance of a plot as Molloy sets off to borrow some money from his Mother, but never gets there. His narrative is occasionally amusing in a very peculiar way. Beckett's writing, throughout the book, is often beautiful. The words and sentences all make sense--it's just the overall story that is vague. The second half of the book, with the narrator setting off on an obscure mission to find Molloy (he seems to me more like a befuddled Angel of Death than the private detective he is generally accepted to be) is less satisfying. The trivialities dwelt on by the narrator are not as interesting as the trivialities dwelt on my Molloy. I'm sure Beckett knows what the book is about, and I'm sure if I were an Irish Catholic it might make a bit more sense. But if I have to do research on a book after I've read it to figure out what I just read, I'm not sure it's worth it, at least not in this case. At this point, I'm just happy to have finished it. I feel like I must have gotten something out of it--I just don't know what.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Zeer eigenaardig: ik las dit boek al in 1977 (als 16-jarige) in het Nederlands en was er toen helemaal weg van; nu - 32 jaar later, na Proust en Joyce verteerd te hebben - ben ik maar halfweg geraakt. Dit zegt mogelijk meer over mij dan over dit boek, maar toch: ik vind dit eigenlijk onverteerbaar. De langgerekte monoloog biedt te weinig aanknopingspunten om er mee vooruit te kunnen, al is het gegeven van de kreupele man die worstelt met de wereld en zichzelf, zoekend naar zijn moeder, natuurlijk wel een dankbaar thema. Af en toe heb ik geniale flashes gevonden, maar te weinig om de lectuur te kunnen volhouden. Later nog eens proberen?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Zeer eigenaardig: ik las dit boek al in 1977 (als 16-jarige) in het Nederlands en was er toen helemaal weg van; nu - 32 jaar later, na Proust en Joyce verteerd te hebben - ben ik maar halfweg geraakt. Dit zegt mogelijk meer over mij dan over dit boek, maar toch: ik vind dit eigenlijk onverteerbaar. De langgerekte monoloog biedt te weinig aanknopingspunten om er mee vooruit te kunnen, al is het gegeven van de kreupele man die worstelt met de wereld en zichzelf, zoekend naar zijn moeder, natuurlijk wel een dankbaar thema. Af en toe heb ik geniale flashes gevonden, maar te weinig om de lectuur te kunnen volhouden. Later nog eens proberen?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A strange ride of interesting characters, as entertaining as it is at times frustrating.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A strange read, very funny in parts. Beckett is trying to create a consciousness more than a plot or even characters. I found the book to be a very slooooooooowww read as there is almost no momentum in this book. One sentence follows another and most of them are brilliant sentences (and some of them are brilliant non-sentences) but I find myself needing a breather after 2 or 3 pages. Overall, I enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would (given that all my favorite writers have been hugely influenced by him)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A milestone in 20th Century literature. A must read for anyone who loves books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The reader is superb. Bernard Crowley captures Malloy's sly Irish and Moran's cold arrogance. He brings the book to life and what a great book it is, both hilarious and profound.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Barrett & Crowley did a magnificent job narrating this novel. I mostly read along with the narration in my (quite poor) Kindle edition of the trilogy "Molloy, Malone Dies, & The Unnamed" as Beckett is an author I find demands concentration. In common with "Waiting for Godot", the characters in "Molloy" have a purpose which they themselves are unclear about. In this, the uncertainty of identity is explored. The feeling that Moran was in fact some version of Molloy grew on me until it becomes fairly clear at the end -- or at least as clear as anything in Beckett ever is!!. I suspect that I will be thinking about this one on and off for a while!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first part of the "Trilogy" which is generally considered Beckett's most important prose work. A strange, puzzling, and captivating book, and a great performance by both Barrett and Crowley (who read one part of the book each). I think I would want to read this again on paper some time to look more closely at the way Beckett's language works, but clearly it is a very theatrical work, and it comes across very effectively as audio.One reason I've been wanting to get to grips with Beckett is that I've been reading a lot of Thomas Bernhard lately, and I was curious to find out how much the two of them really do connect. There obviously is a lot of overlap: both of them are playwrights whose prose is meant to be heard as well as seen on the page; both share an interest in patterns and repetitions, both are fascinated by various kinds of negativity, and both have a tendency to indulge in bitter, sarcastic jokes.What Bernhard doesn't really share with Beckett is the latter's interest in the absurd. Bernhard's texts exist in a world which the narrator is always trying to force into a logical pattern: Beckett's characters seem to accept that the world cannot and will not let meaning be imposed on it, and their attempts to reason don't go beyond what they can see in front of their noses. Always assuming that they still have noses.That is reflected in the way Beckett's characters are radically disconnected from conventional society. To the extent that we are often left unsure where and when the story is set, and whether there even still is such a thing as conventional society. In this case, Molloy is a deranged, crippled homeless person - although the fragments of "high" language he occasionally uses with such scathing irony make us wonder if he might have had an education at some point - whilst his pursuer Moran manages to break most of his links with the bourgeois world in the course of his unexplainable quest.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Someone asked me about the relationship between the two parts of the novel Molloy. This is my answer, which feels very tautological. It's posted in other places but I'll post it here as well. Overall, what is typical of any work of Beckett is the apparent absence, impossibility, or instability of real connections: relationships are flawed and imperfect, goals are impossible to achieve, words no longer signify anything, actions are devoid of any real intent. Molloy and Moran are similar to each other in that both are seeking something and in the "end", do not find it. They each disintegrate into nothingness. However, I think Molloy and Moran each represent different responses to the condition of nothingness. Molloy "negates" himself and most of what he thinks and says. Moran, on the other hand, is just plain "negative". He is far more aware of his psychic life than Molloy, more active in stating what he likes and what he dislikes ("I don't like men and i don't like animals. As for god, he is beginning to disgust me."). He projects this negativity on to others. He is cruel to his son and hostile towards just about everything and everyone else. His murder, unlike Molloy's, is savage and brutal. He is clearly more aggressive and quite irritated with life. And the more committed he is to his goal, to punctuality and method, the more negative and the less likable he becomes. Molloy, on the other hand, often negates what he says and thinks, which reflects more apparently a humble self-doubt and uncertainty. This is different for Moran's occasional hubris. Molloy's negativity is more often projected at himself and so it is easier to be more sympathetic; in his complete solitude where there aren't even birds around in the forest, there are no animals to mistreat or to hate. Dare I call it a more ethical negativeness? The first part of Molloy ends with a good number of questions: "I suppose it was the fall into the ditch that opened my eyes...?" "Rolling perhaps. And then? Would they let me roll on to my mother's door?" the second section finishes on a more "promising" note, if such a words can even be used: "I have crutches now. I shall go faster, all will go faster. They will be happy days." In the end of part two, the wild birds sing and Moran tries to understand their language. He claims to understand the voice telling him things, although they were "all wrong perhaps." It's a voice that tells him to write pages that will eventually earn him/them money on a weekly basis. Perhaps these two parts complete a circle, I think, or possibly, each constitutes a circle all its own. Who is to say that Moran's apparent confidence and hopefulness will regress into the self-doubt and forgetfulness that Molloy experiences (we see it already in Moran)? This is the connection I see between the two stories. They are each part of a (bi)cycle of nothingness which projects both internally and externally--and that is the "completeness" and pervasiveness of this condition. They are told to move along by a "voice", even though the voice is "all wrong perhaps." This circle/cycle, however, lies beyond the scope of what is true and false, what is right and wrong. All that matters is that the voice exists and compels them to search, to write, and to go on.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a book! Seriously…I need to read the next two within this trilogy, for I am now intrigued.The book has two main characters. First is a vagrant named Molloy who is trying to reach his mother's place. The other is a private detective named Moran who is very obsessive and loathing.The first part of the book is from Molloy's perspective and is only two paragraphs long, which spans for over 100 pages. In it, his legs change shape, he sucks on stones, he becomes imprisoned and let go, makes residence in a woman's home, et cetera. Molloy's situation is interesting because it seems nearing fantastical. The way he describes his physical condition, it is a wonder that he is alive. However, all of his sufferings (and he does suffer) is looked upon with a ho-hum attitude. Sometimes his observations vacillate between extremes, but his outcome is always such-is-my-life.Moran's life is strange in of itself, too. He has a son (no wife), he has a housekeeper, he has a large property with bees and hens that he keeps to, and he is devout to his church. Yet, Moran's voice is of a state of anger. Everyone in his life, he sees as being stupid, weak, foolish, and loathsome. Within his description, he is visited by a messenger sent by his employer Youdi (which is an archaic, offensive word for Jew), a figure with an almost godlike reach into Moran's life.The message from Youdi sends Moran into the wilderness in search of Molloy (as for the reason why, the reader is not informed). Therefore, he searches, and as he does, insanity (due to Moran's obsessive ways?) seemingly sets into his mind, and his reality starts to fall apart. A pain in his leg (much like Molloy's own legs) sets in and turns him cripple. In addition, a few other odd things happen, and nonsensical theological ponderings take place.I have stated this in other forums, but I do believe much of what Beckett writes about in his plays (and now his fiction) deals with Hell. Though it may not be the fire & brimstone sort that most of Catholicism pines on about. Nevertheless, it seems like a human hell in which the sufferers becomes stuck and are forced to repeat their suffering; what has imprisoned them, and what they have refused to let go of. I believe much of what Beckett writes deals with this side of human nature.So, in conclusion, it was a fascinating book (and far easier than I thought it would be). And…well…I think Beckett has something Joyce never did: solidity. Where Joyce is the mad(dening) genius, Beckett is the genius machinist.

    1 person found this helpful