Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx Tracing 'a Literary Fantasia'

'Everynow and again, rarely, a book comes along that offers a definitive account of aparticularly vexing critical question - this study is one of them. Drawing on arange of published and unpublished materials, David Tucker offers acomprehensive and sensitive examination of the role Geulincx plays in Beckett'swriting and aesthetics, and in doing so makes us think differently aboutBeckett's work.' -- Mark Nixon, Director, Beckett International Foundation, and Lecturer, University of Reading, UK 'SamuelBeckett's debt to Arnold Geulincx has been recognized on occasion, as it were,but this is the first detailed treatment of its lasting impact. David Tuckertraces Beckett's early readings of the Belgian post-Cartesian philosopher fromtheir manifest presence in Murphy (1938), through their moresubtle intimations in the great writings of the 1940s, to their faint stirringsin the later prose, showing that Geulincx's Ethica and theircentral axiom, ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis, continued to define forBeckett a viable ethical principle in a worthless world.' -- Professor Chris Ackerley, University of Otago, New Zealand