*How It Is* is the book you get after someone puts down his or her copy of *The Unnameable*, glances at Beckett who is of course looming like some Irish vulture over the back of the chair and says "well, it can't get any bleaker than THAT."

To which Beckett says "hold my porter." ( )

3.6 stars
This book is unlike anything I have ever read before!
There is absolutely no punctuation. For me, this had the curious effect that the book itself seemed to be panting, or throwing words at me in short bursts. Like a desperate effort to communicate.

Surprisingly this really short book took a long while for me to get through. I think because I would read it before bed, and I was unable to concentrate. Not a book for speed reading.



( )

This was a more abstract work by Beckett, at the end bordering to the extreme. There is, relatively, no plot in this novel- it is more an exercise of impending thoughts, patterns, and observations all strung together in an attempt to make a coherent whole. The effects are surprising and this is one of the reasons why Beckett was able to maintain his literary stature. It borders on the absurd, but there are still things to be gleamed here.

3 stars- worth it. ( )

No punctuation and a collection of thoughts. Still not a Beckett fan. ( )

How It Is 2 stars for the effort to write a book that makes no sense, has no punctuation and getting people to pay for it.
Well, what can I say? This is a work of Samuel Beckett and I believe his last work before he started writing plays. I can see the results of Waiting for Godet. It is more a work of poetry, not hte rhyming kind but words, phrases, numbers all with out any punctuation. I am not sure I even saw the one apostrophe. Must have fallen asleep in the mud. There is structure; part one "before Pim", part two "with Pim" and part three, without Pim. You do try to make sense of the work, Does the mud stand for life? As with all Beckett's work, this explores the isolation of man. Man starts out alone, may find someone but that union might be best described as sadistic with nails in armpits and various things in the arse and thumps on the head. And there are quaqua all the way, before with and after. A quaqua according to wikipedia is a stem succulent. What I don't get is all the ravings on how wonderful this is when I looked it up on Goodreads. I just am not a lover of all thing Beckett and I think it is perfectly okay to die before you read this. ( )