The nameless one

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The Nameless (or "The Nameless" - the French and English article finally allows both) is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett and appeared as the third part of the trilogy that began with Molloy and continued with Malone dies . It was published first in French as L'Innommable and then in English as The Unnamable in Olympia Press , Paris .

The novel consists entirely of an incoherent and partly hysterical monologue and is portrayed from the perspective of a nameless and immobile self. Namelessness is to be understood programmatically for a speaking self that is just as subjectless as it is for an unspecified environment in which this self is situated. The I questions its environment and itself in endless cascades of words, until in the end nothing remains except for the text and the language itself, which is now also questioned. Nevertheless, there is a pressure to speak for the speaker that he cannot overcome. In the midst of this written torrent of speech, the I repeatedly introduces named subjects (Worm, Mahood, etc.), which are then quickly discarded with comments. In addition, the ego also describes a few theatrical images - for example a cripple-like figure in a jug that is occasionally taken care of by a landlady. Modifications of this image can also be found in the later Beckettian plays - for example in Endspiel .

The compulsion to speak goes hand in hand with the hope of culminating in silence, which is achieved tangentially in the following publications, which are becoming shorter and shorter. The nameless is thus a poetic document for the dilemma of the modern poet, who no longer trusts the language and is nevertheless unable to break free from it. The ideal of a “new language” is discussed, but can hardly be realized. Relics of traditional, conventionally determined linguistic set pieces remain ineradicable.

With the nameless , Beckett finally succeeds in breaking away from traditional narrative patterns and developing a kind of inner monologue - trained by James Joyce - which, dizzying and revolving around itself, no longer allows any mimetic conclusions.

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