Badly considering evil known as

Mal considering evil known as is a Récit in French of Samuel Beckett published in 1981 with the editions of Midnight. It concerns its last period, marked by minimal, short and dense works.

Introduction to the reading

The loved woman died. She is re-examined, old, in her house in full shift, and in her rare displacements with the outside.

Mal considering evil known as is not a simple account. It is the history of an imaginary scene regularly visited, haunted, scanned until it occurs there nothing any more, until the vision becomes exhausted.

Time does not count, and it counts nevertheless, on another mode. it is the time of the dream.

One can wonder whether this writing is not the means of making the mourning of this loved woman. In fact, nothing makes it possible to affirm it. This writing seems to answer a requirement, a need far from any therapeutic calculation. One does not write to better be, but because it anything else to make there.

The principle of writing

Mal considering evil known as is based on the principle of writing according to. An upsetting thing arrived to me. To manage to find north, a first obvious scene is imagined, an initial scene where all will be played. And then each day, every evening, regularly in any case, I let return this scene, I let myself haunt by it to see what changes there, which arrives, which occurs, if the things become more precise or more muddled.

In short, this principle would be: To give free course to imagination starting from a first scene which is essential, to which one will always return until having enough of it.

Attention, this principle of writing is not a simple exercise. It rests on an upsetting event which arrive, and on a vision which is essential after.

Beginning of Badly considering evil known as :

Of its layer it sees rising Venus. Still. Of its layer in clear weather she sees rising Venus followed by the sun. She wants some then with the principle of any life. Still. The evening in clear weather she enjoys her revenge. In Venus. In front of the other window.

Two levels of writing

At the same time as what is seen is let write, one feels by inserted remarks how that was seen, and how that is written progressively. There are thus two levels of text, which are distinguished rather well.

With the first initial scene is added new elements, nearby places, discoveries, displacements, variations.
In the middle of this vision intercalates remarks, questions, answers, explanations
and sometimes even of the interjections, when the vision surprises, disappoints, exasperates, when it is necessary to give oneself a little courage to continue to look at it, or when one cannot retain oneself to return there: " Encore."

Extract:

Passé panics the continuation. the hands . View from above. They rest on the stomach encased one in the other .

One distinguishes very well the vision itself (here in fat) from the incidental remarks of that which sees, called in the text " the œil" , or " the scruteur".

Syntax

Once the two levels of admitted text, the reading is simple. The text is very precise, almost telegraphic. there is no punctuation except the points. That necessitates short sentences and a rigorous word order so that there is no misinterpretation. And if ever there is ambiguity, it is deliberated.

Humor

The text has a humor which it is necessary to know to appreciate. It comprises many witty remarks, of the diversions of current expressions, the plays with the language which are at the same time funny and cause serious questions. For example: To take place that on imagination or To have that on the conscience . Or: reality and - how badly to say its opposite? - the antidote. One waits until the opposite of reality is named (dream, fiction), and it is the reality which is ironically described as poison . or: Reste of a smile smiles once and for all. The tragedy is turned over into comic. She does not smile any more, but she is marked forever by a smile passed, as if he repeated himself continuously.

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