Synopses & Reviews
Obscure Locks, Simple Keys is a comprehensive study of this most enigmatic of all of Samuel Beckett's texts. Chris Ackerley's approach, which has some similarities to genetic editing, is based on an extensive study of the manuscripts and different editions (including the French translation, overseen by Beckett himself) of the novel, and the long introduction covers the complex history of the book's composition and publication. The book includes a thematic Index and extensive Bibliography, as well as two appendices: one deals with 'Textual changes and errata in the major editions of Watt'; the other with the tangled question of 'The evolution of Watt'.
Most of the work, however, concerns the detailed annotation of the text, and examines the range of literary, religious and philosophical matters that have informed and shaped the text. The primary aim of the volume is to offer a complete exposition of the novel's disconcerting difficulties, but another major objective, given the parlous state of previous editions, was to identify and correct the long history of textual error, with a view to the future publication of a better text.
Synopsis
Obscure Locks, Simple Keys is a comprehensive study of Samuel Beckett's most enigmatic text, Watt. Chris Ackerley's approach, which is similar to genetic editing, extensively reads the novel's different editions and manuscripts (including the French translation, overseen by Beckett himself), and his long introduction engages with the complex history of the book's making. One appendix deals with textual changes and errata in major editions of the novel, and the other confronts the novel's tangled evolution.
Ackerley concentrates on Watt's disconcerting difficulties and the textual errors that have further obscured a true understanding of the work.
Synopsis
Obscure Locks offers a detailed annotation of Samuel Beckett's most enigmatic novel, Watt. It provides a page by page account of the demented details (literary, philosophical, theological, biographical and other) that went into the making of this encyclopaedic novel.
About the Author
Chris Ackerley is Professor of English at the University of Otago