Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

This the only work by Samuel Beckett that I can relate to. Everything else I've ever read of his left me scratching my head or had me blanking out due to boredom and/or my own ignorance and inability to connect. Beckett's work is abstract, absurd and minimalist but this play captivates me and is a milder example of his style and accessible to students. Also to those wanting to discover Beckett for the first time it would be wise and not too scary to begin with this play! I read the play before I ever saw it performed. I was a teenager at the time and into the strain of literature that deals with existential themes. I have since seen a televised version of it ...  Read the complete review

In its time, Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting For Godot' was groundbreaking and changed the thinking of modern theatre. It helped create the theatre of the absurd where nothing really actually happens in the play. However, although in its day this was the case, it has arguably become a bit dated and can only be appreciated when seen at the theatre. Reading it, as I have been at university, becomes frustrating but not in an amusing way and it is very difficult to actually enjoy the text. Maybe if performed then the play would be easier to enjoy. The play features two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir. They spend their whole day waiting for godot. ...  Read the complete review

With modern times come the distortion of the old believes where everything was held supreme from man to god to animals. My love for this new existentialist literature make me read these plays and novels again and again. I can't stop myself as these plays novella or novels simply and marvellously baffle blow me away from my comfortable position in the world to the bare hard rocky realities of life. I can never imagine that some day I hav to identify myself to a person who eats carrots on good days and turnips on bad days and has one thing to do in the life that is waiting. The word waiting is very strong in the title of this play it stand s out from all other words ...  Read the complete review

Most of the opiions on this play seem to say the same thing - that they found it much more enjoyable when seen in a theatre, or at least imagined it would be. And to me that is the whole point Waiting for Godot: it is a play, and as such is meant to be experienced in the theatre. You may know something of the plot, so briefly: two central charcters, Estragon and Vladimir, do very litte and can't leave their spot by the tree because they are waiting for the arrival of Godot, who never comes. Boring! You may have guessed that I don't think it's boring at all. If you're reading this play, imagine being in an audience. If you are in an ...  Read the complete review

Beckett managed to exercise enormous control over how 'Godot' has been staged, so I guess that reading it allows you a certain amount of freedom. Even so, there aren't a whole lot of clues. It's one of those plays which has been interpreted both as the last word in atheism (the tramps spend their entire lives doing absolutely nothing waiting for something which is clearly a con), and as a moving celebration of faith (they'll keep waiting for Godot, because they believe in him). I tend towards the former, perhaps because I am a heathen, and also because there's an air of piss-taking, or clowning and general scepticism about anything and ...  Read the complete review