Jim's Reviews > Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist

Beckett as a man, not Beckett the Nobel Prize Winning Writer... a in-depth and personal appraisal of Samuel Beckett's life and how it ultimately shaped his writings... covers aspects of Beckett glossed over or merely mentioned in other bios... almost a psychological/emotional evaluation and rendering of the man, with ample space utilized to chronicle his life choices and how they created the psyche that manifested itself in his writing and his writing style... at times awkward in what it tells, strange intimacies for such a private person, although it begs the question of which came first, Beckett the Writer (trumpets blaring, or bagpipes maybe?) or Beckett the Person, who then created the persona of the writer... regardless, his genius is evident, as is his breadth and understanding of scholarship as it applied to his craft... Cronin does well in bringing Beckett slightly more down to the rest of us, though Beckett still remains in some ways a mystery and an icon of literature...