Intrusion and Presence of the Author in Samuel Beckett’s “The Unnamable” and B. S. Johnson’s “Albert Angelo”

Abstract

This article explores the intricate relationship between B.S. Johnson’s novel “Albert Angelo” and Beckett’s “The Unnamable”, both dealing with the issue of the possible presence of the author in his own text. The point of departure for such comparison is Johnson’s incorporation, as an epigraph, of a passage taken from Beckett’s novel. Such passage, intended rather literally by the British author, is employed as a justification not only for the central device at the heart of his novel, but also in support of a larger aesthetic project which will characterise a great part of his oeuvre – which famously stresses the importance of ‘truth’, as opposed to fabulation, and the necessity of the author’s direct presence in his texts. This contribution, in particular, tries to reconstruct the history of Johnson’s involvement with Beckett’s work, demonstrating how Johnson has in fact distorted the master’s message – perhaps intentionally – in order to produce a rather different model of literature, despite moving from very similar premises.

Keywords

• b. s. johnson
• samuel beckett
• albert angelo
• the unnamable
• experimental british fiction of the sixties
• metafiction
• neo-modernism