Samuel Beckett in Folkestone

What do they mean "in of all places"..? From The Times, presumably this was just before he stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator:

Happy Days is a masterpiece because it moves as well as chills. Beckett once said that all his writing in English had a touch of sentimentality, but the memory of romance in that play far transcends sentiment: as when Winnie removes a strand of her hair, an episode he directed with minute attention. "Golden you called it, that day, the last guest gone (hand up in gesture raising a glass) to your golden . . . may it never (voice breaks). . . may it never .

. . That day . . . What day?" A strange echo of Moores Melodies, or Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, extends the emotional range; Winnie’s and Willie’s marriage is not just about the revolver in the handbag. Even those who dismiss biographical insights should not ignore the fact that he worked on the final draft in — of all places — Folkestone, waiting to marry Suzanne in 1961.

2006 :: Comment / reply