Word: camier
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Mercier and Camier was finally published in France in 1970, and Beckett then translated it into English. In the light of all he has written since, this early novel seems positively pastoral. Two seedy stumblebums named Mercier and Camier, forerunners of Estragon and Vladimir in Godot, set out on a mysterious journey through vaguely Irish scenery. Mercier is "a big bony hank with a beard," and Camier has a "red face, scant hair, four chins, protruding paunch, bandy legs, beady pig eyes." Naturally their amblings attract attention. A policeman who sees them warns: "This is a sidewalk, not a circus...
...similar book on Beckett that contains an elaborate chart of the "genealogy" of Beckett's work. The aim is to show how unified the whole oeuvre is in a movement towards its own final extinction. Molloy is a descendent of Watt, and a cousin to Mercier et Camier; Godot is grandfather to Lessness. Alvarez's book is written at a time and from a critical viewpoint that successfully demonstrate this Beckettian family of worlds in generation, and gives a sense of its underlying rhythms. For Beckett, the search for less--and finally for nothing--is the search...
...author was a wealthy, conservative lawyer who was born in the old province of Burgundy in 1755. He sat out the French Revolution in America, then went home to re-establish himself in the elegant world of the hunt and the salon. He was Mme. Récamier's cousin and she doted on him. Though he was a much sought-after bachelor, his large and glittering acquaintance apparently took him for granted. He seldom appears in memoirs during an age when practically everybody wrote one. But what great company he must have been. To judge by his book...